What you need to know about the San Jose State volleyball team and why opponents are boycotting games

The San Jose State Women’s Volleyball Team finds himself at the center of a storm as the Spartans look to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance in more than two decades.

The program’s strong season is overshadowed by national talk show hosts and politicians weighing in on one of its players. It’s about the participation of transgender women in women’s sports, which has taken on political significance — former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, recently spoke about it — and apparently that’s why five teams canceled their games against San Jose State.

On Thursday night, the University of Nevada, Reno became the latest team to cancel a game against the Spartans, citing insufficient players. The Wolf Pack was originally scheduled to host San Jose State this weekend, but Nevada players announced they did not take legal action, saying they “refuse to participate in any match that promotes injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details. Nevada’s athletic department said it would not waive the game, citing the state’s equality laws, but also said no player would be penalized for not participating.

The game was moved to San Jose, Calif., “in the best interest of both programs,” the teams said in a joint statement — without further explanation — before Nevada opted out.

Southern Utah, Boise, Wyoming, Utah and now Nevada have all canceled games this season. With Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada all members of the Mountain West Conference, these contests are considered losses and are considered valuable wins in the league standings for San Jose State.

In the legal process filed against the NCAAthe plaintiffs cited anonymous reports that claimed the San Jose State volleyball team had a transgender player, even naming her. While some media outlets have reported these and other details, neither San Jose State nor the wrestling teams have confirmed that the school has a transgender volleyball player. The Associated Press is not releasing the player’s name because she has not publicly commented on her gender identity and declined an interview request through school officials.

More on San Jose State’s challenge and what’s at stake:

Who is participating?

The Independent Council on Women’s Sports is funding a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing transgender women to participate in women’s sports. This is the action taken the landmark federal anti-discrimination law of 1972 known as Title IX and aims to “redress sexism against women in college athletics.” Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer and activist who opposes trans women in women’s sports, is the plaintiff.

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education.

On Monday, San Jose State senior athlete and captain Brooke Slasser joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.

In a recent statement, Slasser said her teammate hits the volleyball with more force than the rest of the team and that during practices this season, she and some teammates, who are not named in the lawsuit, were afraid get a concussion from being hit in the head by a volleyball.

Political topic

AND Gallup Poll 2023 found that 69% of Americans believe trans athletes should only be allowed to compete on teams that match their birth gender, up from 61% in 2021.

As election campaigns come down to the wire, many Republicans have turned to rhetoric and advertising targeting transgender people motivate your conservative base.

The GOP governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of eliminating the teams, citing fairness in women’s sports. Asked last week what could be done about transgender athletes in women’s sports, Trump said: “You just ban it. The president forbids. You just don’t let it happen.”

Cadence Otto, a professor of sports management at Western Carolina University, saw hypocrisy in politicians’ denials that the bans were necessary to protect women.

“You have the same politicians saying women can’t control their own bodies, right? Regarding the question of their own right to have a child or not,” Otto said.

What does San Jose State say?

San Jose State coach Todd Kress said the added spotlight has affected his team, which is trying to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001.

“They’re getting hate messages, which to me is absolutely ridiculous,” said Kress, whose team is 11-3 overall this season. “Would you want your student-athlete, your daughter, to face the same hate you did?”

Commissioner Mountain West Gloria Nevarez recently told the AP that the turmoil concerns her.

“It breaks my heart because these are people, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue who are getting a lot of negative attention nationally,” Nevarez said. “I just don’t think so.”

How are some of the opposing players feeling?

Gaines published a photo of volleyball players in T-shirts on social networks in Utah that says “BOYCOTT.” The Aggies lost the game on Wednesday. Nevada players held a team meeting to discuss the school’s decision to play San Jose State before the venue changed from Nevada to California and before the game was canceled Thursday by the Wolf Pack.

“We have decided that we will stand in solidarity with the other teams that have already lost and that we will not participate in a game that promotes gender discrimination or unfairness to female athletes,” Nevada senior Sia Liliy told OutKick, a website owned by Fox Corp.

Colorado State also held a team meeting and decided to play.

“It’s an incredibly difficult and controversial issue,” Rams coach Emily Cohan said after her team’s first loss of the season at San Jose State on Oct. 3. themselves and what is important to them.”

How did it get to this point?

Some sports associations, legislatures, and school districts have sought to limit the ability of transgender athletes, particularly transgender girls and women, to compete in accordance with their gender identity in recent years.

They and their supporters say the participation of transgender women encroaches on the space provided by Title IX for women and girls. And they argue—controversially—that transgender women have a natural physical advantage over cisgender women.

In 2022, swimmer Leah Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete win the NCAA Division I National Championship. The lawsuit involving Gaines details how she and the other swimmers felt when they learned they would be sharing a locker room with Thomas at that season’s championships in Atlanta. Thomas sailed to Pennsylvania. Before her gender transition, she played for the Penn men’s team.

The world of aquatics has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s competitions. World Athletics, athletics’ governing body, did the same. In 2022, the NCAA revised its policy on the participation of transgender athletes, adding national and international athletic standards to its own rules, which were slated to be implemented this school year.

Advocates for transgender athletes argue, among other things, that the sweeping restrictions overstate the prevalence of the problem, based on a few high-profile examples like Thomas.

Do trans women have an advantage in sports?

Both proponents and opponents of restrictions point to limited research supporting their views. The science is in its infancy, said Joanna Harper, a researcher on transgender athletic performance at Oregon Health & Science University.

According to Harper, transgender women are on average taller, bigger and stronger than cis women, even after hormone therapy. But they also have potential drawbacks.

“Their large frames are now fueled by reduced muscle mass, reduced aerobic capacity, and that can lead to deficits in things like speed, endurance, recovery, etc.,” she said.

One key nuance that is often missed, she says, is whether a trans woman went through male puberty — with lots of testosterone — and transitioned afterward, or went through female puberty with hormone therapy that suppresses testosterone production.

“There are some clear differences between trans women who experience male puberty and those who don’t,” Harper said.

Anti-transgender rhetoric often refers to transgender girls and women as “biological males.” But that’s not the case, Harper said.

“Human biology, sexual biology is complex and involves many factors,” Harper said. “And there is no general agreement on exactly what those factors are.”

What does Title IX say?

In April, the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden finalized new rules in Title IX to clarify that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is also prohibited.

The administration originally planned to ban transgender athletes outright, but postponed it during an election year. Supporters of the ban complained that even the final rule requires schools to allow transgender people to participate in sports, even though it does not specifically mention sports.

The fate of the new rule is up in the air. Judges in many states, not including San Jose, Calif., have sued to block it and have been upheld by federal court rulings. A majority of the US Supreme Court wrote in August that he refuses to question these decisions.

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Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela, AP sports reporters Mark Anderson and Jenny McCauley and freelance writer Glen Rosales contributed to this report.

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