Women's volleyball team with transgender player getting police protection amid backlash and lawsuit

The San Jose State women's volleyball team is getting added security in the form of police protection amid a national controversy over a transgender player on the team, according to a university spokesperson.

"I can confirm that we are using university police to provide extra security for the team at their home and away games," San Jose State's Senior Director of Media Relations Michelle Smith-McDonald told Fox News Digital on Thursday. 

The university's police department annually documents about 60,000 incidents, arrests between 800 and 900 suspects and writes about 2,500 reports. The Police Communications Center dispatches personnel to more than 50,000 calls for service each year, according to the station's website. 

However, Smith-McDonald said the department's resources are now necessary for the volleyball team due to the scale of national media attention the team has garnered in recent weeks.

"The safety of our students is our top priority. The team has been a subject of significant attention, not all of it positive, and we are ensuring their security," Smith-McDonald said. 

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The team is coming off of a loss against Colorado State on the road on Thursday, in which Blaire Fleming, a transgender female, took the court for San Jose State. Fleming transferred to San Jose State in 2022 from Coastal Carolina. As a biological male, Fleming previously set a high school record at John Champe High School with 30 kills in a match and a single-season record of 266 kills for the school's girls' volleyball team. 

Footage on Fleming's Hudl page of the school-record 30-kill match in September 2019 shows how hard and fast Fleming's spikes came down at the high school level against girl opponents.

The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) requires transgender women to submit documentation including testosterone levels before a decision is made on their eligibility to play. San José State has said they are in full compliance with NCAA rules.

However, the program is still facing resistance in the form of a lawsuit from one of its own players over Fleming's presence on the team and in the locker room. Four other competing programs have also forfeited matches against San Jose State without providing a specific reason, after news of the lawsuit began to spread. 

Brooke Slusser, a member of San Jose's women's volleyball team, joined 18 other athletes in suing the NCAA over its current gender identity policies. The lawsuit alleged Slusser, who transferred to San Jose, felt concerned for her safety after realizing one of her new teammates was transgender. 

Slusser joined in the lawsuit that former NCAA swimmer and OutKick contributor Riley Gaines began earlier this year over having to share a locker room with and compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male who tied with Gaines at the 2022 NCAA championships. 

Slusser claimed she was not aware that Fleming was transgender despite sharing rooms together on team trips, per the court documents. Slusser also expressed safety concerns for opponents playing against Fleming. 

"Brooke estimates that Fleming’s spikes were traveling upward of 80 mph, which was faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball," Slusser’s complaint read. "The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves."

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The four teams that have forfeited matches against San Jose State in recent weeks are Boise State, Southern Utah, Wyoming and Utah State. 

Colorado State, however, opted to play their match against San Jose State on Thursday. It just so happened to be Colorado State's annual inclusive excellence game. The University of Nevada also preemptively committed to playing San Jose State on Oct. 26, Nevada announced in a statement on Thursday. 

The controversy surrounding whether Fleming should be allowed to compete and share locker rooms with women's volleyball players has resulted in impassioned arguments on both sides of the issue. 

Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox have each commended the universities in their respective states, Boise State in Idaho and Utah State and Southern Utah in Utah, for forfeiting their matches against San Jose State. 

"It is essential that we preserve a space for women to compete fairly and safely. Our female athletes are left grappling with this difficult issue because the NCAA has failed in its responsibility to protect female athletes and women’s sports. It’s time for the NCAA to take this seriously and protect our female student athletes," Cox wrote in a post on X. 

Meanwhile, Little, who passed an executive order in his state on Aug. 28 aimed to oppose transgender inclusion in girls' and women's sports, commended his order for playing into Boise State's decision to forfeit. 

"I applaud Boise State for working within the spirit of my Executive Order, the Defending Women’s Sports Act," Little's post on X read. "We need to ensure player safety for all of our female athletes and continue the fight for fairness in women’s sports." 

Little previously told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that there were no incidents of transgender athletes competing in women's sports that occurred in his state that factored into his executive order prior to him passing it. Now, Boise State has ensured that trend continues. 

"Obviously, a person with those kind of advantages, somebody that had competed previously in male sports and then transitioned over to compete in women’s sports, that’s what I’m certain the good people of Idaho think is wrong and shouldn’t happen," Little said.

"From a national standpoint, there are radical little groups that want to implement changes in the rules that we have already. I’m confident in what we have, and we will aggressively (act), as the state of Idaho, both legally and legislatively to protect women’s athletes and the great advances they’ve made because of Title IX." 

However, LGBTQ rights groups have advocated for Fleming's right to compete as a women's volleyball player. 

LGBTQ advocacy group Wyoming Equality communications coordinator Santi Murillo released a statement on Wednesday saying, "Athletics should be about fostering teamwork, growth and healthy competition — not about discrimination and exclusion." The statement was in response to the University of Wyoming canceling its match against San Jose State when it became the third program to do so on Tuesday. 

New Jersey Democrat congressional candidate Sue Altman went so far as to say that women athletes in locker rooms "aren't worried" about transgenders competing in their sports and that biological men should be able to compete in girls' sports at the youth level. 

"I promise you that in the locker rooms of women’s sports teams, we’re not super worried about this," Altman told the New York Post. 

"If we decide as a society that making rules about who is and who isn’t female is more important than giving young children a chance to be on teams and compete and to be part of something bigger than themselves, especially young people who are more susceptible to suicide and bullying, then I think we’ve lost our way a little bit."

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