Nevada's Lt. Governor, Stavros Anthony, has filed a lawsuit in Clark County District Court challenging a finding by the Nevada Ethics Commission that he violated state ethics law. The commission found that he used state resources, including staff time and official social media accounts, to establish a task force aimed at keeping transgender athletes out of women's sports. It fined him $3,000, ordered him to complete ethics training, and instructed his office to develop social media policies. His response was to sue.

The ethics complaint was filed by the Nevadans for Equal Rights Committee in February 2025, and the commission upheld it in March. Anthony's legal filing argues that the complaint rested on "mostly unsubstantiated claims," that no laws prohibit a lieutenant governor from advocating on policy issues, and that his own admission of being "passionate" about the subject cannot be treated as evidence of personal gain. "All elected officials have (or should have) 'passion' for public policy issues," the suit says. The commission has filed its intent to participate in the proceedings and says it will defend its ruling.

What this is really about

There is a useful question buried under the legal argument, and it is this: what exactly was the task force for? Anthony has said publicly that he wanted to ensure fair competition and equal opportunity in women's sports, and prevent trans female athletes from taking "awards and titles" from other women. His attorneys note the task force attracted intense public interest, and that the idea came from a staff member who had seen similar efforts in other states. So this was not a spontaneous act of conscience. It was a coordinated political project, modelled on what was happening elsewhere, and run through a public office using public resources.

The ethics commission's view, upheld after investigation, is that using those resources crossed a line. Anthony disagrees. That is now for the courts to settle. But the legal dispute does not change what the task force was designed to do, and that is worth naming: it was designed to make it harder for a very small number of transgender girls and women to compete in sport.

The numbers and the noise

I keep coming back to the disproportion. The political architecture being built around this issue, the task forces, the legislation, the lawsuits, the endless hours of official time, is vastly out of scale with the number of trans athletes it targets. Transgender girls and women are not flooding sports. They are not winning everything. In most places, at most levels, there are barely any trans athletes at all. The research does not support the idea of a wave of lost medals and stolen opportunities. What we see instead is a moral panic being sustained by repetition and political incentive, not by evidence.

Anthony says he wanted to protect women's sports. I take people at their word when I can. But protecting women's sports would look different from this. It would mean properly funded women's teams, equal media coverage, pay equity, and safe training environments. It would mean taking sexual abuse in sport seriously, because that is a well-documented harm affecting real athletes in large numbers. A task force aimed at the tiny number of trans women in competitive sport, run through a lieutenant governor's office using state resources, is not a proportionate response to a demonstrated problem. It is a political signal.

What Anthony's office has been doing more broadly

The trans athlete task force is not the only thing drawing scrutiny here. The Nevada Independent reports that Anthony's office has faced at least three ethics complaints this year, most of them connected to using state resources for political purposes. His office also faced allegations of age discrimination after a longtime member of staff was dismissed. This is a pattern, not an isolated misjudgement, and the courts will have that context available to them as this lawsuit proceeds.

The person in the middle of all this

When I read stories like this one, I think about the trans athletes whose lives are being debated in courtrooms and commission meetings and legislative chambers while they are just trying to play sport. They are not abstractions. They are young people, mostly, who love running or swimming or football or gymnastics, and who are being told, through every one of these political moves, that their presence is a problem requiring official intervention. That is a message with real consequences for real people. Anxiety, withdrawal, giving up sport altogether, feeling unwelcome in the one place where many young people feel most like themselves.

A $3,000 fine and a legal fight over it will generate more column inches than the wellbeing of any individual trans athlete. That is the cruelest part of this kind of politics. It centres the politician and the process, and leaves the people it claims to be protecting, and the people it is actually targeting, somewhere off to the side.

The commission says it will defend its finding. I hope it does.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a gender specialist, medical educator, and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives of trans people and their families.