Women Say No Again – This Time Louder – to Males in Women’s Sports (Part 1)

San Jose State University Volleyball Controversy Heats Up

Sep 30, 2024

Hi friends and welcome newcomers!

Two women’s volleyball teams have boycotted matches against San Jose State University (SJSU) this month after it was revealed that one of SJSU’s star players, Blaire Fleming, is male.1

I can think of no other time in history when women’s teams forfeited games on principle. Practices, yes. But not games. To college athletes, especially in Division I schools such as Southern Utah University and Boise State University, choosing to sit out a game constitutes an enormous sacrifice. They are opting out of an meaningful, exciting, even thrilling event. In the Boise State case, the forfeiture also counts as a loss on the school’s win/loss record.2

To boycott is to make a loud statement, almost a scream. It’s as if both teams leapt up high, all arms lifted, to block a spike.

What are the two teams screaming?

Blaire Fleming, the male (trans-identified) athlete, is a 6’1” redshirt senior. Fleming holds SJSU season or individual-game records for kills, spikes, and serves, and has been named Collegiate Player of the Week; Most Valuable Player; and Collegiate All-Conference. SJSU’s team is undefeated so far this year (10-0, including the two forfeited games).

Why must female sports be all-female? A brief reminder

The female sports category exists because on average, males are taller, stronger, and faster than females. They have longer arms and legs and larger hands, hearts, and lungs. They can leap higher and spike harder.
Medication and surgery do not remove male sport advantages.3
Each male who plays on a women’s team displaces women who would have made the team, made the starting lineup, made friends, developed skills and confidence, won awards and scholarships, and enjoyed the countless other benefits of sports participation.

What do we need to know about volleyball and SJSU?

Women’s volleyball nets are hung 7.5 inches lower than men’s nets. When a man plays on a woman’s court, he’s using equipment specifically designed to accommodate female height, strength, arm length, and leaping ability. It’s akin to allowing male college basketball players to play on courts with lower rims.
The NCAA categorizes volleyball as a contact sport since athletes “routinely make contact with each other or with inanimate objects, making the risk of serious injury… a known risk.” High school volleyball player Payton McNabb suffered long-term neurological damage after being hit in the head with a ball spiked by a teenage boy who identified as trans. McNabb and her teammates “were against it from the beginning. We were all just so confused by how it could be allowed, and I guess we just had no idea what to do,” McNabb later said.4
San Jose State University already falls short of legal compliance with Title IX, according to a recent analysis by Champion Women, which gave the university a failing grade due to too few female athletes and too little scholarship and recruiting money for those athletes.

Brooke Slusser, Fleming’s teammate and a senior at SJSU, has joined a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for its transgender eligibility policy, which allows men to compete on women’s teams.

"Brooke estimates that Fleming’s spikes were traveling upward of 80 mph, which was faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball," says the lawsuit, filed in March by NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines and sixteen other young female athletes.5 "The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves."

The NCAA’s transgender eligibility policy defers to individual sports organizations. USA Volleyball’s policy: “Testosterone levels [for males who want to compete against women] must not exceed the upper limit of the normal female reference range for their age group.” However, for the over-18 age group, USA Volleyball requires testosterone levels of “less than 10 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L).” Which is about five times higher than the normal female reference range: 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L.

In any case: Women are not men minus testosterone.

Slusser, who transferred to SJSU from Alabama in 2023, was assigned to live with Fleming. The two also roomed together while on the road, which Slusser later learned was at Fleming’s request. No one told Slusser that Fleming was male. After overhearing other students refer to Fleming as a guy, Slusser began to realize she was being deceived not only by Fleming, but by school administrators, a story broken by Reduxx last spring.

“The NCAA is defrauding female athletes by withholding information about a teammate or opponent’s true sex. The NCAA’s reward system encourages deceit, leading to financial and academic advantages for males at the expense of… young women.”
— Marshi Smith, co-founder, the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), which is funding the lawsuit.6

Fleming and the officials eventually admitted that Fleming is trans but threatened students that if they spoke about it publically, "things would go badly for the team members," according to the complaint.7

Meanwhile, other groups and leaders are joining in. Concerned Women for America has filed a federal civil rights complaint against San Jose State University. Our Bodies, Our Sports, an ideologically diverse coalition of twelve advocacy organizations fighting for fairness in women’s sports, issued a statement in support of the boycotting teams, as have numerous elected leaders.

In a recent letter to 23 U.S. Senators who had urged the NCAA to keep female sports female, NCAA President Charlie Baker passed the buck. "The conflicting regulations, state laws and court decisions have created inconsistent and changing rules across the U.S. The NCAA… would welcome a clear, national policy on this topic."

The NCAA lawsuit is not yet resolved. The forfeited games count as losses. But combined, the lawsuit, the two unprecedented boycotts, the federal complaint, and the groundswell of support represent promising developments in a years-long campaign to protect female athletes from unsafe and unfair male incursions into women’s sports.

I find myself thinking again about the block. You have probably seen it. You may have done it. You stand at the net, ready. Then, just a moment after your opponent leaps to spike the ball into your court, you leap too, arms extended. If all goes well, you deflect the spike and the ball ricochets, satisfyingly, into the opponent’s court: an in-your-face defensive maneuver that can turn a game toward victory.

“How could they ever think that female athletes would allow men to take over our sports?” marvels Nancy Hogshead, Olympic swimming champion, Title IX attorney, and national leader in the movement for female-only sports. “Of course we’re going to fight back. Never underestimate the power and determination of female athletes.”

Other Stronger Women essays about the female sports category:

Thanks for reading & sharing Stronger Women.

As Martina Navratilova wrote in a guest column for Stronger Women, “The word for people with XY chromosomes is male. Male athletes have an advantage over female athletes because of their maleness. Yet many people seem afraid to use the words male and men. The phrase “transgender woman” is misleading, and deliberately so. It appears to describe a type of woman, but for purposes of women’s sports and women’s safety, we must remember that this phrase describes a type of man: the type who wishes he were female or tries to appear female by wearing clothes, hairstyles, and makeup that are stereotypically female. A woman is not a costume involving pantihose and lipstick. We’re not a makeover men can purchase in a department store. We are human females who dress how we please. Males who identify as transgender may also dress as they please. They’re still male.”

Southern Utah opted out of playing against SJSU in a non-conference tournament. Still.

See extensive research cited in this document: Our Position: “Female Sports Are for Female Athletes,” Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, May 24, 2024.

Ashley McClure, “After a Male Caused Her Partial Paralysis, Female Volleyball Player Payton McNabb Now Fights to Protect Women’s Sports,” Independent Women’s Forum, undated.

The list of athletes in the suit already included another volleyball player, Nanea Merryman, who competes on the Cedarville University volleyball team in NCAA Division II.

Anna Slatz, “Exclusive: Biological Male Quietly Joined Women’s NCAA Division 1 Volleyball at San Jose State University,” Outkick, April 17, 2024.

This intimidating language is similar to what University of Pennsylvania swimmers were told in 2022 after they complained about their male (trans) teammate, Lia Thomas, competing against them and stripping naked in their locker room.