In early June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he was calling the legislature into special session in mid-July. The primary purpose will be to tackle must-pass legislation that keeps critical state agencies funded–including the state medical board. However, another item Abbott wants on the agenda is a bill that would make it harder for transgender Texans to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity.
Seizing the moment, state representative Ron Simmons announced he would revive a bill that not only ban local governments and school districts in the state from passing nondiscrimination ordinances, but cancel any ordinances that are already on the books. But that bill has already run into a very large roadblock–state house speaker Joe Straus. He fears that if this bill becomes law, it could cause the state’s transgender residents to commit suicide.
Straus and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick spent much of late May in a tussle over the wording of a bathroom bill. Patrick was directly involved in the battle because, unlike most lieutenant governors, he regularly presides over the state senate. When the Patrick-led Senate wanted a bill that would scrap all local nondiscrimination ordinances, Straus was not willing to go beyond requiring school districts to provide separate changing facilities for students who didn’t want to use the bathroom that matched their “biological sex.”
Recently, Straus told The New Yorker that Patrick sent two state senators to Straus’ office with the proposed text for a bathroom bill. One of the senators was a lawyer who said the bill was narrowly tailored to overrule local nondiscrimination ordinances. However, Straus rejected the idea out of hand. He told the senators to give Patrick a message:
“I’m not a lawyer, but I am a Texan. I’m disgusted by all this. Tell the lieutenant governor I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.”
He wasn’t just talking in the abstract. A study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of respondents attempted suicide–a figure that spikes to 54 percent among those with nonsupportive families. By any standard, that’s alarming.
Straus has long been considered to be as reasonable as you can expect a Republican to be in a state where the GOP has long been on a quadruple-time march to the right. He isn’t exactly a RINO; he’s frequently raised money for the American Legislative Exchange Council. However, he seems to want to make some effort to He believes that most of his Republican colleagues share his wariness about any bathroom bills that come up for vote. However, he thinks the vote could be close, if only because many Republicans fear being primaried if they vote against it.
The author of The New Yorker piece, Austin native Lawrence Wright, discussed the quote further on “Texas Standard,” a news magazine produced at KUT and Austin which is distributed to most of the state’s NPR stations. Listen here.
Wright told guest host Alana Rocha that Straus was referring to testimony that took place while the bill was being debated in committee. It revealed that dozens of transgender people had either committed suicide or attempted it. Wright believed that Straus was concerned the bill would further “stigmatize” the transgender community, and had no desire to further the cause.
Not surprisingly, this line isn’t playing well in redder areas of Texas. Many of them probably think like Chad Hasty, a conservative talk show host at KFYO in Lubbock. Listen here.
Hasty claimed that Straus was telling Texans that he cared more about preventing suicide–“as small as that chance may be”–than “a grown-ass man walking into the locker room with a teenage girl.” As far as Hasty was concerned, Straus was “pandering” to the LGBT community rather than actually come up with a good reason to oppose this bill. Um, Chad? How is not wanting to further marginalize the transgender community not a good reason?
Despite pressure from Patrick and talk radio hosts like Hasty, Straus pointed out that he has no desire to let a bathroom bill become law. He told Wright that while Abbott put a bathroom bill on the special session agenda, “the legislature is not obligated” to take up any items beyond the must-pass items on the agenda.
In an obvious attempt to troll Abbott, he said that if Abbott wants a bathroom bill on the books, he can “call as many thirty-day sessions as he would like.” In Texas, a special session could cost up to $1 million in per diems and overhead if it runs for the full 30 days. If Patrick and Abbott are so determined to get this monstrosity on the books, perhaps they should pay that million out of their own pockets–and be prepared to face the responsibility if the bill passes and Texans end up committing suicide.
(featured image courtesy Straus’ Facebook)
