Texas AG Ken Paxton sues NCAA for misrepresenting women’s sports by including male players

The lawsuit accuses the NCAA of engaging in deceptive practices by promoting sporting events as “women’s” competitions while allowing biological males to participate.

According to Paxton, the NCAA’s actions violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), a law designed to protect consumers from false advertising and misleading business practices. The suit claims the NCAA has failed to ensure that women’s competitions are exclusive to biological females, as implied in their marketing, and has also neglected to disclose which participants in these events are biological males.

In a post to X, Paxton wrote: "Today, I sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) for 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."

“For many consumers, the assurance that only biological women compete in these events is a critical factor in their decision to support women’s sports,” Paxton’s office stated. “By falsely advertising these competitions as women’s sports, the NCAA misleads consumers and undermines trust in the integrity of college athletics.”

The lawsuit asks the court to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events within Texas or involving Texas-based teams. Alternatively, it calls for the NCAA to be be required to clearly market such events as mixed-sex competitions rather than women’s sports.

“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.”

The NCAA was also sued by 16 female athletes including Riley Gaines earlier this year. According to The Free Press, at the center of the suit is former UPenn swimmer and trans-identified male Lia Thomas, who rose to prominence over the 2022 swimming season, culminating in a 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships win.