They play on the same team, but they couldn’t be further apart.

One member of the women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University
has signed on to being part of a federal lawsuit against the NCAA
challenging the presence of transgender athletes in women’s college
sports. The specific person she cites? One of her own teammates.

The situation swirling around the SJSU team — which has gotten
increasingly chaotic in recent weeks, with several teams canceling
matches against the school and politicians and advocates weighing in —
somehow seems unsurprising in the polarized United States these days as
a highly contested election looms.

As with other points of dispute in the struggle over gender identity and
transgender rights, one thing opposing sides have in common is framing
their stance as a matter of what’s fair and right.

Where they stand a chasm apart is in one fundamental sticking point, a
tough question in any arena: What does ‘fairness’ actually mean?

The discussion around ‘fairness’ is complex
That the idea of what is fair or not can vary from person to person
probably shouldn’t be surprising. After all, a sense of right and wrong
is part of the human world view, formed from highly indvidual factors
like each person's environment, the cultures they grow up and live in,
and their experiences.

And while science and research into areas like hormone treatment and
transgender athletic performance, which is only in the early stages at
present, could at some point provide more medical information and data,
it still won't answer the question of “what is fair," says Dr. Bradley
Anawalt, a hormone specialist and professor of medicine at the
University of Washington School of Medicine.

“The science is going to be able to allow us to some degree calculate
the advantages and disadvantages. And eventually, with good studies,
we’re going to have an idea of when, how long you have, to suppress
somebody’s testosterone level ... how long does it take for differences
in muscle strength and muscle mass to come down,” says Anawalt, who is
also a member of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and
Medical Aspects of Sports.

“So those kinds of questions we can answer, but we’re never going to be
able to answer this fundamental question about fairness," he says.
"Because that is not a medical or a scientific concept. It’s a social
justice and a human concept."

Fairness came up frequently Saturday at a rally supporting the women’s
volleyball team from the University of Nevada, Reno, the latest of five
teams to forfeit against SJSU. Players had refused to “participate in
any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” and some
reiterated that stance at the rally.

The rally drew several hundred people. McKenna Dressel, a junior from
Gilbert, Arizona, told the crowd that her dream since she was a young
girl of being a college athlete has been turned upside down.

“Our season has been filled with turmoil and headache. We have all been
directly affected by the distraction of having to stand up for our
rights that were established over 50 years ago,” she said, making a
reference to federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX. She
added: “Trailblazing female athletes paid the price so that we can enjoy
fair competition.”

The public aspect of the situation has escalated
Issues around transgender rights have been a lightning rod in American
politics in recent years, and they are one key difference between
supporters of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during this election
season. Several states have introduced or enacted legislation around
medical care, access to public accommodations like bathrooms, and
participation in youth sports. This political and cultural backdrop
makes the attention surrounding the SJSU situation more understandable.

SJSU has not confirmed the presence of a transgender athlete on the
team. The player being referenced has never said anything publicly about
gender identity before or since the lawsuit filings or in the wake of
online accounts making the claim. Because of that, The Associated Press
is withholding her name.

That doesn't mean the harsh glare of the public eye hasn't had an impact
on the team, which is trying to make it to the NCAA tournament after
more than 20 years. San Jose State coach Todd Kress says the team is
receiving “messages of hate.”

Advocates for transgender rights invoke fairness as well in pushing for
those who are transgender to be able to live as authentically as
possible, and not be discriminated against or denied access to
opportunities because of gender identity. Fair, they say, is directly
linked to access and participation.

“It is disappointing that politicization of sports has meant some teams
have denied SJSU and themselves opportunities to play, simply because a
team might have a transgender player,” the local San Jose/Peninsula
chapter of PFLAG said in a statement about the situation. “All
student-athletes, including trans athletes, deserve the same chance to
be part of a team, learn from one another, and respect the game.
Transgender athletes belong.”

The nature of sports makes the ‘fairness’ debate central
It's not surprising that issues around transgender rights and presence
have such an outsized spotlight in the world of sports despite the
fractionally small number of instances of transgender athletes. That's
because sports is an arena where “fairness" — in the form of a level
playing field of rules and regulations that are supposed to apply
equally to everyone — is central to the mythology.

“Maybe it’s because of the nice, sanitized way in which we consume sport
as an audience," says Sarah Fields, who studies how sports intersects
with American culture. She says sports thrive on “our innate, maybe
human desire — but certainly American desire — for fairness.”

"It’s a standardized field with standardized rules and standardized
uniforms,” says Fields, a professor of communication at the University
of Colorado Denver. “So it has this appearance of fairness. And then it
often falls apart once a game goes on and one side destroys the other or
one swimmer is two laps behind another. But at least at the beginning,
there’s an illusion of fairness in the way it looks.”

That masks the reality of playing sports, especially at the elite level
of college athletics and beyond, she says. People are born with a range
of genetic traits like height, reflexes, speed, and body shapes that can
furnish them with advantages. Then there are economic and social
resources that can propel one person's athletic journey in a way that it
doesn't for others.

Fields points to the example of a South African runner in the 1980s who
was barred from international competition because of boycotts against
her nation over its apartheid policies. The runner, Zola Budd, became a
British citizen and ran in the 1984 Olympics.

Anawalt echoes such an idea — that a resolution to the “fairness”
question is muddy, elusive and perhaps ultimately unanswerable.

“When we talk about fairness in competition, what we’re really trying to
do is say, well, we’ve created a level playing field,” he says. “And the
truth is we never quite succeed in doing that. And so where do you draw
the bright white line in terms of what’s fair and what’s not fair?”

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/sports/sjsu-womens-volleyball-team-fairness/3691772/