Anti-LGBTQ+ Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) over its policies allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports.
Paxton’s lawsuit, filed on Sunday, December 22, takes the novel approach of accusing the NCAA of “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”
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In a press release, Paxton alleged that the organization violated the Texas Trade Practices Act “which exists to protect consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick them into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised,” Fox News reported.
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“When people watch a women’s volleyball game,” the Texas AG said in as statement, “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 also claimed that the NCAA was “intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions.”
The idea that transgender people are deceiving others about their genders is a transphobic stereotype used to justify anti-transgender discrimination. Transgender people generally describe coming out as an act of honesty after having pretended to be something they’re not, often for years.
As Chron notes, Paxton’s suit seeks to have the NCAA either limit the participation of trans athletes in competitions taking place in Texas or involving Texas teams, or to have the NCAA stop categorizing events as “women’s sports” when a transgender athlete is involved.
Paxton’s latest anti-LGBTQ+ move comes less than a week after NCAA President Charlie Baker appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he faced grandstanding from anti-LGBTQ+ Republican lawmakers like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) over the issue of transgender inclusion on women’s collegiate sports.
Anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers and activists have seized on the issue in recent years to gin up support with their base and draw in voters who may be unfamiliar with the realities of trans athletes’ abilities. Advocates for trans sports bans argue that transgender women and girls possess unfair physical advantages over cisgender women and girls. But as Dr. Brad Anawalt, a professor of medicine and an endocrinologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, explained in an interview with the CBC earlier this year, there is insufficient data to prove that trans women have a competitive advantage over cis women.
The NCAA responded to Paxton’s lawsuit in a statement. While the organization did not directly address the Texas Republican’s allegations, NCAA communications director Michelle Brutlag Hosick said, “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.”
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