Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday he is suing US Masters Swimming (USMS), a competitive swimming membership organization with over 60,000 adult swimmers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lawsuit is a response to an event in San Antonio where a biological male trans athlete won five women\u2019s gold medals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Multiple female competitors told Fox News Digital after the meet they did not know the athlete was a biological male.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m suing US Masters Swimming for engaging in illegal practices by allowing men to compete in women\u2019s competitions,\u201d Paxton said in a post on X announcing the lawsuit. \u201cThe organization has cowered to radical activists pushing gender warfare, and this lawsuit will hold USMS accountable for its actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s statement alleges USMS engaged in \u201cfalse, deceptive, and misleading practices by allowing men to compete in women\u2019s events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital has reached out to USMS for comment.<\/p>\n
In June 2023, Texas passed the Save Women\u2019s Sports Act, which bans trans athletes from competing in girls and women\u2019s sports and only allows students to compete in the gender category listed on their birth certificates.<\/p>\n
The law only allows schools to recognize changes made to birth certificates that were made to correct a clerical error.<\/p>\n
Transgender swimmer Ana Caldas won five gold medals at a US Masters Swimming championship in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Paxton previously launched an investigation into USMS after the conrtoversial April incident.<\/p>\n
The trans swimmer, 47-year-old Ana Caldas, dominated all five races the athlete competed in, taking gold in the women\u2019s age 45-49 category in five races, including the 50- and 100-yard breaststroke, freestyle and the 100-yard individual medley.<\/p>\n
Louisiana woman and long-time swimmer Wendy Enderle said she filed a request for an eligibility review after finding out that Caldas was transgender through a news article about the April incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel betrayed. Plain and simple,\u201d Enderle previously told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 47-year-old trans swimmer dominated all five races that the athlete signed up for. FINIS<\/p>\n
Enderle said she did not introduce herself to Caldas until a USMS meet in Little Rock, Arkansas, in January.<\/p>\n
Upon meeting Caldas, Enderle noticed the athlete\u2019s muscles and height but still assumed Caldas was a female.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there was something, but I didn\u2019t know what, I had no idea she was a trans female up until this past Wednesday after the meet,\u201d Enderle said. \u201cI was shocked. \u2026 It makes me concerned, it makes me mad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some biological women who competed said they did not know Caldas was a biological male.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fellow USMS women\u2019s swimmer Angie Griffin also swam with Caldas in April without knowledge of Caldas\u2019 birth gender.<\/p>\n
The shock of learning the news about Caldas prompted Griffin to write a formal letter of complaint to USMS.<\/p>\n
The letter also asked the organization to \u201cre-evaluate\u201d the recent Spring National Championship and overhaul its gender eligibility policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Griffin competed against Caldas in three races in San Antonio and finished behind the trans athlete in the 50-yard breaststroke and 100-yard individual medley.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t stop thinking about how the integrity of individual competition had been compromised. Why doesn\u2019t USMS follow the same competitive standards as the rest of the world and NCAA? Why are athletes asked to accept less transparency and fairness?\u201d Griffin previously told Fox News Digital\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI paid my entry fees, airfare and hotel, trusting I\u2019d be competing in a women\u2019s division defined by biological sex. I deserved to know the truth before stepping onto the blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US Masters Swimming Board of Directors and Rules Committee updated its participation guidelines last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cUSMS allows members to register for the competition category that aligns with their gender identity and\/or expression and to participate in sanctioned events in that category,\u201d the new guidelines state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Swimmer Angie Griffin wrote a formal letter of complaint to USMS. USMS<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, swimmers will not be included in Recognition Programs (as defined above) unless they are swimming in the competition category that aligns with their sex assigned at birth or they meet the eligibility requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be eligible for the US Masters Swimming\u2019s women\u2019s recognition programs, the policy states, \u201cMembers of the Female Sex are eligible for Recognition Programs in the women\u2019s category, regardless of their gender identity or gender expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers with 46 XY DSD whose gender identity or gender expression is female are eligible for Recognition Programs in the women\u2019s category if they can establish to USMS\u2019s comfortable satisfaction that their sex assigned at birth is female.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday he is suing US Masters Swimming (USMS), a competitive swimming membership…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":72247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,18946,358,19746,26397,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-72246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-swimming","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-transgender","14":"tag-transgender-athletes","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-news","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114873477551685876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}