How a Women’s College Volleyball Team Became the Center of the Transgender Athlete Debate

On the court, they seem like any other college women’s volleyball team. At a recent game, the players moved around the court in staccato rhythm, setting and spiking the ball, springing into the air like pogo sticks to block attacking shots, all in their blue and gold uniforms of the San Jose State University Spartans.

Off the court, though, the team is trying its best not to crumble during an unexpected season of tension and tears, confusion and anger. The players are at the center of a drama playing out over one of the most explosive issues in American life: whether a transgender woman can play on a women’s sports team.

It all started in April, when a conservative website said that one of the San Jose State players was transgender, surprising some of the woman’s teammates.

Earlier this month, a senior co-captain of the Spartans and the assistant coach filed a lawsuit to stop the transgender athlete from playing in this week’s Mountain West Conference tournament, claiming that she violates Title IX rights to gender equity at federally funded institutions.

With a group of 10 female volleyball players, most from teams that play the Spartans, they sued San Jose State’s head coach and two administrators. And the Mountain West Conference and its commissioner. And the entire board of trustees of the California State University system. All to oust the player from the tournament, the Spartans’ program — and from women’s college sports.

In the meantime, the transgender volleyball player has remained silent. Teammates other than Brooke Slusser, the co-captain plaintiff in the lawsuit, also declined requests for interviews. The New York Times is not naming the player because she has not publicly confirmed her identity and declined an interview request through a university spokeswoman.