How a trans athlete all but destroyed women’s volleyball

It can sometimes sound hyperbolic to say that trans ideology is ‘destroying’ women’s sport. But how else should you describe a situation where a university volleyball team can reach a regional final, without playing a single game?

Last week, the San José State University Spartans were preparing to play in the semi-finals of the Mountain West Conference tournament, which brings together teams across the western United States. That was until their opponents dropped out. The Boise State University team objected – quite understandably – to the presence of a male in the Spartans squad. This was actually the third time Boise State had forfeited a match against the Spartans this season. Utah State, Southern Utah and Nevada universities have all dropped out of games against them, too. The University of Wyoming‘s team refused twice.

At the centre of the row is Blaire Fleming, a six-foot-one biologically male athlete. In 2022, he was given a full scholarship by San José State to play for the Spartans. His trans identity was only made public in the media earlier this year.

It’s not just rival teams who object to Fleming playing women’s volleyball. Speaking to the Telegraph, Spartans co-captain Brooke Slusser says she and her teammates were told by the university that they had to accept him on the squad without complaint. They were all expected to share a changing room, bathrooms and even bedrooms with him. ‘We were never given a choice if Blaire should stay on the team’, Slusseer said. ‘If we had an issue with it then we were the problem.’

At the beginning of the season in August, Slusser and several other Mountain West athletes filed a lawsuit against San José. They argued that forcing women to play against a man violates Title IX anti-discrimination laws, which were introduced to ensure equal opportunities for women in education. But last week, a federal judge ruled that Fleming must be allowed to participate, because Title IX also protects against discrimination based on gender identity. Therefore, kicking him off the team would be a violation of his Title IX rights.

When you see Fleming in action, it’s easy to see why rival teams were so willing to forfeit their matches. In one video taken during a warm-up before last Saturday’s final, he can be seen slamming the ball across the net with a ferocious power and speed. However athletes identify, and even if they have medically transitioned, male puberty gives them considerable advantages over women – especially in terms of height, strength and wingspan. It immediately stacks the odds in their favour. And in some sports, this can put female athletes at needless risk of injury.

In the end, the Spartans lost their final match on Saturday against Colorado State and will not progress to the national tournament. Still, that doesn’t take away just how much damage was done to the competition by the inclusion of a male athlete.

Yet San José State Spartans remain unrepentant. After their defeat in the final, head coach Todd Kress took the opportunity to condemn the ‘appalling and hateful’ abuse being directed towards Fleming. ‘We did not take away anyone’s participation oportunities’, he insisted, ‘sadly, others who for years have played this same team without incident chose not to play us this season’. But what choice did those women have? So long as Fleming was on the team, they felt there was no possibility of a fair match.

This whole sorry saga is a perfect illustration of why men must not be allowed in women’s sports. Fleming did not even need to set foot on the court – being named on the team sheet was enough to almost wreck an entire tournament, devaluing the hard work of all the women who fought to get to that point in their sporting careers. In being accepted on to the team, he took an opportunity away from an actual woman to be granted a sporting scholarship. His teammates were robbed of their privacy, as what were once private, women’s spaces had to be opened up to a male. Worst of all, anyone who complained about any of this was branded ‘hateful’. Slusser even claims the university threatened to take away her scholarship as punishment for speaking out.

This is why we need to resist the incursion of gender ideology into sport. One male athlete, by his mere presence, was able to almost single-handedly ruin an entire sporting tournament. We can have ‘trans inclusion’ or women’s sports, but not both.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.