A transgender volleyball player likely played his last game on Saturday night, marking the end of a controversial collegiate stint that captured national attention.
Blaire Fleming spearheaded San Jose State’s run-up to the championship match even as teammate Brooke Slusser advanced both a Title IX complaint and a formal lawsuit against Fleming. The latter’s in-game dominance led Boise State, Utah State, Wyoming, Nevada, and Southern Utah to forfeit seven games total games throughout the season, including a tournament semifinal.
Fleming’s recruitment also remains a fraught topic. Suspended San Jose State volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose and former head coach Trent Kersten filed a lawsuit against the Mountain West for courting Fleming as a transfer recruit, offering the 6’1” star a full scholarship, allegedly with the knowledge that the athlete is a biological male.
“Prior to the 2022 season the then coach of the SJSU Team, Trent Kersten, recruited an outside hitter from Coastal Carolina University, a NCAA Division I program in Conway, South Carolina, named Blaire Fleming, who had entered the transfer portal,” the lawsuit read.
“Fleming was given a full scholarship to play for the SJSU Team. On information and belief, SJSU advised the MWC that Blaire Fleming was a trans-identifying male and would be participating in women’s volleyball on the SJSU Team.”
California remains one of 24 states that allow transgender collegiate athletes to play for teams that don’t align with their biological sex.
Former San Jose State volleyball players Alyssa Sugai and Elle Patterson later joined in on the lawsuit.
“As a result of her frustration and feelings of inadequacy, because she was not able to make the starting line-up through effort and sacrifice and because her diminished playing time behind Fleming prevented her from receiving offers through the transfer portal, Sugai faced depression during and after the transfer portal period and ultimately determined that she had no realistic choice other than to give up playing collegiate volleyball after the 2022 season,” a court document claimed.
“Losing to Fleming caused Sugai to doubt her ability to play volleyball at a high level, even though she had rigorously trained and competed since childhood. It also caused her to doubt her self-worth and caused her to feel ‘defeated.’”
Fleming’s inclusion on the women’s team fueled the hot-button political issue’s relevance on the national stage, with President-elect Donald Trump weighing in during a town hall.
“I saw the slam. It was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump said. “But other people, even in volleyball, they’ve been permanently, I mean, they’ve been really hurt badly.”
“Women playing men. But you don’t have to do the volleyball. We stop it. We stop it. We absolutely stop it. You can’t have it.”
Colorado Federal Judge Kato Crews, a Biden appointee, denied a motion for injunctive relief in a lawsuit lodged by collegiate volleyball players against the conference.
According to Crews, the plaintiffs’ request for an emergency delay “was not reasonable” and “would risk confusion and upend months of planning and would prejudice, at a minimum, (San Jose State) and other teams participating in the tournament.”