Unless you live in Texas, you’ve probably never heard of Shelley Luther. She’s a former teacher who is running for the Texas House of Representatives and has made one of the main pillars of her campaign smearing transgender children who attend school in the state.

During a candidate forum on Saturday, according to NBC News, Luther was asked about the issue of school choice. In her response, she trashed the trans community:

“I am not comfortable with the transgenders. 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 … like other kids got in trouble for having transgender kids in my class. That’s why I vote for school choice.”

In other words, Luther thinks it’s great if students bully one another just because a kid happens to be different than the others, even though studies have shown that being bullied can lead to dire consequences (including an increased risk of suicide) for transgender youth.

Advocates for the LGBTQ community in the Lone Star State slammed Luther for her disgusting remarks, with Ricardo Martinez, CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas noting:

“Lamenting not being able to allow students to laugh at, bully and harass transgender kids isn’t leadership, it’s cruelty plain and simple. All children in Texas are guaranteed a public education under the constitution, deserve privacy and the ability to learn in a safe environment.”

This isn’t the first time Luther has urged discrimination against others.

Just last month, she demanded that all universities in the state deny admission to any Chinese students, sending out a tweet she later deleted that read:

“Chinese students should be BANNED from attending all Texas universities. No more Communists!”

On her campaign website, Luther also calls for an end to what she says is “gender mutilation” among LGBTQ youth, a clear reference to gender reassignment surgery.

Despite all of her disgusting comments, Luther claims she’s not in favor of bullying:

“When the center of focus becomes a student and not the actual lesson being taught, it is unfair to the other students. As a teacher, my goal was to make sure the students, all of them, are learning in a safe environment. Bullying is never acceptable, and did not occur.”

If bullying is never acceptable, what exactly does Ms. Luther think her blatant verbal violence against LGBTQ students is?

It’d be nice to think that Shelley Luther has no shot at winning in November. But she’s running in Texas, and there’s a good chance she’ll be victorious and then take her hateful agenda to Austin.

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