On the court, the Spartans fell to Colorado State University in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, failing to advance to next month’s NCAA Tournament, where the spotlight on them would have grown even brighter.
The Spartans lost to Colorado State, the tournament favourite, three sets to one. The team had reached the final without having played a single game in the tournament: They had a first-round bye, and then had been scheduled to play Boise State in the semifinal, but, for the third time this season, Boise State boycotted the game in protest over the Spartans’ transgender player.
That player—who had been on the team for three seasons without complaints, until this year—did not publicly speak after the game, and has not all season. The player is not being named as she has not publicly confirmed her identity. The university also has not confirmed whether the team has a transgender player, citing educational privacy laws.
Along with Boise State, four other teams this season forfeited matches against the Spartans because of the player, putting San Jose State front and centre in one the most contentious issues in American life — one that brought people, both for and against the transgender player, to the Spartans’ games and uncommon attention to women’s college volleyball.
But the final went on peacefully. Fans cheered every player as she was introduced, and no one interrupted the game with a protest. The players acted as if the controversy did not exist. Between points, they highfived, directing and encouraging each other as the game progressed. After they lost they hugged each other. Some players climbed into the stands, which were sparsely filled with about 100 fans, to take photos with friends and family. Todd Kress, the Spartans’ coach, said in an emailed statement that he was proud of his players for staying together through a challenging season.Cases involving the question of transgender women’s rights in sports are being litigated in courts across the country, especially after 25 states barred transgender athletes from competing on teams consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. Some of those laws have been blocked while lawsuits against them make their way through the courts.In an interview this month, Brooke Slusser, a captain of the Spartans’ team, said she felt betrayed by her transgender teammate and the university when a conservative website published an article in April about the player’s identity, surprising some of her teammates. She said she did not “think it’s fair that a man is allowed to play.” She felt that it was so unfair that this month, she and the Spartans’ assistant coach filed a lawsuit to oust the transgender woman from the team.
Making the final without playing because of those forfeits would not have been fair to any of the teams, she said. But a federal judge this week rejected their lawsuit, clearing the player to compete with her team. On Tuesday, another judge rejected the plaintiffs’ appeal.
