What to know about the San Jose State volleyball team and why opponents are boycotting games

Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez recently told The Associated Press that the unrest concerns her.

“It breaks my heart because there are human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue who are getting a lot of negative attention nationally,” Nevarez said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

How do some opposing players feel?

Gaines posted a photo on social media of female volleyball players wearing Utah State T-shirts that read “Boycott.” The Aggies lost Wednesday’s game. Nevada players held a team meeting to discuss the school’s decision to play San Jose State before the venue changed from Nevada to California and before the game was canceled by the Wolf Pack on Thursday.

“We have decided that we will stand in solidarity with other teams that have already forfeited and that we will not participate in a game that promotes gender discrimination or injustice against female athletes,” Nevada senior Sia Liilii told OutKick, a website owned by Fox Corp.

Colorado State also had a team meeting and chose to play.

“It’s an incredibly complex and divisive issue,” Rams coach Emily Kohan said after her team handed San Jose State its first loss of the season on Oct. 3. “I’m very proud that our team is leading with grace and continuing to discover its own. themselves and what is important to them.”

How did it get to this point?

Some sports associations, legislatures and school districts have tried in recent years to restrict the ability of transgender athletes, particularly transgender girls and women, to compete according to their gender identity.

They and their supporters say the participation of transgender women encroaches on the space created by Title IX for women and girls. And they argue — to a point of contention — that trans women have a natural physical advantage over cisgender women.

In 2022, swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship. Gaines’ lawsuit details how she and other swimmers felt when they learned they would be sharing a locker room with Thomas at championships that season in Atlanta. Thomas swam to Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.

World Aquatics has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events. World Athletics, the governing body for athletics, did the same. In 2022, the NCAA revised its policies regarding the participation of transgender athletes, adding national and international sports governance standards to its own rules.

These rules came into effect this year. Under them, USA Volleyball’s policies prevail for NCAA competitors in the sport. USA Volleyball says a trans woman must suppress testosterone for 12 months before competing, and the NCAA has not flagged any issues with San Jose State.

Advocates for transgender athletes argue, among other things, that the broad restrictions exaggerate the prevalence of the problem, based on high-profile examples like Thomas.

Do trans women have an advantage in sports?

Proponents and opponents of the restrictions each point to limited studies that support their respective views. The science is in its infancy, said Joanna Harper, a postdoctoral researcher of transgender athletic performance at Oregon Health and Science University.

Trans women are, on average, taller, bigger and stronger than cis women, even after hormone therapy, Harper said. But they can also have disadvantages.

“Their bigger frames are now fueled by reduced muscle mass, reduced aerobic capacity, and that could lead to disadvantages in things like speed, endurance, recovery, etc.,” she said.

A key nuance that is often missed, she said, is whether a trans woman experienced male puberty — with a lot of testosterone — and went through it afterward, or went through female puberty with the help of hormone therapy that suppressed testosterone production.

“There are some obvious differences between trans women who have gone through male puberty and those who haven’t,” Harper said.

Anti-trans rhetoric often casts transgender girls and women as “biological men.” But that’s not the case, Harper said.

“Human biology, sexual biology, is complicated and involves many factors,” Harper said. “And exactly what those factors are is not universally agreed upon.”

What does Title IX say?

In April, the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden finalized new rules in Title IX to clarify that it also prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The administration originally had a plan to ban transgender athletes outright, but delayed it during an election year. Proponents of the bans complained that even the finalized rule requires schools to allow trans participation in sports, though it does not specifically mention the sport.

The fate of the new rule is up in the air. Officials in many states — California not among them — have sued to block it and have been backed by federal court rulings. A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in August that it declines to question those decisions.