PHOENIX - Arizona will not block transgender students from using restrooms and locker rooms that do not match their biological sex, a decision that has drawn a rebuke from a Scottsdale-area lawmaker.

In a short veto message, Gov. Katie Hobbs called the legislation sponsored by Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, "yet another discriminatory act against LGBTQ+ youth passed by the majority at the state Legislature.''

And the governor, who earlier had nixed legislation forbidding teachers from using a student's preferred pronoun, warned the Republicans who control both the House and Senate not to send her similar measures.

"I will veto every bill that aims to attack and harm children,'' she wrote.

Kavanagh said the veto of his bill is politically based.

The senator said in a prepared statement that Democratic lawmakers and Hobbs "are catering to an extremist culture by pushing 'gender neutrality' as a means to win political points from their liberal base while stealing dignity away from women and girls in the process.''

Kavanagh’s proposal would have required schools to provide a "reasonable accommodation'' to a student who is unwilling or unable to use a facility that matches the person’s sex. That could include a single-occupancy room, a room for faculty or staff or a restroom or locker room for the opposite sex when no one of that sex was present.

It also covered sleeping rooms.

The legislation defined "sex'' as "determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of the person's birth'' as evidenced by a document that reflects the individual's birth certificate.

The measure also would have allowed anyone who encounters someone of the opposite sex in a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility to file suit and recover claims for all psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered.

Kavanagh called the legislation a matter of common sense.

"Modesty is a basic universal and historic human instinct,'' he said during debate on the measure. "It goes back to Adam and Eve hiding behind the bush after the apple was eaten.''

The concept, Kavanagh said, is universal.

"A school rule or a state law or a court decision cannot change that natural instinct of modesty,'' he said. "And I think we have to respect that.''

Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix, said such legislation would further isolate transgender students and cause further harm.

"They are at immediate risk for all kinds of things, particularly suicide,'' she said. And Marsh said there was another solution.

She said if some students do not feel comfortable using a facility with a transgender individual, perhaps they should be the ones who have to use those "reasonable accommodations'' rather than singling out the transgender students.

Kavanagh called that unworkable.