Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is claiming the organization is attempting to surreptitiously find ways around President Donald Trump’s executive order barring men from women’s sports.
Paxton filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in December over its policy of allowing men to compete with and against female athletes.
Now, the Texas attorney general added a new filing to the lawsuit, claiming that the NCAA is violating Trump’s executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in “both spirit and text.” The order in question states that the U.S. government will pull taxpayer funds out from “educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities,” and pursue “Title IX enforcement actions” against schools that force women to compete “with or against” men.
[RELATED: ANALYSIS: The women’s sports legal battle has just begun]
Though the NCAA claims that it is complying with Trump’s directive, Paxton believes this is just “an illusion of change” and that the association is still allowing men who “identify” as females to compete in women’s sports.
The filing specifically calls out two practices of the NCAA that violate women athletes’ rights.
First, the NCAA refuses to “screen the sex of student-athletes” to verify that no men try to covertly join women’s sports.
Paxton cites the example of Blaire Fleming, a man who “identifies” as a woman who caused controversy in 2024 when he joined San Jose State University’s female volleyball team while lying about his real sex. His presence made his female teammates feel uncomfortable, and caused several opponent teams to forfeit matches in protest.
“Biological men have been, and will continue to, surreptitiously participate in ‘women’s’ sports until the NCAA implements a procedure to screen the sex of student-athletes,” the filing states.
Second, the NCAA also has a “loose definition of ‘sex.’” The NCAA accepts that “a student-athlete’s sex is whatever ‘designation doctors assign to infants at birth, which is marked on their birth records’” (emphasis in the original). The document states that this definition allows men to “alter their birth records and participate in women’s sports.”
Thus, by still allowing men to compete with and against women, the NCAA “is engaging in, has engaged in, and is about to engage deceptive trade practices in violation of Texas law.”
[RELATED: Trans runner complains about race performance despite dominating women’s event]
Now, Paxton is seeking to get a temporary injunction to force the NCAA to “immediately begin screening the sex of student athletes . . . and prohibiting all males (as defined by President Trump’s EO) from participating in ‘women’s’ sports categories.”
A spokesperson from the Texas attorney general’s office pointed Campus Reform to press releases announcing the initial lawsuit and the new filing. In the latter press release, Paxton said: “The NCAA’s sleight of hand is designed to intentionally deceive consumers into believing that biological men are no longer allowed to participate in women’s sports. Far from aligning with President Trump’s executive order or basic reality, the NCAA’s new policy treats sex as a changeable characteristic determined by a birth certificate instead of biology. I am asking the court to enjoin the NCAA from continuing these deceptive schemes and protect women’s sports.”
Female swimmers who formerly competed for the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s team also recently filed a lawsuit targeting the NCAA, among other institutions, over the organization’s decision to allow male swimmer Lia Thomas to participate in the 2021-2022 season.
The women athletes are seeking “damages for pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, suffering and anxiety, expenses costs and other damages against the NCAA, Ivy League, Harvard, and UPenn due to their wrongful conduct.”
Campus Reform has reached out to Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
Author
