What Is the Texas Lawsuit Against US Masters Swimming?

The Texas lawsuit against U.S. Masters Swimming is a consumer-fraud case filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton on July 16, 2025, in Denton County District Court, alleging that USMS and five of its regional committees violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by marketing swim meets as women’s competitions while allowing transgender women to enter and win them. The state is seeking more than $1 million in damages, civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, a permanent injunction, and attorney’s fees.¹

What the Lawsuit Alleges

The petition names U.S. Masters Swimming, Inc., together with five Local Masters Swimming Committees: Arkansas, North Texas, Gulf, South Texas, and New Mexico. The local committees were pulled in because they sanction USMS events in their regions and, according to the state, have enough contact with Texas to fall under its jurisdiction.²

The legal theory is that calling an event a “women’s” or “female” competition while knowingly permitting transgender women to compete is a deceptive commercial practice. The petition identifies five separate DTPA violations:

Engaging in false, misleading, or deceptive acts in trade or commerce.
Causing misunderstanding about the sponsorship or certification of the events.
Representing that events have characteristics they do not have.
Advertising events with the intent not to deliver them as described.
Withholding information that would have affected consumers’ decisions to pay dues and entry fees.

Texas argues that female swimmers who paid dues and entry fees believed they were entering events restricted to biological females and were “swindled” when transgender women took medals, records, and rankings. The petition also asserts that transgender women retain physiological advantages in muscle mass, bone density, and cardiorespiratory capacity even during hormone therapy.²

The Spring Nationals Meet Behind the Case

The competition at the center of the suit was the 2025 USMS Spring Nationals, held in San Antonio and concluding in late April 2025. Ana Caldas, a 47-year-old transgender swimmer, entered five individual events in the women’s 45–49 age group and won all five: the 50-yard breaststroke, 100-yard breaststroke, 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, and 100-yard individual medley.² According to the petition, Caldas won the 50-yard breaststroke by three seconds, the 100-yard breaststroke by four seconds, and the 100-yard freestyle by more than three seconds.

The petition also names two other transgender women who competed at the meet: Jennifer Rines, who entered seven events including the 500- and 1650-yard freestyle, and Kerri McCaffrey, who the state says competed in 21 swims and won 20 of them.² Paxton announced a formal investigation in May 2025, and the lawsuit followed roughly two months later.³

How USMS Has Responded

USMS pushed back publicly. In a July 29, 2025 op-ed on Swimming World, President Ed Coates and CEO Dawson Hughes described USMS as a “private nonprofit recreational swimming organization” with “no political or social agenda” and characterized the case as “sustained legal or political theater.”⁴ The organization launched a #SwimsuitsNotLawsuits campaign and emailed members the same day. On eligibility verification, USMS defended its practice of relying on self-certification of sex assigned at birth, calling it the most “accurate and cost-effective method” and saying it wanted to avoid requiring “invasive medical testing.”⁵

USMS had already begun changing its competition rules before the suit was filed. Its longstanding transgender inclusion policy, most recently amended in December 2024, allowed transgender women to compete in the female category after at least one year of continuous hormone therapy with testosterone below 5 nmol/L.⁶ After the Texas investigation opened, the USMS Board of Directors and Rules Committee approved an interim eligibility policy on June 9, 2025, effective July 1. Modeled on World Aquatics’ framework, it allowed transgender women to continue participating in women’s events but made them ineligible for competitive recognition in the female category: no official results, records, or awards. Anyone competing in the male category remained eligible for recognition regardless of sex assigned at birth or gender identity. That interim policy remained in effect until February 20, 2026, when USMS adopted a new policy and stated it intends to keep aligning with World Aquatics’ standards.⁷

Not every member was satisfied with the response. Swimmers Wendy Enderle and Angie Griffin publicly criticized USMS for what they called an attempt to “sweep this under the rug.” Both had filed formal eligibility review requests roughly three months earlier and said they had received no resolution. “Those of us who took the time to file formal protests deserve to be taken seriously,” Griffin said. As of August 2025, USMS acknowledged that one swimmer’s eligibility review was “still ongoing” and said it was “navigating our process in a fair and deliberate manner.”⁸

How the Case Fits Paxton’s Broader Enforcement Pattern

The USMS suit is one of several Texas enforcement actions applying consumer protection law to transgender athlete eligibility. In December 2024, Paxton sued the NCAA in Lubbock on nearly identical DTPA grounds, asking a court to either require SRY gene testing for athletes in women’s competition or bar the NCAA from using the word “women” in its branding.⁹ On March 18, 2025, Judge Les Hatch of the 237th District Court denied the injunction, finding the state had not provided sufficient evidence about the reliability or implementation of SRY testing. “I don’t think SRY testing is going to accomplish with 100% certainty what you want it to,” Hatch said. The denial addressed only the injunction, not the merits of the underlying case.¹⁰

In November 2025, Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the U.S. Tennis Association’s Texas league on similar allegations. The USTA responded by filing its own suit to challenge the demand.¹¹

Texas is not the only state going after USMS. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a request for “corrective action” in May 2025 and, after finding the interim policy inadequate, sued USMS and the Florida Association Local Masters Swim Committee on January 13, 2026, in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit in Sarasota County. The Florida complaint alleges sex-based discrimination and public nuisance under state civil rights and anti-discrimination statutes rather than consumer protection law alone, arguing the interim eligibility rule still “illegally discriminates against women and deceives consumers.”¹²¹³

1
Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues US Masters Swimming
2
Texas Attorney General. State of Texas v. U.S. Masters Swimming, Original Petition
3
Texas Tribune. Texas Ken Paxton Trans Athletes Swimming San Antonio Lawsuit
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Swimming World Magazine. Swimsuits Not Lawsuits: U.S. Masters Swimming Wants to Focus on Our Mission and Members
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U.S. Masters Swimming. Swimsuits Not Lawsuits
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U.S. Masters Swimming. Transgender Swimmer Inclusion
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U.S. Masters Swimming. Previous USMS Interim Eligibility Policy
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Swimming World Magazine. Masters Swimmers Speaking Out Against USMS for Dismissing Concerns About Transgender Policy
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Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Ken Paxton Demands NCAA Stop Allowing Biological Males to Compete in Women’s Sports
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Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Lubbock Judge Rejects NCAA Gender Testing Mandate
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Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Paxton Investigates US Tennis Association
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Florida Attorney General. Attorney General James Uthmeier Announces Lawsuit Against United States Masters Swimming
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Florida Phoenix. Florida AG Threatens U.S. Masters Swimming Over Transgender Competition