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

Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez recently told The Associated Press that the unrest worries 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 posted a photo on social media of female volleyball players wearing Utah T-shirts that read “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 divisive issue,” Rams coach Emily Cohan said after her team handed San Jose State its first loss of the season 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 to win an NCAA Division I national championship. The lawsuit involving Gaines details how she and 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, the governing body of athletics, 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.

These rules came into force this year. According to them, USA Volleyball’s policy favors NCAA members in the sport. USA Volleyball says a trans woman must have her testosterone levels down for 12 months before competition, and the NCAA sees no problem with San Jose State.

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 had a plan 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. Officials in many states (California is not one of them) have sued to block it and have been supported by rulings in federal courts. In August, a majority of the US Supreme Court wrote that it declined to question those decisions.