Texas AG investigates women’s weightlifting event that included trans athlete

EXCLUSIVE: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office told Pakinomist Digital on Tuesday that it will investigate a recent weightlifting competition in which a biological male competed against women.

Trans athlete Jammie Booker originally won the 2025 World’s Strongest Woman in Arlington, Texas, over the weekend, prompting female competitor Andrea Thompson, who finished second, to step off the podium in protest. The Official Strongman Organization later announced that Booker would be “disqualified”, giving Thompson the top spot.

Yet Paxton is now cracking down.

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“Attorney General Paxton will not allow the radical left to sacrifice the integrity of girls’ sports on the altar of their transgender delusions. The OAG is investigating this incident and will take every action to protect women’s sports both in Texas and across the nation,” Paxton’s office said in a statement.

Paxton previously filed a lawsuit against US 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, dated back to 2017, shows Booker claiming to be “trans.”

According to Strongman ArchiveBooker had not competed in the women’s events until last June. It is unclear if Booker had previously competed as a man.

A video showing Thompson stepping off the podium and appearing to say, “This is bulls—,” went viral in recent days, drawing heavy criticism from women’s sports rights activists.

“This is fraud — against the athletes, against the organizers,” Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), told Pakinomist Digital.

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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. That’s why gender-based eligibility and sex-screening are essential. Without them, situations like this will continue to blind women and undermine any competition…Women have fought too hard, for too long, to not be able to continue in their sports.”

Thompson has suddenly become a prominent figure in the movement to protect women’s sports from male competitors, and the recognition of her as the champion is now celebrated as a flashpoint in the movement.

Thompson shared a post from her coach, Laurence Shahlaei, congratulating her on “winning” the event. Shahlaei posted the post on Monday, a day after the event. Shahlaei told Pakinomist Digital just before Strongman’s announcement that he had been told that Thompson would be crowned champion and that an official announcement would be made.

“This win has not 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 was unaware of Booker’s biological gender when the competition took place.

“Had we known, or had this been declared at any time 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 of the biological sex registered at birth,” Official Strongman said in a statement on Tuesday.

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“Official Strongman is inclusive and proud to run events that do not discriminate against athletes based on personal characteristics. Any athlete is welcome. However, it is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure that athletes are assigned male or female categories based on whether they were registered as male or female at birth.”

Pakinomist Digital has reached out to Strongman Official for a response to Paxton’s statement.