When Texas lawmakers return to Austin today for the special session, they'll be fighting over the very lives of transgender teenagers and others in Texas, whether they're willing to admit it or not.

This isn't hyperbole, and it's not a secret.

Just ask Speaker Joe Straus, the conservative Republican who leads the lower chamber. "I won't have the suicide of a single Texan on my hands," he explained when asked why he opposed the Senate version of the bill so desperately sought by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

That's the same message he gave to two emissaries Patrick sent late in the session trying to change his mind. And it's the same message Straus hit when he later spoke to reporters about how much he opposed the bill that passed in the Senate. That bill would have forbidden cities' anti-discrimination rules from applying to the use of bathrooms and required government facilities to restrict individuals to using restrooms that match the gender stated on their birth certificate.

"The House has compromised enough on this issue," he said May 26. If the Senate wanted a bill, he said, it could adopt the House's version. While far from ideal, the House bill was far less restrictive than the Senate's.

"It's absurd that bathroom bills have taken on greater urgency than fixing our school finance system," Straus added. "...This is the right thing to do ... to protect the safety of some very vulnerable Texans."

Straus was right to stand up for transgender Texans, old and young. And he's been especially right to oppose Patrick's bill on broader grounds than just out of respect for workplace diversity, or as a threat to economic development here.

Diversity is important, of course, and the threat posed by the bill to Texas' economy is real enough. Just this week, the CEOs of many of the biggest businesses in Dallas, including some that are among the biggest in the world, sent signed letters to Patrick, Straus and Gov. Greg Abbott urging them to drop the bathroom bill.

Abbott and Patrick, especially, should listen up.

"As CEOs of Dallas-based businesses, we're writing to express our concern that the so-called 'bathroom bill' that the Texas legislature is considering would seriously hurt the state's ability to attract new businesses, investment and jobs," the letter reads. "... This legislation threatens our ability to attract and retain the best talent in Texas, as well as the greatest sporting and cultural attractions in the world."

That's the message from the CEOs Randall Stephenson of AT&T, Doug Parker of American Airlines, Gary Kelly of Southwest Airlines and David Seaton of Fluor, to name just a few. Bold-faced names like Emmitt Smith, Harlan Crow and Sean Donahue of the DFW International Airport also signed.

What makes Straus' principled stand so welcome, however, is that he pushes right past the economic arguments and points to what matters most: Human lives are at stake.

He's shown courage and wisdom, yes, but also something all leaders need: empathy. In this case, he has allowed himself to feel what others are feeling even though their circumstances and his are as different as night and day.

For those of us whose anatomy matches our gender identity just fine, it can be difficult to understand what it's like for someone for whom that isn't the case. But with practice, all of us can learn to walk in another person's shoes, can't we?

In doing so, we can accept that gender identity is marked by more than just genitalia or the size of an Adam's apple. Other things, like brain chemistry and hormones, are also at play.

These forces aren't always working in unison in a human body, and that's forever been part of the human experience -- even if we didn't used to talk about it.

It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that transgender men and women sometimes find this a tough reality to navigate. They aren't asking much of us while they live their lives. Just to be part of our community, our families, our workplaces and to be free of messages sent by lawmakers that they are somehow deviant or dangerous.

The bathroom bill, which thanks to Abbott and Patrick will likely dominate the special session, is just another kind of the bullying that transgender Texans have had to put up with all their lives.

To his credit, Straus saw that early on, and he has listened to testimony about suicide risk and higher-than-average self-harm attempts. He didn't want to be part of that grim statistic. He didn't want Texas to be part it either.

Neither should anyone.