Texas sues to impose bigotry on the rest of the country
Ken Paxton's lawsuit against the NCAA is a glorified Fox News segment.
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Donald Trump and JD Vance spent the 2024 election spewing the most rank transphobia, a tactic that should have made them pariahs but instead helped win them the presidency. Even though they haven’t taken office yet, their victory seems to have emboldened Republicans like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to go all out in their attacks on trans people.
Trump’s transphobia is often focused on trans athletes, and Paxton is following his lead by suing the NCAA in Texas state court under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act. His allegation is that the NCAA is somehow swindling Texas sports fans by allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sporting events.
Texas’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act prohibits false, misleading, or deceptive acts in commerce. According to Paxton, the NCAA is misleading sports fans by advertising women’s sporting events when there are actually “biological males” competing. Or, as the lawsuit explains, the NCAA is “lead[ing] consumers to believe that they are purchasing goods and services associated with biological sex-based sporting events.” While rightwing weirdos might be attending NCAA games because of their deep desire to associate only with “biological sex-based sporting events,” the rest of the world watches women’s sports because they enjoy watching them.
The complaint rolls out four more counts, each fixating on a different bit of language from the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. At root, they’re all the same accusation: the NCAA is deceiving consumers by referring to women’s sports because it allows trans athletes to compete in some events. Of course, for people not consumed with a fixation on genitals, the term “women’s sports” includes trans women, because they are women. It only makes sense if you first grant Texas’s transphobic premise that there is no such thing as a trans woman playing a sport — only a “biological male” who has invaded a women’s team.
Ostensibly, this lawsuit is just about stopping trans athletes from competing in women’s sports in Texas (or outside Texas if a Texas team is involved). But what it really represents is a chance for the state to spread its transphobia across the country.
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Everyone knows that the GOP has made transphobia one of the centerpieces of its messaging, with the explicit goal of running trans people out of public life altogether. They’ve particularly fixated on trans women athletes, declaring that it is their deep love for the sanctity of women’s sports that drives them. So, it’s not surprising that Republicans have been demanding that the NCAA entirely ban trans athletes from competing.
But here’s the thing. There are roughly 510,000 NCAA athletes. And, according to the president of the NCAA, there are fewer than 10 trans athletes total. Even if all of these efforts to “protect” women’s sports were in good faith, this would still be a solution in search of a problem.
Needless to say, these efforts are not in good faith, which is why, for example, the state’s complaint won’t even use the term trans woman or trans athlete, instead calling them men or “biological males.” It’s why there are dozens of paragraphs about athletes who are not trans, are not NCAA athletes, and are not even American athletes, like Caster Semenya and Imane Khelif. Invoking Semenya, a South African runner, and Khelif, an Algerian boxer, is a favorite tactic of transphobic right-wingers, sending the not-so-subtle message that they will police the gender of anyone they deem insufficiently female.
A solution in search of a problem
This latest lawsuit is, to be clear, one of the more repugnant ones that Paxton has filed. That’s quite an achievement from a man who brags that he has sued the Biden Administration 100 times. And it’s not just because the lawsuit is a direct attack on the existence of trans people disguised as a legal pleading. It’s also because the relief Texas seeks is the right to impose its transphobia well beyond its borders.
The state wants the court to permanently bar the NCAA from allowing trans women to compete in women’s sporting events. In the alternative, they’ll take forcing the NCAA to stop using the term “women” for sporting events where trans women can compete if the event is in Texas or involves Texas teams.
As far as protecting the sacred womanhood of sports, or whatever it is Paxton is pretending he is doing here, this lawsuit is entirely unnecessary. Texas already bans trans athletes from participating in collegiate sports in the state. But that’s not enough for Texas. It wants to reach into other states — states that may have laws that protect trans people — and impose a trans athlete ban if there’s a Texas team playing.
This lawsuit is no different, fundamentally, than the legal attacks Paxton has made on Biden administration rules. The state has mastered the art of suing within the state to get results outside the state. The nationwide injunctions Paxton and company manage to obtain are the best way to impose their will on everyone else.
Paxton succeeded in getting a nationwide injunction to stop the Federal Trade Commission’s non-compete rule from taking effect. He scored another from Trump nominee Judge Drew Tipton, blocking the Biden administration’s attempts to limit the authority of ICE and reduce arrests of immigrants. He’s currently suing to block a rule that bars access to medical records of people who cross state lines to get an abortion.
There’s no question we’re going to see more of this kind of lawfare from conservatives. It isn’t just the 2024 election results that are buoying them. They’ve been emboldened by Trump’s capture of the federal courts, turning the branch of government that is supposed to be the most neutral into an attack dog to be deployed against anything they don’t like. They’ve also been emboldened by their continued ability to judge-shop, making sure to get their most culture warring cases in front of two judges in Texas who are exceedingly friendly to rightwing causes.
The notion that states should be allowed to make their own policies on issues such as trans athletes or abortion is entirely foreign to Trump personally and the GOP generally. Even though Paxton filed his lawsuit against the NCAA in Texas state court, cases of this sort enables Republicans like him to overrule the will of people in other states who have voted to protect rights.
This litigation is a very effective method to force the wildly unpopular ideas of Republicans on everyone in the country. It’s all part of the “states’ rights for me, but not for thee” mindset that permeates red states and is nurtured by Trump. Thanks to that, every culture war fixation of someone like Ken Paxton is a battle the entire country has to fight.
That’s it for today
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I saw a meme today, that is true.
"When the richest people on earth tell you that the real problems are pronouns and wokeness, they are trying to distract you from something."
Ken Paxton--who really should be in jail by now...hasn't he been under indictment more than long enough?--is a cockroach whose only apparent purpose in this life is to support his sadistic & evil boss, Gregg Abbott.