A San Jose State women’s volleyball player is eligible to play in her conference tournament this week, a federal judge in Denver ruled Monday, despite complaints from competitors who object to her participation on the grounds that she is transgender.
U.S. District Judge Kato Crews denied a motion seeking emergency injunctive relief to ban the San Jose State player, strip the Spartans of six league wins obtained by forfeit and prevent the team from participating in the Mountain West tournament which begins Wednesday.
In his 28-page ruling, Crews hardly addressed the alleged fairness and safety issues raised by San Jose State co-captain Brooke Slusser and other Mountain West women’s volleyball players. Crews instead focused on the timing of the plaintiffs’ complaint, filed less than two weeks before the Mountain West tournament was slated to begin in Las Vegas.
The Mountain West’s transgender participation policy has been in place since 2022 and all teams were made aware of it, Crews noted. The judge argued that the plaintiffs “could have have sought injunctive relief much earlier” since they’ve been aware of San Jose State’s alleged transgender player for months.
“The Court finds the movants’ delay was not reasonable,” Crews wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest they were precluded from seeking emergency relief earlier, and the rush to litigate these complex issues now over a mandatory injunction places a heavy lift on the MWC at the eleventh hour.”
San Jose State is seeded second in the Mountain West tournament and will receive a first-round bye. The Spartans on Friday are scheduled to face the winner of a quarterfinal match between third-seeded Utah State and sixth-seeded Boise State.
Utah State and Boise State were among the four Mountain West schools that forfeited matches against San Jose State during the regular season. Nevada and Wyoming also chose to boycott rather than face an opponent believed to have a transgender player among its top attackers.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” University of Nevada outside hitter Sia Liilii told Yahoo Sports last month. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.
“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
Yahoo Sports is not naming the San Jose State volleyball player in question because neither she nor her university have publicly commented on her gender identity. San Jose State has said that all its women’s volleyball players are eligible to participate under NCAA and Mountain West Conference rules.
The NCAA allows transgender women’s athletes to compete if they meet the eligibility criteria set by their sport’s individual governing body. For women’s volleyball, that means transgender women’s athletes must submit documentation of their testosterone levels for at least the previous year to prove they do not exceed the “normal female reference range for their age group.”
“We are gratified that the Court rejected an eleventh-hour attempt to change those rules,” San Jose State said Monday in a statement. “Our team looks forward to competing in the Mountain West volleyball tournament this week.”
Before it found itself at the center of the national firestorm surrounding transgender athletes, San Jose State women’s volleyball could not have been more obscure. This is a program that last won a conference title in 1985, last made the NCAA tournament in 2001 and that seldom draws more than a few hundred fans to home matches.
The player believed to be transgender had already played at San Jose State prior to this year for two seasons without incident. She didn’t make an all-conference team, nor was she among the Mountain West leaders in kills or kills percentage.
Her presence first drew attention last April when Reduxx published a story alleging that a San Jose State women’s volleyball player was transgender and had withheld her biological sex from teammates and opponents. The self-described “pro-woman, pro-child” outlet said it had begun reporting the story after receiving a tip from the mother of an opposing player.
In September, Slusser joined a federal lawsuit challenging NCAA policy allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports. Slusser roomed with the player in question after transferring from Alabama last fall but learned about her teammate’s alleged gender identity only after Reduxx outed her.
In the legal filing, Slusser insisted that her allegedly transgender teammate strikes the ball with such power that it provides San Jose State “an unfair advantage” and poses a safety risk to other players during practices and games. Slusser claimed the player’s spikes in practice were traveling “faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball.”
Those comments from Slusser tossed a lighted match on a pile of kindling. Local and national media outlets began covering the story, activist groups attacked San Jose State and right-wing politicians exerted their influence.
On the eve of its Sept. 28 match at San Jose State, Boise State released a 48-word statement revealing it would not play and would accept a forfeit loss. Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada followed suit. In each instance, the schools chose not to explain why they weren’t playing. In each instance, the announcements were followed by a social media post from a state senator or governor applauding the decision.
The lingering question since then has been how that quartet of programs would react if they drew San Jose State in the Mountain West tournament. Would they boycott again knowing that an NCAA tournament bid was at stake and that a loss would likely end their seasons?
That question still remains now that Crews has refused to provide injunctive relief.
Wrote the judge, “The Emergency Motion would risk confusion and upend months of planning. … On balance, the equities favor the MWC’s interest in conducting and proceeding with the tournament as planned.”
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