Texas Sues NCAA Over Trans Athletes
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims the NCAA is "deceiving" fans by allowing trans females to compete in women's sports.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), accusing the governing body of college athletics of “deceiving” sports fans by allowing transgender athletes to compete in events marketed as women’s competitions.
The lawsuit was filed in Texas District Court. In it, Paxton claims that the NCAA violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by deceiving fans who want to support sporting events featuring athletes whose assigned sex at birth is female.
Instead, he argues, it has subjected fans to watching “mixed sex competitions” where “biological males compete against biological females.”
Paxton accuses the NCAA of misleading consumers by failing to identify which athletes are transgender and of “jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women” by allowing transgender athletes to compete against cisgender women, arguing that transgender women hold physiological advantages that favor them in athletic competitions.
“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions,” Paxton said. “When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women — not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”
Paxton has requested that the court grant a permanent injunction prohibiting transgender women from competing in women’s sporting events in Texas or to force them to stop marketing the events with transgender athletes as “women’s sports.”
In a statement, the NCAA did not address Paxton’s lawsuit but said they would continue to support women’s sports, as reported by the Texas Tribune.
“The Association and its members will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships,” NCAA Communications Director Michelle Brutlag Hosick said.
Paxton’s lawsuit comes as Republicans have successfully seized on transgender issues as a way to attack Democrats for being too aligned with the LGBTQ community and for being out-of-step with American voters, the majority of whom oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete in sporting events that align with their gender identity.
Last week, NCAA President Charlie Baker was grilled by lawmakers in Washington, D.C., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. The NCAA has largely ceded responsibility for determining athlete eligibility to individual sporting associations. Baker later said he is only aware of “less than 10” transgender athletes competing at the collegiate level.
Under the current policy, updated in 2022, the national governing body of each respective sport determines whether a transgender athlete can compete based on their gender identity.
In response, several sporting bodies have prohibited any athletes who have undergone male puberty before transitioning from competing in women’s events. Some have floated the idea of a third “open” category for transgender competitors.
Earlier this year, the NCAA was sued by more than a dozen female athletes arguing that the lack of a categorical ban on transgender athletes has placed them at a competitive disadvantage and violated their rights under Title IX, the federal law intended to ensure equal opportunities for women in educational settings.
As President Joe Biden prepares to leave office, his administration has withdrawn a proposed rule that sought to prevent schools from categorically banning transgender athletes under Title IX, although schools would be allowed to ban athletes on an individual basis if they enjoy a competitive advantage over cisgender competitors.
U.S. Department of Education officials said the decision came after receiving tens of thousands of comments “with a broad spectrum of opinions” about the rule — including criticisms that it was vague or hard to implement — and in response to numerous lawsuits challenging the proposed rule.
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