AUSTIN — The Texas House on Sunday is expected to debate the "bathroom bill," a measure likely to bar school districts from allowing transgender students to use the restrooms that match their gender identity.

The Dallas Morning News will be there for the debate, expected to kick off in the late afternoon or early evening. Follow reporters Lauren McGaughy and Brandi Grissom for live coverage.

Watch video of the debate here.

The 2017 legislative session, which ends May 29, has been marked by Republican infighting and tearful debates over controversial issues like "sanctuary cities" and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. But the bathroom bill has proven to be especially divisive, with the Senate leading the charge to undo the rights of transgender Texans in intimate spaces, and the House pushing back and delaying debate on the issue until the legislative session's final days.

The Senate's version of the bathroom legislation would have barred transgender Texans from using the bathroom they want in government buildings, public schools and colleges and universities. That measure went nowhere in the House.

House Bill 2899, which would have undone city laws regulating bathrooms and dressing rooms, also never made it to the floor for debate. Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has called the bathroom fight unnecessary and anti-business, and other key Republicans in the chamber have rejected it as well.

But last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who heads the Senate, threatened to hold the budget and another must-pass bill hostage if bathroom weren't debated. Gov. Greg Abbott chimed in too, saying he hoped a bathroom bill would pass by May 29.

The House version is likely to take the form of an amendment to a public education bill. It is expected to apply just to K-12 schools, and not cities or government buildings like previous versions, and could either bar school districts from regulating bathroom use or even bar them from letting transgender children and staff use the restrooms that match their gender identity.