A 2023 Texas law bans student-athletes from participating on sports teams that don’t align to the gender listed on their birth certificate. Credit: Shutterstock / Matias Corbetto

Ultraconservitive group Accuracy in Media (AIM) this week unveiled what it purported to be a “gotcha” video showing a San Antonio ISD employee help an “undercover reporter” work around a state law barring transgender students from school sports.

AIM — which touts itself as a media watchdog but has long faced criticism for pushing far-right conspiracy theories — has prompted resignations of at least two other Texas school administrators by sharing similar clips in which its associates pretend to be parents of transgender children seeking help to get around the state rules.

In a teaser video tweeted out Monday about its San Antonio undercover operation, AIM claimed it had footage of an SAISD official “bending birth certificate rules to sneak boys into girls sports.”

However, the full video, released Wednesday afternoon, doesn’t including anything quite so damning. Indeed, it includes an underwhelming five and a half minutes of a conversation between SAISD Family and Community Engagement Specialist Arthur Elizondo and a woman pretending to be the parent of a trans child.

During the exchange, the AIM associate asks Elizondo if her child, whom she says was born male and transitioned to female, could play on girls’ teams if enrolled at SAISD. The woman claims the girl had already taken hormones and had her gender changed on her birth certificate in Virginia.

“I don’t know,” Elizondo replies. “If you have a legal document where her name’s been changed, I mean, that is legally binding. I can’t advise you on that. I don’t know.”

YouTube video

Texas House Bill 25, passed in 2023, requires that student-athletes play on teams that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificates. The legislation, championed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, also requires that the qualifying certificates be issued near the child’s time of birth.

Despite AIM’s earlier claim to have caught SAISD “bending birth certificate rules,” the clip is anything but a smoking gun.

For one, it’s unclear whether Elizondo did anything wrong since the birth certificate of the made-up student is never shown in the footage. What’s more, he doesn’t advise the undercover AIM associate what to do if she wants her fake child to play on a sports team that matches her gender identity.

SAISD spokeswoman Laura Short declined comment on the video, saying via email that the district “does not discuss personnel matters.”

Despite the clip’s underwhelming contents, anti-trans activist and pro-school voucher advocate Corey DeAngelis highlighted it as proof that Texas parents need more choice when it comes to where they send their children to school.

“They just don’t want any transparency,” DeAngelis said of Texas public schools during a surprise appearance toward the end of AIM’s video. “They don’t want any accountability whatsoever. They see parents as a nuisance. They don’t see parents as a customer. They don’t see parents as a partner in the relationship. They see parents as the enemy.”

DeAngelis grabbed headlines late last year after decade-old gay porn videos of him resurfaced on the internet. The release of the footage prompted him to take “paternity leave” from his job at the American Federation for Children, a voucher-focused lobbying group.

The timing of AIM’s alleged SAISD exposé and DeAngelis’ reemergence into the public spotlight come as Abbott continues to pressure the Texas House to pass school voucher legislation that Democrats and rural Republicans joined forces to shut down last session.

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This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...