(The Center Square) – The Texas Attorney General’s office is demanding documentation from two school districts over concerns that they are allowing male students to play on female sports teams in violation of state law H.B. 25.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s letters to Dallas and Irving Independent School Districts requested training materials, communications over student eligibility for sports teams, and other information related to staff members who were filmed saying they would allow a biologically male student to play on the girls’ team.
“The idea of school district officials turning their backs on female students and sacrificing the integrity of women’s athletics to advance the radical transgender agenda is disgusting, but that seems to be exactly what occurred here,” Paxton said in a news release Thursday.
“Any systematic effort by a school district to sidestep state law and allow biological boys to play in girls’ sports in Texas will be rooted out, and my office will explore all avenues to hold those responsible to account,” Paxton added.
The letter from the state’s top prosecutor comes several weeks after Accuracy in Media posted videos of staff members at Dallas ISD and Irving ISD saying they could get around the state’s law preventing students from competing in sports that do not correlate with their biological gender.
The organization posted an edited video of a secret recording with Mahoganie Gaston, Dallas ISD’s LGBT youth program coordinator, in which she directed an operative pretending to be a parent to update a birth certificate for their transgender student in New Jersey before moving to Texas.
“They find the loopholes in everything,” Gaston told the operative from Accuracy in Media.
Accuracy in Media also secretly filmed its interaction with Reny Lizardo, the executive director of campus operations for Irving ISD. Lizardo was also told that prospective “parents” were looking to move to the district with a transgender daughter who wanted to play sports.
He recommended that the student also get an updated birth certificate out of state and said that the district wouldn’t check.
“It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught, right?” Lizardo can be heard saying in the organization’s edited video taken undercover.
Paxton’s letter indicated that Lizardo had stepped down from Irving ISD, but requested his resignation letter and last day from the district.
According to the letter to Irving ISD from Paxton, Lizardo “advised the parent that the district would not check if the parent were to change the birth certificate of their son to indicate ‘female’ so as to enable that male student to participate in interscholastic sports for young women.”
Paxton’s office requested documents related to training materials and policies related to H.B. 25 and “any communications, including emails, to district employees regarding the determination of a student’s eligibility to participate in interscholastic sports based on sex, including the use of birth certificates or other governmental documents.”
It also requested an organizational chart from both districts showing where the staff filmed by Accuracy in Media are in the management structure of the schools.
In addition to information about the creation and funding of Gaston’s position, Paxton’s office sought information related to sports.
The letter asks Dallas ISD for “all district meeting minutes containing any discussions regarding the LGBT Youth Program Coordinator, their role within the district, or district policy as it relates to LGBT student participation in interscholastic athletic competitions.”
• This story first published at Chalkboard News which, like The Center Square, is published by the Franklin News Foundation
