AUSTIN — Legislation that would bar transgender Texans from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity threatens the safety of the state's most vulnerable citizens, leaders of several LGBT rights groups said Friday, four days before the start of a special legislative session.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott are "hell-bent on using transgender children and adults as scapegoats to push their extremist political ideology," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "These bills are bad for the state, they are bad for the economy, they are bad for residents, and they are bad for children."

Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, on Monday filed two so-called bathroom bills that would prevent local governments and school boards from enforcing certain anti-discrimination policies related to access to bathrooms, showers and changing facilities.

Representatives of the LGBT rights groups said passage of the bills would discriminate against transgender Texans and likely spark boycotts of the state. Businesses, including IBM, Samsung, and Apple; and business groups, such as the Texas Association of Business; have come out against the legislation. On Thursday, the Dallas Regional Chamber sent the governor and lieutenant governor a letter opposing bathroom-regulating legislation.

Patrick and Abbott say the bills are about protecting women's privacy, and the lieutenant governor has said he simply wants to "keep men out of the ladies' room." The issue has proved popular with social conservatives who represent a powerful voting block in Republican primaries.

JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president at the Human Rights Campaign, said Texas doesn't have a problem with privacy in public bathrooms.

"This is not about bathrooms. ... These anti-LGBTQ bills are part of a larger, overarching strategy to roll back the rights of LGBTQ Texans," Winterhoff said.

During the regular session lawmakers failed to pass a bathroom bill, which was opposed by Democrats and business-minded Republicans, including five-term House Speaker Joe Straus.

Straus, in an interview with Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker, said he was "disgusted" by the fight over the bathroom bill. "Tell the lieutenant governor I don't want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands" Straus said.

LGBT rights groups on Friday echoed Straus' concern that bathroom-regulating legislation may further marginalize transgender Texans, a group that studies show faces a high risk of suicide.

"Anti-LGBTQ lawmakers want to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people, and their latest obsession is doing it by targeting vulnerable transgender kids," Winterhoff said.