Texas has failed to pass a “bathroom bill” to restrict the use of changing facilities and toilets by transgender people, giving LGBT rights campaigners a victory that could have an impact in other states.

Killing off any chance of a vote, the Texas House of Representatives suddenly adjourned on Tuesday night, a day before the end of a 30-day special session.

After a bathroom bill did not pass in the legislature’s regular session earlier this year, the governor, Greg Abbott, had called lawmakers back for extra work with the matter high on his 20-item agenda.

A bill to compel transgender people to use facilities in public schools and government buildings in line with the sex stated on their birth certificates or other state-issued ID quickly passed the Senate last month. It would also have overridden transgender rights sections of local non-discrimination ordinances.

Transgender 'bathroom bill' leaves Texas Christians deeply divided Read more

Though Texas Republicans have lurched further rightwards this year, with conservatives emboldened to pursue extreme stances on culture war issues by the rise to power of Donald Trump, the House did not take up the subject, signaling a rare recent victory for more moderate voices.

Some were evidently fearful of the backlash that hit North Carolina in 2016 when it passed a bathroom bill similar to Texas’ proposal. The state suffered economic boycotts, the Republican governor was ousted by a Democrat last November and the law was repealed in a compromise move.

LGBT advocates campaigned strongly in Texas. “I think the longer and longer it went on, [politicians] were hearing from more and more people about how bad this was for Texas. Hearing from trans folks, and our allies and our families over and over again, business leaders, and I think they just realised that it was not worth it,” said Lou Weaver, transgender programs co-ordinator for Equality Texas, an LGBT rights group.

The plan pitted liberal churches against conservative Christians and was widely opposed by major businesses, including oil companies, Google, Apple, IBM and Microsoft, and sports organisations such as the National Football League.

A letter to Abbott last month signed by CEOs of Dallas-based companies including American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and AT&T expressed fears that a bathroom bill would “seriously hurt the state’s ability to attract new businesses, investment and jobs” and threaten “our ability to attract and retain the best talent in Texas, as well as the greatest sporting and cultural attractions in the world.”

Proponents argue, without evidence, that legislation is necessary to protect women and children from sexual predators and safeguard “privacy” and “dignity”. But it is opposed by police chiefs in many of the state’s biggest cities and by civil rights advocates who call it a prejudiced attack on an already-vulnerable section of the population.

The outcome is a significant defeat for the bill’s biggest supporter, lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, and his fellow Republican, Abbott – who has the power to call another special session.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Patrick hailed the number of anti-abortion measures the legislature has recently passed but lambasted the speaker of the House, the San Antonio Republican, Joe Straus, for his key role in sealing the bathroom bill’s doom. Texans, Patrick said, “don’t want sexual predators who would use [transgender rights] as a loophole to follow any of the women in this room into the bathroom.”

He claimed that “the left started the fight” over access for transgender people by advancing liberal local ordinances and because the Obama administration issued guidance to public schools stating that students should be allowed to choose which facilities they use. Those rules were rescinded this year by Trump’s government and the president tweeted last month that transgender people will be banned from the military.

Amid this drastic attitude shift in the White House, 16 states have considered bathroom bills in 2017, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But North Carolina remains the only state to have enacted one. On top of the damage done to North Carolina’s economy and reputation, this latest failure in Texas, the nation’s most populous red state – where GOP lawmakers enjoy comfortable majorities in both chambers and routinely play to highly conservative bases – is likely to discourage others from following suit.

“Extremists in other states have been watching Texas to see how this would play out. It should be fully obvious by now that transgender people will not stand for being pawns in extremist political games. We hope that politicians in Texas and around the country will move on from trying to scapegoat us for their own gain,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement.

However, LGBT advocates’ relief is tempered by the strong possibility that Texas lawmakers will try again, whether in another special session or the next regular session in 2019. “We will continue to do everything we can to educate as many people as we can, like we’ve been doing,” Weaver, of Equality Texas, said. “I think education is the key so that people get to meet trans folks and actually see who we are, rather than listening to the horrible rhetoric that is spread around about us.”