A Republican candidate for the Texas House of Representatives while promoting “school choice” cited her time as a school teacher, saying transgender students made her uncomfortable. At a candidate forum, Shelley Luther told the audience she was upset that she was not allowed to let other students laugh at their transgender peers.
“I am not comfortable with the transgenders,” Luther said, NBC News reports.
“The kids that they brought in my classroom, when they said that this kid is transgendering into a different sex, that I couldn’t have kids laugh at them,” she said,” pausing for several seconds, apparently realizing what she had just said.
After the long pause, she added, “…like other kids got in trouble for having transgender kids in my class. That’s why I vote for school choice.”
Equality Texas CEO Ricardo Martinez told NBC News, “Lamenting not being able to allow students to laugh at, bully and harass transgender kids isn’t leadership, it’s cruelty plain and simple.”
The online anger over Luther’s remarks is palpable.
This is not Luther’s first brush with attacking minority students.
Last month Luther declared “Chinese” students should not be allowed to enroll in Texas colleges.
In her tweet, now deleted, she labeled them “Communists.”
“Chinese students should be BANNED from attending all Texas universities,” Luther had tweeted, as the Houston Chronicle reported. “No more Communists!”
The video of Luther talking about transgender students went viral, garnering over 700,000 views since Tuesday.