On Sunday, the University of Nevada at Reno’s women’s volleyball team told the university they planned to forfeit an upcoming match against San Jose State University, making them the fifth squad to do so this season. The reason was not made explicit, but it was clear to anyone who has followed the sport in recent months: the reported presence of a transgender player on San Jose State’s team.
Yet Nevada administrators say the match will be played, though they added that no player will be disciplined for sitting out. In a statement, the university alluded to its compliance with state and federal law as well as Mountain West Conference and NCAA regulations, “which include providing competition in an inclusive and supportive environment.”
That statement triggered a bevy of reactions, including from Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican of Nevada, who said he supported the athletes’ choice to not play.
The controversy is the latest chapter in the tense political battle over transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, in which opinions are strongly held and the rules are being actively litigated.
Last month, the San Jose State squad came under new scrutiny when one of its players joined an ongoing lawsuit against the NCAA, which was filed by 16 athletes who allege that the organization’s transgender-participation policy violates their rights under Title IX, the landmark gender-equity law. In her suit, the athlete, Brooke Slusser, named the transgender teammate, who has not spoken publicly about her gender identity.
The NCAA takes a sport-by-sport approach that delegates its transgender-athlete policy to an individual sport’s governing body. USA Volleyball requires trans women to submit their testosterone levels to ensure they do not exceed a certain amount. A spokesperson for San Jose State told The Chronicle that all players are eligible under NCAA rules.
I think we’ll continue to see that whatever route the institution takes, there’s going to be complaints one way or the other.
Since then, three teams have forfeited matches against the team: Boise State University, the University of Wyoming, and Utah State University. (Southern Utah University refused to play against San Jose State at a tournament earlier in the season.)
The colleges have been quiet about why their teams canceled the matches. (Only Boise State answered The Chronicle’s request for comment, pointing to its original statement.) Public statements released by the colleges on their websites or to other news outlets do not reference the transgender athlete. But public records reported on by Boise State Public Radio show that the San Jose State player was a focus of internal communications.
Republican state politicians have cheered the forfeits. Idaho’s Gov. Brad Little praised Boise State, and the governors of Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada all chimed in on social media as well. State legislators also urged the University of Wyoming to cancel their match.
Forfeiting a match can carry legal implications for colleges, though they may differ state by state. The Biden administration’s updated Title IX rule, which does not focus on participation in sports by transgender athletes but does broadly protect gender identity, is only in partial effect. Legal challenges have blocked the rule being carried out in about half of all states.
Colleges in states where the rule is blocked — like Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho — do not have to worry about violating the new rule, said Kasey Havekost, a higher-education and college athletics compliance lawyer at the firm Bricker Graydon. That’s not the case for states, like Nevada, where the rule is in effect.
Havekost said colleges could also face Title IX complaints from within by players who view the institution’s decision to play against a transgender athlete as a violation of their Title IX rights. “I think we’ll continue to see that whatever route the institution takes, there’s going to be complaints one way or the other,” she said. “It’s just navigating what legal risk the institution might want to take.”
The spate of forfeits comes amid continued debate over transgender participation in women’s sports. Some athletes and advocates argue that allowing transgender women to play is unfair to other players, while supporters of transgender participation say that rationale is just a political smoke screen.
Martina Navratilova, a former professional tennis player, is a member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, an advocacy group that believes the purpose of a women’s sports category is to exclude men. She told The Chronicle that she sees the recent decisions as female athletes taking matters into their own hands, and wishes that colleges and the NCAA would do more to protect them.
“Women have not been supported in this issue at all,” Navratilova said. “For everyday life, we obviously want all the rights for trans people that there are, but when it comes to sports and women’s sex-based spaces, that needs to stay based on sex, not based on gender identity.”
But other advocates dispute the notion that transgender women have an advantage on the court. “You can’t just say that because somebody was assigned male at birth, they’re going to be taller or jump higher or spike harder,” said Ashland Johnson, founder of the policy group Inclusion Playbook. “In this situation, we especially can’t say it because we actually know what this person’s stats are.”
Johnson said the issue is more of a political flashpoint than a genuine fight for the protection of women in sports. “The political tide is why we’re seeing this happen so much because the NCAA had a policy for a decade for trans inclusion that wasn’t challenged, and there were no incidents,” she said. “It was an effective policy, but when the political climate shifted, what we’re seeing is people pushing for nonevidence-based policies.”
A spokesperson for San Jose State said that the head coach of women’s volleyball, Todd Kress, was not available for an interview. “It is disappointing that our SJSU student athletes, who are in full compliance with NCAA and Mountain West rules and regulations, are being denied opportunities to compete,” the San Jose State spokesperson told NBC News.
At a post-game press conference last week, Kress said that his athletes have received hateful messages on social media. The team will have security detail at all future home and away matches.
He didn’t provide details on team dynamics but described the situation as the “largest task that I’ve ever had in my head-coaching career.” He said that the athlete who joined the lawsuit against her teammate was entitled to do so and that the team is striving to “keep it about volleyball.”
The University of Nevada Wolf Pack is scheduled to play San Jose State on October 26. It is unclear whether or how many players from the University of Nevada will choose to sit out. The San Jose State spokesperson told The Chronicle they consider the match “still up in the air.”
“We don’t take anything for granted,” Kress said at the press conference last week. “We have no idea what our schedule holds down the road.”
