The San Jose State women’s volleyball team finds itself at the center of a storm as the Spartans make a run toward their first NCAA Tournament appearance in more than two decades.
Overshadowing the program’s strong season are national talk-show hosts and politicians weighing in on one of its players. At issue is the participation of transgender women in women’s sports, which has taken on political implications — former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, recently spoke about the issue — and is apparently why five teams have canceled their games against San Jose State.
On Thursday night, the University of Nevada, Reno, became the latest team to call off a game against the Spartans, citing not enough players. The Wolf Pack were originally scheduled to host San Jose State this weekend but Nevada players announced they wouldn’t take the court, saying they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details. Nevada’s athletic department said it wouldn’t back out from the match, referencing state equality laws, but also said that no players will be disciplined if they do not participate.
The game was switched to San Jose, California, “in the interest of both programs,” the teams said in a joint statement — with no further explanation — before Nevada elected to forfeit.
So far this season, Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and now Nevada have canceled games. Given that Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada are members of the Mountain West conference, those contests are considered forfeits and count as valuable wins in the league standings for San Jose State.
In a lawsuit filed against the NCAA, plaintiffs cited unspecified reports asserting there was a transgender player on the San Jose State volleyball team, even naming her. While some media have reported those and other details, neither San Jose State nor the forfeiting teams have confirmed the school has a trans women’s volleyball player. The Associated Press is withholding the player’s name because she has not publicly commented on her gender identity and through school officials has declined an interview request.
More about the San Jose State issue and what’s at stake:
Who’s involved?
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports is funding a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports. It’s an action taken under the landmark 1972 federal antidiscrimination law known as Title IX and aims “to remedy sex discrimination against women in college athletics.” Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer and activist who campaigns against trans women in women’s sports, is a plaintiff.
Title IX prohibits sexual discrimination in federally funded education.
San Jose State senior setter and co-captain Brooke Slusser joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff on Monday.
Slusser said in a recent filing that her teammate hits the volleyball with more force than others on the team and that throughout practices this season she and some teammates, who are not named in the lawsuit, have been afraid of suffering concussions from being hit in the head by a volleyball.
A political topic
A 2023 Gallup survey found that 69% of Americans say trans athletes should be allowed to compete only on teams that conform with their birth-assigned gender, up from 61% in 2021.
As election campaigns come down to the wire, many Republicans have turned to rhetoric and ads targeting transgender people to motivate their conservative base.
GOP governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of the team cancellations, citing fairness in women’s sports. Trump last week was asked what can be done about transgender athletes in women’s sports and he replied: “You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”
Kadence Otto, a professor of sport management at Western Carolina University, saw hypocrisy in politicians’ objections that bans are needed to protect women.
“You have the same politicians who say women can’t control their own bodies, right? On the issue of their own right to, you know, whether or not to have a child or not,” Otto said.
What does San Jose State say?
San Jose State coach Todd Kress said the additional spotlight has taken a toll on his team, which is trying to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001.
“They’re receiving messages of hate, which is completely ridiculous to me,” said Kress, whose team is 11-3 overall this season. “Would you want your student-athlete, your daughter, to face the same kind of hate that you’re dishing out?”
Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez recently told the AP that the turmoil concerns her.
“It breaks my heart because they’re human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue that are getting a lot of national negative attention,” Nevarez said. “It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
How do some opposing players feel?
Gaines posted a photo on social media of female volleyball players wearing T-shirts at Utah State that read, “BOYcott.” The Aggies forfeited Wednesday’s game. Nevada players held a team meeting to discuss the school’s decision to play San Jose State, before the location switched from Nevada to California and before the game was called off Thursday by the Wolf Pack.
“We decided that we’re going to stand in solidarity with other teams that have already forfeited and that we wouldn’t participate in a game that advances sex-based discrimination or injustice against female athletes,” Nevada senior Sia Liilii told OutKick, a website owned by the Fox Corp.
Colorado State had a team meeting, too, and elected to play.
“It’s an incredibly complex and divisive issue,” Rams coach Emily Kohan said after her team handed San Jose State its first loss of the season on Oct. 3. “I’m really proud with our team leading with kindness and continuing to discover their own self and what’s important to them.”
How did it get to this point?
Some athletic associations, legislatures and school districts have sought in recent years to restrict the ability of transgender athletes, in particular transgender girls and women, to compete in line with their gender identity.
They and their backers say the participation of transgender women encroaches on the space Title IX carved out for women and girls. And they argue — in a point of dispute — that trans women have a natural physical advantage over cisgender women.
In 2022, swimmer Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship. The lawsuit that Gaines is a part of details how she and other swimmers felt when they learned they would share a locker room with Thomas at the championships that season in Atlanta. Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.
World Aquatics has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events. World Athletics, the governing body for track and field, has done the same. In 2022, the NCAA revised its policies on transgender athlete participation, adding national and international sports governing standards to its own rules, which were scheduled to be implemented this school year.
Transgender athletes’ backers argue, among other things, that sweeping restrictions overblow the prevalence of the issue based on a handful of high-profile examples like Thomas.
Do trans women have an advantage in sports?
Proponents and opponents of restrictions each point to limited studies supporting their respective viewpoints. The science is in its infancy, said Joanna Harper, a postdoctoral researcher of transgender athletic performance at Oregon Health and Science University.
Trans women are, on average, taller, bigger and stronger than cis women, even after hormone therapy, Harper said. But they also potentially have disadvantages.
“Their larger frames are now being powered by reduced muscle mass, reduced aerobic capacity, and that could lead to disadvantages in things like quickness, endurance, recovery, etc.,” she said.
One key nuance that often gets missed, she said, is whether a trans woman experienced male puberty — with lots of testosterone — and transitioned afterward, or went through female puberty with the assistance of hormone therapy that suppressed testosterone production.
“There are some obvious differences between trans women who have undergone male puberty and those who haven’t,” Harper said.
Anti-trans rhetoric often casts transgender girls and women as “biological males.” But that’s not the case, Harper said.
“Human biology, sexual biology, is complicated and involves many factors,” Harper said. “And exactly what those factors are is not universally agreed on.”
What does Title IX say?
In April, the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden finalized new rules in Title IX to clarify it also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The administration originally had a plan to forbid outright bans on transgender athletes but delayed it during an election year. Supporters of bans have complained that even the finalized rule requires schools to allow trans participation in sports, though it does not specifically mention sports.
The fate of the new rule is up in the air. Judges in many states — San Jose State’s home of California not among them — have sued to block it and have been supported by rulings in federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court majority wrote in August that it was declining to question those rulings.
