More women’s college volleyball teams forfeit match against San Jose State over trans player
More women’s volleyball teams have forfeited matches against San Jose State University because the California school has allowed a male athlete to compete on its women's team.
The University of Wyoming women’s volleyball team will forfeit its game against SJSU, which was scheduled for Saturday, Multiple news outlets have reported that the decision to forfeit was made because the male athlete, Blaire Fleming, would be playing for San Jose. Fleming, a man, identifies as a woman.
“After a lengthy discussion, the University of Wyoming will not play its scheduled conference match against San José State University in the UniWyo Sports Complex on Saturday, Oct. 5,” Nick Seeman, UW’s assistant athletic director, said in a statement on Tuesday, as quoted by WyoFile.
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“Per Mountain West Conference policy, the Conference will record the match as a forfeit and a loss for Wyoming. The Cowgirls will host Fresno State on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the UniWyo Sports Complex.”
Santi Murillo, spokesperson for the LGBT activist group Wyoming Equality, denounced the forfeiture, claiming it was “yet another troubling instance of politics overshadowing fair competition in collegiate sports.”
“Athletics should be about fostering teamwork, growth, and healthy competition — not about discrimination and exclusion,” stated Murillo, as quoted by WyoFile.
“We believe every athlete, including transgender athletes, deserves the opportunity to compete and play the sports they love. This is personal to me, as the first transgender athlete at UW I experienced the best of Wyoming, a focus on playing sports, not politics. Taking away opportunities to compete hurts all athletes.”
Utah State University has also decided not to have its women’s volleyball team compete against SJSU for their scheduled Oct. 23 game, issuing a brief statement on Wednesday.
UW and Utah State join Southern Utah University and Boise State University of Idaho as schools whose women’s volleyball teams have refused to play against SJSU because it's allowing a man to compete against women.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who signed an executive order in August prohibiting men from competing in women’s sports, took to X to commend Boise State for its decision.
“I applaud [Boise State] for working within the spirit of my Executive Order, the Defending Women’s Sports Act. We need to ensure player safety for all of our female athletes and continue the fight for fairness in women’s sports,” he tweeted.
One of Fleming’s SJSU teammates, Brooke Slusser, is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association over alleged violations of Title IX.
Filed in March by the group Independent Council on Women’s Sports, the lawsuit alleges that the NCAA has violated Title IX by allowing men to compete in women’s sports.
Slusser told OutKick that she joined the lawsuit because “it's something I truly believe in” and that this was “something that so many people do care about,” saying that having Fleming on her team was “a really hard pill to swallow.”
"I couldn't comprehend the fact that there was a man on the team, and it was almost as if I was in denial for a really long time that this was happening," Slusser said. "So it was just really hard for me to wrap my head around.”
"And then, it still being a topic we weren't really allowed to talk about. It was just kind of whispers behind closed doors that this is what's happening, but no one's really talked about it or addressed it."
