Colleges Taking a Stand for Women’s Sports

All eyes are on San Jose State University after four colleges have refused to play against their women’s volleyball team because it includes a 6-foot-1 biological male going by the name of Blaire Flemming. Additionally, one of SJSU’s co-captains joined a federal lawsuit challenging NCAA Title IX protections for transgender athletes in female sports based on her experience with Flemming.

It wasn’t until April of this year that news leaked about the true identity of Blaire Flemming – whose real name is Brayden. Reduxx initially reported that “a feminine male has been participating in elite women’s collegiate sports in California after his biological sex was reportedly withheld from his teammates and his opponents.” This news sparked outrage among parents and student-athletes, but SJSU took no action to rectify the situation.

The issue resurfaced last month as SJSU began their season with nine straight wins. One parent noted that Flemming was “basically unstoppable at times.” Volleyball nets for women’s matches are seven inches shorter than for men’s. The very fact that Flemming has the stature of a man, despite any hormone therapy or “gender-affirming care” he may have received, makes his participation in women’s volleyball entirely unfair, as height and power are key factors of the sport.

As concerns continued to mount about the unfair nature of the SJSU team, Boise State, Wyoming, Southern Utah University, and Utah State all abruptly canceled their matches against SJSU, electing to forfeit rather than put their female athletes at risk. Last week, Concerned Women of America (CWA) filed a federal civil rights complaint against the school.

“We want to protect the integrity of women’s sports but also the safety of these female athletes,” Macy Petty, a CWA legislative assistant, explained. “Many of these schools were unaware that there was a male athlete on this team until this news article came out in April. Female athletes were put in this odd position of showing up on the court and looking at the other side and realizing that something was different about this game.” (emphasis added)

In addition to the CWA civil rights complaint, last week one of SJSU’s co-captains, Brooke Slusser, joined an ongoing lawsuit headed by former college athlete Riley Gaines against the NCAA in Georgia.

In the lawsuit, Slusser said she was never told Flemming was a biological male, even after rooming with him on road trips. She shared that many of her teammates were concerned about getting concussed by Flemming’s spikes, which traveled at more than 80 mph and were “faster than [she] had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball.” Slusser said in the lawsuit that team members were told not to speak about Flemming’s gender with anyone outside the team.

“Due to the NCAA’s Transgender Eligibility Policies which permit Fleming to play on the SJSU women’s volleyball team and which led to SJSU recruiting Fleming, giving Fleming a scholarship, and allowing Fleming to be in positions to violate Brooke’s right to bodily privacy, Brooke has suffered physical and emotional injuries, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, mental anguish and suffering,” the lawsuit reads.

Female student-athletes who have worked their entire high school career to be at their dream college playing volleyball should not be forced to forfeit matches because other teams allow biological men to compete. Men have no place in women’s competitions – not only because it’s unfair, but because it’s dangerous and invalidates the years of hard work female athletes pour into their sport.

Share the Post:

Recent Articles

Amendment F: What it Does and Doesn’t Do

Governor Noem Joins SCOTUS Brief to Support “Help Not Harm” Bills

Colleges Taking a Stand for Women’s Sports

22 Attorneys General Stand Up to the American Academy of Pediatrics

South Dakota’s “Big Four” Speak Against Amendment G

Possible Unintended Consequences of IM 28

Scroll to Top