he San Jose State women�s volleyball team has two more wins coming
before they even get to play, as the University of Wyoming and Utah
State have both announced their women�s teams will forfeit their
matches this month against SJSU.

There are now four teams in just two weeks to announce they would
rather forfeit the match than play against the Spartans and the athlete
it seems everyone believes is transgender, Blaire Fleming.

The Wyoming Cowboys did play against SJSU and Fleming in 2022, losing
both matches. There were no reported incidents in regards to the match.
While at least one media outlet called Fleming �towering,� she is the
second tallest player on the team. The tallest is a cisgender woman.

San Jose State sits atop the Mountain West Conference right now,
undefeated. They play the conference No. 2, Colorado State, on Thursday
in, ironically, the Rams� �inclusive excellence game,� focused on
promoting the universities Principles of Community and on campus
resource centers.

If SJSU wins that, they will be 11-0. In the NCAA Division I top 25,
only two teams are undefeated.

The Spartans still have two games against teams that have already
forfeited against them � Wyoming and Boise State. What on earth happens
if other schools join in?

Boise State volleyball chose to forfeit a match instead of play against
an athlete they think is trans

The NCAA and Mountain West Conference should be speaking out about the
volleyball forfeit by Boise State and trans inclusion.

This, of course, is a mess.

When was the last time an NCAA team recorded four wins in a season
because the other team chose to forfeit? When Black players emerged
onto college sports in the 1930s, �40s, �50s, did teams forfeit instead
of playing against a Black player?

Karleigh Webb voiced concern yesterday that San Jose State could
possibly go the way some schools handled this issue: They left their
Black players home, particularly when they headed to the South.

Interestingly, it was SJSU and its neighbor up the I-280, Stanford,
that in the 1970s boycotted and forfeited to BYU because the school
wouldn�t allow Black athletes on their teams.

It�s hard to believe we would see a time when schools or teams refuse
to play other schools because they wouldn�t let trans women compete on
their women�s teams.

Yet surely no football coach at Mississippi State in 1950 thought major
universities would refuse to play anti-Black teams and schools.

Yet for now, the issue of how to include trans athletes is gripping a
lot of schools, teams, coaches and athletes. And it�s shaking up a
Division I college�s sport.

That is, in part, due to some poor leadership. I do think the NCAA�s
current general policy outlook � let each sport make their own rules �
is better than the one-year-of-HRT-fits-all approach that it was pushed
into years ago by some trans advocates.

However, that kind of approach takes some really good communication and
lots of open dialogue.

Plus, and this might be the most important part: It takes a clear
message about eligibility, as well as who�s been responsible about
making those rules. People protesting Fleming�s inclusion should focus
any issues on the policy- and rules-makers. Not the athlete or the
team.

NCAA President Charlie Baker should be taking the incoming fire from
organizations and people mobilized against trans women in women�s
sports, and he should be raising his hand to do so.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/a-third-team-forfeits-against-
san-jose-state-over-a-possible-trans-athlete-an-ncaa-crisis-looms/ar-
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