A Republican Texas House candidate and former teacher complained that she couldn't let her students laugh at transgender classmates

• A Texas House candidate complained at a forum that she couldn't let "kids laugh at" transgender classmates.
• Shelley Luther was recorded by the Houston Chronicle speaking about her experiences teaching transgender students.

A Texas House of Representatives candidate and former teacher was recorded at a forum complaining that she couldn't let "kids laugh at" transgender classmates.

Shelley Luther, a salon owner and former school Spanish teacher who is running to represent Texas House District 62 in northeast Texas, was recorded by the Houston Chronicle while speaking at a candidate forum on Saturday.

In the recording, Luther can be heard speaking about the transgender community and her experience teaching transgender students.

"I am not comfortable with the transgenders," she said. "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."

According to the Houston Chronicle, Luther also said that transgender children in Texas schools are a reason she supports "school choice," or a parent's decision to choose what type of school their child attends.

Luther did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Republican candidate rose to prominence in mid-2020, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared that hair salons and barbershops would be forced to close amidst the pandemic.

Luther, the owner of a salon in Dallas, defied the order and kept her business open.

Despite being sentenced to seven days in jail, she was released after just two, CBS News reported at the time.

Shortly after the order was lifted, Sen. Ted Cruz visited Luther's shop for a haircut and said she was "wrongly imprisoned when she refused to apologize for trying to earn a living."

Luther's campaign website says that she is also against allowing "Chinese Nationals into our colleges where they can obtain classified information, steal technology, and essentially learn how to defeat the United States."

Luther previously ran for a position in the Texas State Senate in 2020, losing by 13 percentage points in a runoff election to Republican Drew Springer.

Her current competition in the race to become a representative is current state Rep. Reggie Smith, who went unchallenged in the 2020 Republican primary and went on to handily defeat his Democratic challenger in the general election.

The Texas Republican primary, which will determine if Luther makes it to the general election ballot, is on March 1, 2022.