San Jose State’s Blaire Fleming sheds light on her tumultuous senior season as a trans athlete in NYT interview

Former San Jose State volleyball player Blaire Fleming publicly acknowledged being a transgender athlete and opened up about her tumultuous final volleyball season with the Spartans in a lengthy, recently published interview with The New York Times Magazine.

Fleming’s senior season was marred by forfeits, frequent online abuse and legal action as she and the Spartans unwittingly became central figures in a national transgender athlete debate that became a divisive topic of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

In the story published Sunday, Fleming spoke publicly for the first time about a gender transition that she began as a teenager and kept fairly private until it was revealed by a conservative website in April 2024.

The ensuing firestorm was so chaotic that Fleming considered doing what so many opponents wanted: quitting the team. She told Times writer Jason Zengerle that while she played well and the Spartans advanced to the conference title match, aided in part by six opponent forfeits, the whole ordeal was “the darkest time in my life.”

Fleming talked about her childhood realization that she was different from other kids, saying she initially thought she may be gay, but when she first heard the word “transgender” in eighth grade, “I felt this huge relief and a weight off my shoulders. It made so much sense,” she told the Times. She began her gender transition at age 14.

Fleming and Brooke Slusser, senior teammates and former roommates swept up by the ensuing wave of media and political attention, also shared new revelations about how their friendship suffered over the last year.

While Slusser initially supported Fleming as a friend, despite a personal belief that transgender women should not compete in women’s sports, their relationship turned for the worse in September when Slusser joined a lawsuit aimed at preventing Fleming from playing for San Jose State.

When Slusser found out from a Reduxx Magazine story last spring that Fleming was transgender, she said to Fleming, “I hope you’re doing OK, because no one deserves this amount of hate on media. They don’t know you as a person,” the Times reported.

But when the two traveled to Europe along with a Mountain West all-star team, Slusser heard from opposing players that their schools could refuse to suit up against SJSU if Fleming was still on the roster.

This seemed to be a turning point for Slusser, who pressed San Jose State coach Todd Kress about how he intended to respond to potential forfeits.

“There’s a certain point where it’s like, ‘OK, the one person in this scenario that’s causing all this should be removed, and we can play this game,’” Slusser reportedly told Kress.

Months later, in September, Slusser joined a class-action lawsuit whose plaintiffs included former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines and other members of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, a nonprofit that advocates for transgender bans in women’s sports.

Slusser’s decision to join the lawsuit distressed Fleming, who said, “I felt betrayed and perplexed. I didn’t understand how she could care about me and do this at the same time.”

Slusser’s choice to join the lawsuit turned San Jose State and transgender athlete participation into national news and, eventually, into a talking point in the November election and the presidential race.

Within the team, the dynamic also changed. Initially, Kress had expressed some disdain that he and his staff had inherited a transgender player from previous SJSU coach Trent Kersten. In an email unearthed by the Times, Kress responded to a reader of the original article that outed Fleming by saying, “Maybe you should do your research and discover which Head Coach and coaching staff was here when this (student-athlete) was recruited/brought to SJ.”

But as time went on and external pressure increased, Kress became someone in whom Fleming could confide. Eventually, he championed her right to play.

“He was so empathetic,” Fleming said. “He tried very hard to be there for me.”

But Kress and Fleming’s communication was the exception, not the rule.

Players began skipping practices, citing mental health breaks, according to former associate coach Melissa Batie-Smoose. Yelling matches reportedly occurred in the middle of the practice sessions, with Kress at one point calling what took place a “bitch fest,” the Times reported.

Kress and Slusser stopped speaking, leaving Batie-Smoose as a go-between. Then Kress and Batie-Smoose, his first hire at SJSU and longtime assistant coach, stopped talking, and she filed a Title IX complaint alleging preferential treatment toward Fleming.

After that complaint was filed, Batie-Smoose was suspended indefinitely from San Jose State and did not have her contract renewed when it expired in February.

All the while, the Spartans kept playing when they had opponents who would face them. Fleming reportedly “cried almost every night and considered quitting multiple times during the season,” at one point feeling suicidal.

The Spartans finished second in the Mountain West and reached the tournament title game via a Boise State forfeit in the semifinal. With an NCAA Tournament berth on the line, they fell to Colorado State in the championship game.

Fleming and Slusser, the former roommates at the center of the Spartans’ chaotic season, are finishing up their SJSU courses remotely from their home states, preparing for what post-graduate life will bring.

San Jose State volleyball is moving on as well.

After the season, seven players reportedly transferred from SJSU. Six remain on the team.

If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Call or text the lifeline at 988, or see the 988lifeline.org website, where chat is available.