Democrat state lawmaker debates former NCAA volleyball player who forfeited to SJSU team with trans athlete
Arizona state senator Catherine Miranda, a Democrat, has come under scrutiny on social media after an exchange with former NCAA volleyball player and "save women’s sports" activist Kaylie Ray.
Ray showed up to the Arizona Senate Education committee hearing on Wednesday to lobby for a bill that would protect women's sports from biological males. She spoke from the perspective of a former Utah State captain who led a team forfeit against San Jose State in 2024, in protest of a trans athlete on San Jose State University (SJSU).
After Ray shared her testimony, Miranda opened her response by commenting on Ray's appearance.
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"I have my sports hat on now. It's all about a sports mentality, growing up in sports, being a tomboy. I mean, you look pretty healthy. I've played against girls that look like you. You look very much in shape and strong," Miranda said.
The state senator then argued against Ray's position and the bill by claiming she had competed against men herself in sports, and would compete against men in sports and ended her lecture with the question, "How competitive do you think you really are?"
At no point in Miranda's response did she ever use the word "transgender" or even "male" or "female." She simply referred to male opponents as "men."
"It's a sports mentality when you're growing up and how much competition that you'll take on. So it's not just a silver bullet for one community of sports players, it's the individual person on how competitive you wanna be. So you grew up one way. I grew up a different way. I would have taken on a man in a heartbeat. I've played in, I was the only girl sometimes in sports. But to have a man on my team, I would have welcomed it," Miranda said.
"But this is just my opinion … and that's why this bill is bad, because you're just putting a whole community of women's sports in one category. When women like me, we have a different opinion. So, how competitive do you think you really are?"
According to a 2017 post in Hispanic Engineer & Technology, Miranda previously spoke about her experience playing sports with her brother.
"Sports was my life. There were four girls and one boy in my family. My brother turned me into his ‘little brother’ so he could have someone to play sports with. I was a 100% tomboy," and claimed she was the only girl to play in a local little league, the website reported.
Ray argued back to Miranda at the hearing that the proposed bill would include three gender categories, male, female and co-ed.
"If you want to compete against your man, absolutely, let's do that in the co-ed section," Ray said.
"The clarity and distinction is really important. Because when men are allowed access into women's sports and spaces, it isn't women's sports and spaces anymore."
Ray has provided an expanded response to Miranda in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"I wonder if she could look Riley Gaines, Brooke Slusser, Lainey Armistead, Madison Kenyon, Mary Kate Marshall, and every single girl who has been forced to compete against a man in the eyes and tell them they simply are not competitive enough?" Ray said.
"Wanting fairness does not make someone a coward. Wanting safe and equal competition does not mean a girl does not have what it takes. It means she respects herself and the effort and dedication that women have put into building opportunities in sports. . . . No single woman has the right to give away the opportunities and protections that so many others worked so hard to secure."
Fox News Digital has reached out to Miranda's office for comment.
Ray, a three-time Mountain West conference championship, was one of five conference teams to forfeit at least one match to San Jose State in the 2024 season amid controversy over trans athlete Blaire Fleming. After finishing her graduate degree at Weber State in 2025, she spoke at a ‘save women's sports' rally outisde the U.S. Supreme Court in January.
She spoke alongside Slusser, who was the SJSU co-captain who filed a lawsuit after sharing a team and apartment with Fleming in 2023 without knowing Fleming was a transgender biological male.
The SJSU controversy has come back into the national spotlight in 2026, after the school as the university has sued the federal government to challenge a Deparment of Education investigation that determined the school violated Title IX in its handling of Fleming.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon responded to the lawsuit on Wednesday, giving the university a deadline of 10 days to come to a resolution agreement, or face funding cuts and a referral to the Department of Justice.
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