University Volleyball Team With Trans Player Headed To Playoffs

A Mountain West Conference women’s volleyball team with a player reported to be transgender is headed to the championship tournament, the conference announced Saturday.

San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team grabbed headlines in September when team co-captain Brooke Slusser joined women’s rights groups and activists in suing the NCAA.

Slusser’s addition to the lawsuit says that San Jose outside hitter Blaire Fleming is transgender and poses both an unfair advantage and safety risks to other girls on the court.

San Jose’s 2024 season has been marked by automatic forfeiture wins, including four from past games and two more forfeitures of games scheduled for later this month. Now ranked second in the conference, the team has an 11-4 conference record, 13-4 overall.

“The Spartans are headed to the championship!!” reads a Saturday post by the Mountain West Conference’s page on X (formerly Twitter). An emoji with starry eyes punctuates the announcement.

“We are headed to Vegas!” added SJSU volleyball’s page in a re-post comment.

Comments under the post have been disallowed after a barrage of mostly non-supportive remarks were made shortly after its publication.

"Helps when you have a dude on the team," one commenter said. Most of the comments were of that variety.

Forfeits

Colorado State University is ranked first at 11-2 in conference play. CSU opted Oct. 3 to play SJSU, and swept the California team in three matches.  

The University of Wyoming is ranked seventh in conference. Its team has forfeited two matches it was scheduled to play against SJSU — one scheduled for Oct. 5 and another slated for Nov. 14 — chalking both up as Wyoming losses.

Boise State University, Utah State and Southern Utah also have forfeited matches.

Despite not being officially backed by their school, the women of the University of Nevada-Reno volleyball team voted to forfeit their Oct. 26 game. The women authored a statement on why, and became the first team to clearly cite the transgender controversy.

“We demand that our right to safety and fair competition on the court be upheld,” wrote the women in a statement last month. “We refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes.”

‘But We Played Decent’

The Spartans’ tournament announcement followed two recent losses, a 1-3 loss to University of Nevada Las Vegas on Thursday and a 1-3 loss to San Diego State on Saturday.

Head Coach Todd Kress said the losses came from not seizing opportunities on the court.

“But we played decent at times, again,” said Kress in a Saturday interview posted to the SJSU volleyball page on X, “another match that we had opportunities but we just didn’t make the play.”

Fleming led both teams in kills, making 15 compared to San Diego’s kills leader Taylor Underwood, who had 14. Nayeli Ti’a had the second-most kills for the Spartans at nine.

The box score attributes 17 points to Fleming, the most for any Spartan in the challenge.

San Diego player Shea Rubright outscored Fleming, at 18.

SJSU’s next match is at home in California on Nov. 16 against CSU.

The championship tournament runs Nov. 27-30, in Las Vegas.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.