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EXCLUSIVE: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it will be investigating a recent weightlifting competition that saw a biological male compete against women.
Trans athlete Jammie Booker initially won the 2025 World’s Strongest Woman in Arlington, Texas, over the weekend, prompting female competitor Andrea Thompson, who finished second, to step down from the podium in protest. The Official Strongman organization later announced that Booker would be “disqualified,” giving Thompson first place.
Still, Paxton is now cracking down.
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Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general, during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Attorney General Paxton will not allow the radical left to sacrifice the integrity of girls’ sports on the altar of their delusional transgender agenda. The OAG is investigating this incident and will take any and all actions to protect women’s sports both in Texas and across the nation,” Paxton’s office said in a statement.
Paxton has previously filed a lawsuit against U.S. Masters Swimming for allowing trans athletes to compete in a competition in San Antonio earlier this year.
A YouTube video from what appears to be Booker’s own channel, dating back to 2017, shows Booker claiming to be “trans.”
According to Strongman Archives, Booker had not competed in women’s events prior to this past June. It is unclear whether Booker had previously competed as a man.
A video showing Thompson stepping off the podium appearing to say, “This is bulls—,” went viral in recent days, prompting major criticisms by women’s sports rights activists.
“This is fraud — against the athletes, against the organizers,” Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) co-founder Kim Jones told Fox News Digital.
TRANS SWIMMER BANNED FROM WORLD ATHLETICS AND STRIPPED OF RECENT RESULTS AFTER REFUSING SEX TEST
Andrea Thompson (left) finished second to an alleged transgender athlete at the 2025 World’s Strongest Woman competition. (Laurence Shahlaei)
“Female athletes deserve transparency, honesty, and the basic guarantee that the competitors standing next to them are, in fact, women. This is why sex-based eligibility and sex-screening are essential. Without them, situations like this will continue to blindside women and undermine every competition… Women have fought too hard, for too long, to have their sports taken from them in plain sight. This cannot continue.”
Thompson has become a sudden prominent figure in the movement to protect women’s sports from male competitors, with the recognition of her as the champion now being celebrated as a flashpoint in the movement.
Thompson shared a post from her coach, Laurence Shahlaei, congratulating her on “winning” the event. Shahlaei made the post on Monday, one day after the event. Shahlaei told Fox News Digital just prior to Strongman’s announcement that he had been told Thompson would be crowned the champion and that an official announcement would be made.
“This win hasn’t come without controversy, but I want to make it very clear that while I support and applaud people for being who they want to be, sport is sport and the women’s classes exist for a reason,” Shahlaei wrote.
Official Strongman has said it wasn’t aware of Booker’s biological sex when the competition occurred.
“Had we been aware, or had this been declared at any point before or during the competition, this athlete would not have been permitted to compete in the Woman’s Open category. We are clear – competitors can only compete in the category for the biological sex recorded at birth,” Official Strongman said in an announcement Tuesday.
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“Official Strongman is inclusive and proud to run events which do not discriminate against athletes based on personal characteristics. Any athlete is welcome. But it is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Strongman Official for a response to Paxton’s statement.
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