SJSU transgender volleyball scandal: Timeline of allegations, political influence and a raging tradition motion

The San Jose State volleyball workforce is about to compete in one of the unprecedented school tournaments in ladies’s sports activities historical past this week. 

The Spartans will compete in Las Vegas for the Mountain West Match, and all eyes can be on senior Blaire Fleming. Fleming’s participation within the match this week was in query after an emergency listening to in Colorado, when plaintiffs, together with Fleming’s teammate Brooke Slusser, contested that Fleming ought to be excluded from this 12 months’s match on the premise of being a organic male. 

Nevertheless, Fleming is within the clear after a federal decide dominated that the athlete can be allowed to play. With Fleming on the courtroom, the match is certain to be on the heart of nationwide political discourse over the results of trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities. 

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The scenario involving Fleming and Slusser grew to become a nationwide scandal, highlighting a difficulty that grew to become a deep vulnerability for Democrat candidates main as much as the November election.

The story of Slusser, Fleming and the discourse that rippled all through the nation will come to a head in Las Vegas. Right here is the way it received there. 

January 2021

President Biden, hours after assuming workplace, issued an government order on “Stopping and Combating Discrimination on the Foundation of Gender Id or Sexual Orientation.” (AP Photograph/Susan Walsh)

On Jan. 20, 2021, simply hours after President Biden assumed workplace, he issued an government order on “Stopping and Combating Discrimination on the Foundation of Gender Id or Sexual Orientation.” 

This order included a bit that learn, “Youngsters ought to be capable to be taught with out worrying about whether or not they are going to be denied entry to the restroom, the locker room, or college sports activities.” 

It was simply the primary in lots of steps taken by the Biden administration and Democrat lawmakers on the congressional and state degree that enabled a sudden wave of trans athletes to compete as women and girls within the U.S. through the present president’s time period. 

It set a transparent precedent for Biden’s complete get together on what the baseline stance on trans inclusion in ladies’ and ladies’s sports activities could be. 

Summer time 2022

Fleming got here to the Bay Space as a switch forward of the 2022 season. Fleming, a Virginia native, transferred from Coastal Carolina as one of many prime gamers within the switch portal. Fleming beforehand set a single-game document at John Champe Excessive Faculty with 30 kills in a match in 2019 and a single-season document of 266 kills for the varsity’s ladies’ volleyball workforce. 

Footage from the athlete’s Hudl web page of the school-record 30-kill match in September 2019 reveals how arduous and quick Fleming’s spikes got here down at the highschool degree in opposition to lady opponents.

Blaire Fleming performs in opposition to Air Drive Falcons at Falcon Courtroom at East Gymnasium on Oct. 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Photographs)

In accordance with testimony by former San Jose State assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose in a lawsuit in opposition to the college and the Mountain West, Fleming was given a full scholarship. The lawsuit alleges coaches and the athletic division have been conscious Fleming was a organic male. 

In the meantime, Fleming’s arrival on the workforce, and alleged pure skill to spike the ball more durable than the opposite gamers, might have ended up costing a feminine participant a spot and a scholarship. Former San Jose State volleyball participant Alyssa Sugai, who’s a part of the lawsuit and joined the workforce as a walk-on in 2021, alleges she declined provides to switch to a different college to remain at San Jose State for the 2022 season and probably earn a scholarship. 

Spring 2023

In April 2023, the Biden administration proposed a plan to forbid outright bans on transgender athletes. The define of the plan outraged conservatives who labeled it as a ploy to allow trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities. Nevertheless, some on the left thought the plan was truly too right-leaning.

Supporters of the plan argued that it will present framework for colleges and universities to place guidelines in place to limit trans inclusion legally. Sure Democrats, together with New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, labeled the plan as “indefensible and embarrassing,” in a publish on X for not being pro-trans sufficient. 

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It was one of many first indicators that there was a broad vary within the spectrum of beliefs on the difficulty of trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities inside the Democratic Social gathering, and an indication that extra infighting could be coming. 

Summer time 2023

Slusser got here to San Jose State one 12 months later as a switch out of Alabama. Slusser, a Texas native, was on a full scholarship, identical to Fleming. 

Slusser’s very first residence on the college was shared with Fleming, her lawsuit alleged. Slusser additionally alleged that nobody at any level ever indicated to her that Fleming was a organic male, even supposing head coach Todd Kress and others on the college have been conscious of it. 

San Jose State junior Brooke Slusser is from Texas and began her school profession on the College of Alabama. (Courtesy of San Jose State Athletics)

“Because of her private convictions and non secular beliefs, Slusser wouldn’t have roomed with Fleming or modified garments in entrance of Fleming if Slusser had identified Fleming was male,” the courtroom paperwork learn. 

“Slusser’s proper to guard her bodily privateness was violated by SJSU, Kress, and the MWC via actions, insurance policies and practices that prompted her to lose her proper to bodily privateness with out consent and in opposition to her will.”

Fall 2023

Slusser and Fleming’s first season collectively at San Jose State noticed them share rooms collectively regularly, and the lawsuit alleges it was as a result of Fleming requested it. 

“Slusser did be taught nonetheless that the explanation she had been assigned to room with Fleming so typically throughout highway journeys within the 2023 season was that Kress and different SJSU ladies’s volleyball officers requested Fleming who Fleming needed to room with, and Fleming selected Slusser,” the courtroom paperwork learn. 

In the meantime, on the courtroom, the workforce struggled to a 13-18 document and didn’t even qualify for The Mountain West Match.

Then, close to the very finish of the disappointing season, Slusser discovered the reality. The lawsuit claims Slusser overheard a dialog between two San Jose State college students, who weren’t on the volleyball workforce, during which they referred to Fleming as “a man,” the courtroom paperwork state. The scholars then informed Slusser that her teammate who she had slept in the identical room with and undressed in entrance of was “a dude.” 

Slusser says she didn’t even know what to do with this info when she came upon, however it all made sense to her when she considered how excessive Fleming might leap and the way arduous Fleming might spike the volleyball. 

Nevertheless, Slusser simply sat on the knowledge and didn’t rush to any conclusions on the time. 

Spring 2024

Issues modified in April 2024 for San Jose State’s workforce and the nation. That month, the Biden administration handed a sweeping Title IX re-write that sought to guard trans inclusion and safety in colleges. 

The administration issued a sweeping rule that clarified that Title IX’s ban on “intercourse” discrimination in colleges covers discrimination based mostly on gender identification, sexual orientation and “being pregnant or associated circumstances,” in April. The administration insisted the regulation doesn’t tackle athletic eligibility. Nevertheless, a number of specialists introduced proof to Fox Information Digital in June that it will finally put extra organic males in ladies’s sports activities. 

That very same month, an internet information article targeted on Fleming prompted Slusser to lastly confront her teammate about what she had heard the earlier semester, per courtroom paperwork. 

The day the article was printed, Slusser got here again to her condominium, and Fleming and one other scholar requested if Slusser would be a part of them for ice cream. It was there Fleming revealed to Slusser the character of Fleming’s start gender. 

“Slusser requested why Fleming had not shared this info along with her earlier than, significantly as that they had been residing collectively. Fleming responded that there by no means appeared to be an excellent time to deliver it up, and that he had been afraid that Slusser won’t be his good friend if Slusser knew the reality. Fleming additionally mentioned that if Slusser was uncomfortable with it that Fleming would depart the volleyball workforce,” the paperwork learn. 

“Slusser was uncomfortable with Fleming persevering with on the SJSU Staff as she questioned whether or not it was secure or honest for the opposite ladies on the workforce and for opposing groups for Fleming to compete on the ladies’s workforce.”

A workforce assembly was held days later. It included Kress and different college officers. The lawsuit alleges that in that assembly, gamers have been informed not to discuss Fleming’s start intercourse publicly. 

“Criticism of Fleming or his participation on the SJSU Staff would point out bigotry and hurt their fame and will topic them to self-discipline or lack of their scholarship and may very well be thought of a violation of faculty insurance policies or state regulation,” the paperwork learn. 

August 2024

The Biden administration’s sweeping push to allow trans inclusion in ladies’s and ladies’ sports activities noticed its heaviest wave of resistance but in August. 

On Aug. 16, The Supreme Courtroom voted 5-4 to reject a Biden administration emergency request to implement its sweeping Title IX reforms in states that filed lawsuits or handed state legal guidelines in protest of it. 

The request would have permitted organic males in ladies’s bogs, locker rooms and dorms in 10 states the place there are state-level and local-level guidelines in place to stop it. 

Nevertheless, the Supreme Courtroom’s ruling struck a blow to the administration’s nationwide authority on the difficulty. Information of the ruling was broadly celebrated in conservative circles and introduced extra of a mainstream focus onto the difficulty on a nationwide scale. 

The difficulty garnered a lot consideration nationally, that even in states the place there have been no main incidents of it occurring, legal guidelines have been handed to verify it will not occur. Idaho was a kind of states, when Gov. Brad Little handed an government order to implement the “Defending Ladies’s Sports activities Act” in his state. Little informed Fox Information Digital in an unique interview that there have been no incidents of trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities that prompted the order, however it was fairly the affect of former NCAA swimmer and OutKick contributor Riley Gaines. 

Little cited Gaines as probably the most influential determine in his resolution to go the order.

Former aggressive swimmer Riley Gaines speaks throughout a marketing campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at Desert Diamond Enviornment on Aug. 23, 2024 in Glendale, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Photographs)

Gaines, an ascendent conservative influencer, grew to become a lightning rod, drawing consideration to the difficulty of trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities amid her ongoing lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA. Gaines’ expertise sharing a locker room and competing in opposition to Lia Thomas on the 2022 NCAA championships made her that lightning rod. 

Gaines then lent her affect to Trump and Republicans on the marketing campaign path. Gaines spoke at a former President Donald Trump rally in Arizona on Aug. 23, as Trump started to cement the agenda of defending ladies’s sports activities as a pillar of his marketing campaign messaging amid Democratic dysfunction on the difficulty. 

Gaines’ affect, together with the others who joined her within the lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA, planted the seeds for a widespread woman-first counterculture motion in opposition to the Biden administration and Democrats over the enabling of organic males in ladies’s sports activities. 

SJSU WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL’S 1ST OPPONENT DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT TRANS PLAYER, SUGGESTS MATCH WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED

On the final weekend of August, Fleming, Slusser and their San Jose State teammates kicked off their 2024 season on the Cal Fulerton Invitational in Fullerton, California. Their first opponent of the season, Louisiana Tech, took the courtroom in opposition to Fleming with out figuring out concerning the organic gender of the participant. 

Louisiana Tech head volleyball coach Amber McCray confirmed to Fox Information Digital that her workforce didn’t know concerning the scenario involving Fleming’s pure start intercourse, and they didn’t discover out till the day after the match by way of rumors from dad and mom. 

LA Tech athletic director Ryan Ivey urged that if that they had identified Fleming’s pure start intercourse, the workforce “would have sought “a unique final result,” in emails obtained by Fox Information Digital. 

September 2024

It was not lengthy earlier than the Spartans’ subsequent opponents caught on to what was occurring with Fleming. Ultimately, one of many applications determined to do one thing about it. 

Southern Utah’s volleyball workforce grew to become the primary workforce to forfeit its match in opposition to San Jose State on Sept. 14. 

Armed police safety was assigned to the workforce beginning with a match on Sept. 19 and has been current at each recreation since. Because the media consideration solely received extra intense, the varsity needed to fee the assistance of police departments in different states for the workforce’s away video games. 

On Sept. 23, Slusser made the consequential resolution to affix Gaines and the Impartial Council on Ladies’s Sports activities (ICONS) of their lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA, citing her expertise with Fleming and San Jose State. 

Slusser becoming a member of the lawsuit amplified the dimensions of the nationwide controversy for San Jose State. A college spokesperson, in liaison with the police division, confirmed to Fox Information Digital that the volleyball workforce was informed it will be getting added safety of some sort after its first cancelation by Southern Utah. 

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Quickly, extra groups adopted Southern Utah’s lead, as Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State all introduced forfeits to San Jose State that very same month. Every forfeit solely amplified the nationwide controversy surrounding the workforce, and it rapidly entered the political dialog. 

Gov. Little, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, all Republicans, praised the colleges and volleyball groups of their respective states who refused to face San Jose State in public statements. 

After a 9-0 begin to the season, and by advantage of the forfeits, San Jose State secured its twelfth win with out even having to play in that many video games by the top of September. 

The rising nationwide cultural motion to defend ladies’s sports activities grew in September, as sure logos and merchandise began to turn into extra simply synonymous with the motion. Mother and father in New Hampshire have been banned from a ladies’ soccer recreation that included a trans athlete for sporting armbands that learn “XX” in reference to the pure feminine chromosomes. 

The incident and a subsequent lawsuit finally proved to be a fruitful publicity stunt for the motion and sportswear model XX-XY Athletics, based by former gymnast Jennifer Sey. The model, tied to the activism of defending ladies’s sports activities, simply launched earlier this 12 months and noticed a surge in recognition when it landed Slusser as a sponsor. 

The motion to oppose trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities formally grew to become a profitable enterprise with natural advertising, all within the midst of a heated election 12 months.

October 2024

San Jose State’s first volleyball recreation of October was overshadowed by worry of Slusser’s bodily well-being. Slusser beforehand informed Fox Information Digital that the night time earlier than her workforce’s recreation in opposition to Colorado State on Oct. 3, her teammate obtained a message warning that teammate to maintain her distance from Slusser through the recreation, as a result of “one thing unhealthy” was going to occur to Slusser. 

Further police safety was assigned to the occasion, as a number of officers patrolled the ground that night time. 

Colorado State College police behind the San Jose State College Spartans bench monitor the Moby Enviornment throughout an NCAA Mountain West ladies’s volleyball recreation between the Spartans and the Colorado State Rams in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Photographs)

Afterward, Slusser mentioned she was made conscious of an alleged plot involving Fleming and Colorado State participant Malaya Jones that aimed to have Jones spike a ball into Slusser’s face through the match. These allegations have been included in an eventual Title IX criticism by Batie-Smoose in opposition to San Jose State and the lawsuit filed by Slusser and Batie-Smoose. 

The college has denied these allegations, and a Mountain West investigation into the incident concluded that there was inadequate proof to substantiate the claims. 

Nonetheless, it was a degree of frustration for Slusser, she mentioned, watching the college exit of its approach to defend Fleming. Nonetheless, the workforce continued to play collectively. Movies of Fleming’s spikes hitting opposing gamers went viral after a number of matches. 

Trump himself weighed in on the scenario involving Fleming throughout a city corridor occasion on the Fox Information Channel’s “The Faulkner Focus” on Oct. 17. Trump addressed Fleming instantly, referencing a video the place one of many athlete’s spikes was seen hitting the physique of one other participant. 

“I noticed the slam, it was a slam. I by no means noticed a ball hit so arduous, hit the lady within the head,” Trump mentioned. “However different individuals, even in volleyball, they’ve been completely, I imply, they’ve been actually damage badly. Ladies enjoying males. However you don’t should do the volleyball. We cease it. We cease it. We completely cease it. You possibly can’t have it.” 

Trump used the scenario as a springboard to disclose his intention to ban trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities totally if elected. It grew to become a speaking level he made positive to reference at each rally from then till election day, as he and Republican allies hammered the Democrats on their growing-unpopular place of defending trans inclusion. 

Ultimately, some Democrats needed to again off from their earlier positions supporting it. Texas Rep. Collin Allred needed to launch advertisements disavowing his previous help for permitting “boys in ladies sports activities” in a race to problem Sen. Ted Cruz for his Senate seat in Texas. 

Vice President Kamala Harris rarely addressed the difficulty throughout her marketing campaign and sidestepped questions on her previous positions trans inclusion in numerous interviews. Trump simply saved hammering the difficulty increasingly at each rally and in numerous marketing campaign advertisements that repeated the phrase “Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you.”

The results of Democrat-passed legal guidelines that defend trans inclusion got here underneath scrutiny main as much as a scheduled volleyball match between San Jose State and Nevada on Oct. 26. Main as much as that recreation, gamers on Nevada’s workforce approached the athletic division and expressed their want to forfeit the match. Nevertheless, the college didn’t honor these needs initially. 

A Nevada spokesperson informed Fox Information Digital that the college couldn’t forfeit the match as a result of it will be a violation of an modification to Nevada’s structure. A 2022 modification, handed by Democrats, established parameters that prohibited trans discrimination, and the college deemed that forfeiting a match over a trans participant would violate that regulation. 

Gamers got here ahead publicly condemning the college, garnering the reward and a spotlight of Tulsi Gabbard alongside the best way. 

The scenario involving the Nevada gamers talking out in opposition to their college and the NCAA over being pressured to face San Jose State grew to become a nationwide controversy by itself simply weeks earlier than the election, in a key battleground state. 

Ultimately, Nevada forfeited the match the day earlier than the sport after it concluded that it will not have sufficient gamers to compete. 

The Nevada gamers had prevailed because the nation watched a motion that was being pushed and powered by the fervour and defiance of younger ladies. 

November 2024

Batie-Smoose was suspended from San Jose State’s teaching employees on Nov. 2, the identical day because the workforce’s recreation in opposition to New Mexico. Batie-Smoose’s suspension got here after she filed a Title IX criticism that alleged the college was favoring Fleming over Slusser all through the scenario and alleging Fleming’s plot to have Slusser hit by a spike through the Oct. 3 Colorado State recreation. 

Slusser informed Fox Information Digital on November 3 that information of Batie-Smoose’s suspension prompted gamers within the locker room to cry, and left them feeling “unsafe.” 

Slusser additionally formally got here out in help of Trump’s proposed ban, calling it needed and including that she wouldn’t belief Democrats to deal with the scenario. 

“I believe it is utterly needed,” Slusser mentioned of Trump’s proposed ban. “We might belief much more that if Trump was elected issues could be dealt with in the best means that we would like them to be.”

The subject of Slusser’s workforce and transgender volleyball gamers as a complete grew to become a sudden speaking level at each Trump rally and on main cable information discuss reveals main as much as the election, as Democrats didn’t ship a unified message on the subject. 

Trump gained the election in a landslide, as Republicans additionally took management of the Senate and Home of Representatives. 

The aftermath of the Democrats’ crushing defeat prompted a lot of its figures and media pundits to level the finger at trans inclusion as one of many greatest points that misplaced them the election. HBO host Invoice Maher has devoted ample air time on his weekly present to lambasting Democrats for defending trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities and criticizing any within the get together who nonetheless stand behind it, within the weeks following the election. 

On Nov. 7, the New York Instances printed a narrative that quoted Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Tom Suozzi of New York, and every spoke out in opposition to trans inclusion and their get together for championing it during the last a number of years. 

Different Democrats, like Ocasio-Cortez and newly-elected transgender Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, are nonetheless firmly in favor of far-left insurance policies to defend trans athletes that need to compete in opposition to ladies, leaving the get together with an unresolved divide going ahead. 

Biden-appointed federal Decide Kato Crews in Colorado was the newest determine with Democrat ties to allow trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities, when he dominated that Fleming could be eligible to play within the upcoming Mountain West Match after an emergency listening to by ICONS and Utah State to have Fleming disqualified from competing. 

Now, the nation will get to look at the product of that ruling, mixed with legal guidelines in California that defend trans inclusion in ladies’s sports activities, which have allowed Fleming to take the courtroom with a convention title on the road in Las Vegas. 

San Jose State is assured to play both Boise State or Utah State within the semifinal spherical. Each groups have already refused to face Fleming and the Spartans within the common season. 

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