Metro Weekly magazine: 2019-01-10 edition (PDF)
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
January 11, 2019
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), accusing the governing body of college athletics of "deceiving" sports fans by allowing transgender athletes to compete in events marketed as women's competitions.
The lawsuit was filed in Texas District Court. In it, Paxton claims that the NCAA violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by deceiving fans who want to support sporting events featuring athletes whose assigned sex at birth is female.
Instead, he argues, it has subjected fans to watching "mixed sex competitions" where "biological males compete against biological females."
Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have introduced at least 120 bills explicitly targeting the transgender community or seeking to roll back rights or legal protections for trans individuals, according to transgender journalist Erin Reed.
Reed, who has been tracking anti-transgender legislation for her Erin in the Morning Substack, reported that the number of bills introduced before the start of 2025 state legislative sessions is 120 -- a 50% increase from the 80 bills pre-filed before the start of the 2023 legislative calendar.
The bulk of the bills have been introduced in Texas and Missouri, but lawmakers in 11 other states have also embraced anti-transgender legislation as a priority for the upcoming year.
Amazon is the latest major corporation to shift rightward, eliminating statements expressing support for LGBTQ rights and racial equity from a public listing of its corporate policies.
The deletion of previous statements pledging to commit to "equity for Black people" and "LGBTQ+ rights" were removed from a page on the company's website in December, as were any mentions of the word "transgender," as reported by The Washington Post.
Prior to late December, Amazon's website said that the company stood "in solidarity" with Black employees and customers, and supported "legislation to combat misconduct and racial bias in policing, efforts to protect and expand voting rights, and initiatives that provide better health and educational outcomes for Black people."
