Former aide sues Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, alleging he was forced out because he's gay

A former aide to Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) is suing the lawmaker's office, alleging a pattern of homophobic comments from Nehls and his chief of staff, and attempts to push the aide out of his job because he was gay, according to a suit filed Friday .

Alex Chadwell was a legislative correspondent in Nehls’ Washington office from January 2021 until May 2021, when he transferred to the lawmaker’s district office in Richmond, Texas. Chadwell alleges that he transferred to try to escape “direct anti-gay hostility” from Chadwell’s boss, chief of staff Robert Schroeder, according to the lawsuit, filed against the entire office in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The suit alleges that Schroeder made comments like “gays go to hell” and that natural behavior is “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” among others.

Schroeder also allegedly told Chadwell not to engage with gay constituents and that he would not back legislation that supports LGBTQ+ causes. Emily Matthews, a Nehls spokesperson, said in a statement that Nehls’ office “did not, and does not discriminate based on any unlawful factor.”

“There is no merit whatsoever to Mr. Chadwell's claim and the allegations of sexual orientation harassment are totally false,” Matthews said. “The office intends to mount a vigorous defense in this matter and is confident that it will be exonerated once all the facts are known.”

Schroeder in an email said “every single aspect is a complete fabrication” and referred back to Matthews’ statement.

Chadwell referred POLITICO to his attorney, Les Alderman, due to the ongoing litigation.

“It is particularly reprehensible that someone could be forced out of a job because of their sexuality in this day and age,” Alderman said in a statement. “We should be beyond this as a society, and we will be sure that justice is served.”

Once Nehls and his staff discovered that Chadwell was gay, Nehls and his wife Jill stopped interacting with him and his family at social functions, according to the suit. The lawsuit says around this time Schroeder and Nehls began removing Chadwell from job duties he used to perform, such as accompanying Nehls — a family friend of Chadwell’s — on trips in the district.

Mary Davis, the deputy district director in Nehls’ Richmond office when Chadwell transferred there from Washington, said in an interview that around August of 2022 Nehls had asked another former staffer to call her to find out if Chadwell was gay — and that once Nehls found out, the way he treated Chadwell completely changed.

“They were really good family friends and then it was like Alex was dead to him after he found out he was gay,” Davis said.

Davis noted a moment in the office when an employee was watching the LGBTQ+ reality show “Queer Eye.” Davis said Nehls said: “Why are we watching this? We need to turn it off. We don’t support these people.”

When Schroeder told Davis that Chadwell was moving to the district office to report to her as a field representative, he told her that Chadwell “was too sensitive,” “soft” and “not made out for D.C.,” she said. Davis said she took Schroeder’s words to be a reference to Chadwell not being able to make it in Washington because of his sexuality.

Davis said she had been fired from Nehls’ office. She alleged that she was fired as retaliation because she filed an internal complaint over what she said was age discrimination and a hostile work environment seeded by Schroeder, Nehls’ chief of staff.

Nehls’ office did not address questions about whether Davis was fired, or her allegations of age discrimination.

Chadwell alleges that around September 2023, Schroeder urged him to leave and take a job with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and pressured him daily to leave his job.

Schroeder told Chadwell that his departure was because their “lifestyles” did not align, according to the lawsuit. Chadwell left in October 2023.