Girls Sports

Ed Dept. Finds San José State Violated Title IX With Male Athlete in Women’s Volleyball

In a win for women’s athletics, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that San José State University discriminated against women by allowing a male to participate in women’s volleyball and use female-only facilities.

The OCR announced it is giving SJSU a Proposed Resolution Agreement “to voluntarily resolve its Title IX violations.” Among other requests, the agreement asks the school to publicly acknowledge there are two unchangeable sexes and apologize to female athletes.

Blaire Fleming, a male athlete who identifies as “transgender,” played on SJSU’s women’s volleyball team from 2022-2024, redshirting during his last year.

Trent Kerston, head coach at that time, recruited Fleming and gave him an athletic scholarship and spot on the team – both of which should have gone to a woman – but hid Fleming’s natal sex from his teammates.

Teammates and women from opposing teams suspected that Fleming was male, due to the strength of his hits and height of his jumps. But the team only found out the truth in April 2024, when Reduxx, a feminist news and opinion outlet, published an article titled “EXCLUSIVE: Biological Male Quietly Joined Women’s NCAA Division I Volleyball At San Jose State University.”

In its announcement, the OCR stated that San José State violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal financial assistance.

The OCR found that SJSU “actively recruited and allowed a male to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams and reportedly instructed members of the coaching staff not to tell the female players that the athlete was a male.”

The office noted the resulting loss of privacy for Fleming’s teammates:

As a result, female athletes on the team shared women’s locker rooms and hotel rooms with the male student while being unaware that he is a member of the opposite sex.

OCR added:

In addition to privacy concerns, the presence of this male athlete presented a safety concern for female athletes and provided SJSU’s volleyball team with an unfair physical advantage over opposing teams.
On multiple occasions, the male athlete spiked the ball so forcefully that it knocked females on the opposing team to the ground. During one season, seven all-women’s teams from other universities forfeited their competitions, accepting a loss rather than competing against a male.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon explained the damage on X:

San José State University caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a male to compete on the women’s volleyball team – and when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated.

The OCR’s Resolution Agreement requires SJSU to:

  • Issue a public statement to the SJSU community that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words “male” and “female” and acknowledge that the sex of a human – male or female – is unchangeable.
  • Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex.
  • State that SJSU will not delegate its obligation to comply with Title IX to any external association or entity and will not contract with any entity that discriminates on the basis of sex.
  • Restore to individual female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories, and issue a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.
  • Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball (2022–2024), 2023 beach volleyball, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster – expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position. 

SJSU, the Mountain West Conference and the NCAA are also facing lawsuits from Fleming’s teammates, women from opposing teams and a former assistant coach who faced retaliation from the school for filing a Title IX complaint.

But the university remains between a rock and a hard place. While the federal government cracks down on males in women’s sports and private spaces, the California attorney general is suing to stop those efforts.

In addition, California law prohibits “discrimination on the basis of … gender, gender identity, [and] gender expression.” So SJSU may run afoul of state law for acceding to the U.S. Department of Education demands.

The Daily Citizen will continue to keep you informed about this and other battles to protect girls and women’s sports, privacy and safety.

Related articles and resources:

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports  

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit — Won’t Play Team with a Man

NCAA and San Jose State ‘Transgender’ Volley Player Usurp Women’s Rights

NCAA Ban on Men in Women’s Sports ‘Toothless,’ Say Advocates, Gaines

Riley Gaines and 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over ‘Transgender Policy’

San Jose Coach Suspended for Filing Discrimination Complaint Against Transgender Player

SJSU Hired Same Law Firm to Simultaneously Defend and Investigate Male Athlete on Women’s Team

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Photo from Getty Images.

Celebs Lobby Against Keeping Boys Out of Women’s Sports in ACLU Ad

Several celebrities and sports stars supported transgender-identified boys invading girls sports last week in an ad for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The thirty second video aired last Tuesday, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in State of West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox — two cases which will determine whether states can enforce laws keeping boys out of girls sports.

None of the ad’s nine named stars ever played a sport against a member of the opposite sex. Retired professional athletes Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, who played basketball and soccer, respectively, made their fortunes playing in single-sex leagues.

Rapinoe and the U.S. women’s soccer team even lost a scrimmage to an under-15 boys team in 2017.

Only one of the video’s celebs — professional basketball player Brianna Turner — might ever face a male on the court.

The ad’s remaining menagerie of cultural elites stand to lose nothing if the Supreme Court strips women of sex-specific sports protections. They include:

  • Lawyer and ACLU employee Chris Strangio, who argued against laws preventing minors from receiving irreversible, sex-rejecting procedures at the Supreme Court last year.
  • Actress Naomi Watts, whose son, Kai, is transgender-identified.
  • Transgender-identified actress Ellen, now Elliot, Page
  • Two-time Tony award winner Kara Young
  • Comedian Benito Skinner
  • Fashion designer Willy Chavarria

The ACLU’s casting choices underscore its dogged determination to ignore the plight of women forced to compete against men — an obfuscation critical to the ad’s narrative.

The video frames State of West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox as a fight against “powerful politicians … fixated on keeping [transgender-identified] student athletes out sports.”

These malicious operatives, the video claims, enforce “limits” preventing transgender-identified students from “being themselves.”

“When you’re young, you believe that you can do anything,” the stars intone one after the other. “And then the world tries to set limits for you — tell you what’s allowed, what’s ‘normal,’ who you’re supposed to be.”

The ACLU’s argument collapses when viewers consider all the facts.

Sex is not an arbitrary limit imposed by a discriminatory political elite — it’s reality. Each person’s cellular makeup dictates the limits of their athletic ability.

Men possess several biological advantages making them better suited to most sports than women, including higher testosterone production, stronger muscles, tendons and ligaments, longer and heavier bones, larger hearts and more efficient vascular systems.

Limiting a man’s testosterone production with puberty blockers, or flooding his system with estrogen, does not eliminate all these advantages.

People who support single-sex sports and spaces aren’t malicious politicians, either. Female athletes harmed by men invading their sports lead the movement.

Eight of these athletes spoke at the Alliance Defending Freedom’s (ADF) rally outside the Supreme Court last week. They and other rally spokespeople articulated several reasons for supporting single-sex sports, including:

  • Ensuring women have a fair chance to win sports accolades, scholarships and opportunities.
  • Protecting female athletes who risk injury playing biologically faster, stronger men.
  • Protecting the dignity of all athletes by ensuring no one must change in front of a member of the opposite sex.

None of the speakers advocated to keep children with sexual identity confusion out of sports entirely, only to require they compete in leagues consistent with their biological sex.

The ACLU ostensibly agrees, “We all have the same right to equality and dignity,” per the ad’s description. But a single male in a female category compromises the equality and dignity of every woman he competes against.

Brooke Slusser played alongside Blair Fleming — a man — on San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team. The school hid Fleming’s sex from Slusser, whose peers informed her she was living and practicing with a man.

Slusser and Kaylie Ray, a Utah State volleyball player whose team chose to forfeit a game rather than play against Fleming, shared their perspective at ADF’s rally.

“I will never be the same [after] what happened because an institution chose to protect one man on a women’s volleyball team instead of protecting the 18 other women on the team, the hundreds of other women in that conference,” Slusser confided.

“And not just me,” she continued. “I’m speaking for all of the women that had to play against one man that changed so many lives in that one singular season.”

The ACLU doubles down on its mischaracterization of people who support single-sex sports and spaces in the ad’s description, claiming laws delineating sports by sex “subject children to invasive, demeaning and abusive sex testing.”

This is blatantly false. A physician can determine the sex of most athletes in the physicals all students must receive to play a school sport. Doctors can determine the sex of students with disorders of sexual development using a one-time, non-invasive cheek swab or blood test.

Two international sports governing bodies, World Athletics and World Boxing, require athletes undergo chromosomal testing through one of these two methods. The International Olympic Committee will reportedly release a similar policy early this year.

The ACLU’s advertisement uses falsehoods and disingenuous claims to lobby against sex-based protections for women. Small wonder, considering the video’s argument excludes the arguments and experiences of women altogether.

Shame on the anti-woman ACLU and the celebrities who cosigned its lies.

Additional Articles and Resources

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Cases on Boys in Girls Sports

Olympics Set to Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports

World Athletics Announces Testing Protocols to keep Men Out of Women’s Athletics

Male Boxer Khelif Barred from Female Category After Rule Change

Liberal Journalist Admits Gender Ideology Built on Manipulative Lies

Yet Another Man Steals Women’s Trophies

Shoving Girls Off the Podium: More Male Athletes Participating in Girls Sports

New Study: Testosterone Blockers and Female Hormones Don’t Erase male-Female Athletic Differences

Washington State Citizens Fight for Parents’ Rights, Girls Sports

Supporters of parents’ rights and girls sports submitted two citizen initiatives to the Washington State Legislature. 

Restoring the Parents’ Bill of Rights, IL26-001, repeals sections of legislation passed in 2025 that stripped parents of their rights in education. 

The measure guarantees parents have access to their children’s instructional materials and school records; requires parental notification when schools provide medical services; allows parents to opt children out of surveys, questionnaires and sexual education; and assures families their religious beliefs will be respected. 

Initiative Measure IL26-638, Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports, prohibits “male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students.” 

Brian Noble, CEO of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, explained to the Daily Citizen, “Both initiatives are a demonstration of how citizens in Washington can impact policy despite conservatives being significantly outnumbered in both the Washington House and Senate.” 

He added: 

God has given us a scriptural mandate to be engaged actively on the battlefield of the public square. Scripture calls Christians to steward all that God has created, including the governmental sphere.

Let’s Go Washington collected more than 416,000 signatures for the parents’ rights initiative and more than 445,000 signatures for the girls sports measure. Valid signatures from 308,911 voters are needed to send the measure to the legislature. 

Brian Heywood, leader of Let’s Go Washington, commented on the two measures to the Washington State Standard, bluntly stating, “This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue.” 

The measures have “broad support,” he added, with more than half of the signatures coming from liberals and independents. 

Both proposals are “indirect initiated state statutes,” citizen-initiated ballot measures that are first presented to the Washington Legislature. According to Ballotpedia, the Legislature then has three options:  

  1. Adopt the initiative into law without sending it to the voters.
  2. Reject or not act on the initiative, in which case it is placed on the ballot for voters to decide.
  3. Approve an alternative version, in which case both the original proposal and the legislative alternative are placed on the ballot at the next state general election.

Current reports suggest the legislature will let the measures go the voters in November. 

The Parents’ Bill of Rights has a convoluted history. In 2024, Let’s Go Washington submitted enough signatures to send Initiative 2081, the first version of A Parents’ Bill of Rights, to the state legislature. The initiative passed and was signed into law. 

But then the legislature engaged in some tricksy behavior by passing HB 1296, a law which undermined local control of schools, supposedly “balanced” student rights with parents rights and actually eliminated some parents rights. Among other things, the legislation: 

  • Increased the time for schools to share records with parents from 10 business days to 45. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to access certain public school records, including medical or health records, and records of any mental health counseling.
  • Eliminated a parent’s right to be notified by public schools prior to medical services or medications being offered or referred to his or her child (even when it will cost parents).
  • Stripped the parental right to be notified and opt a child out of personally invasive surveys, assignments, role-playing activities, recordings or other student engagements. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to be notified if his/her child is taken or removed from a public school campus to stay at a youth shelter or “host home.” 

The new measure restores the original Parents’ Bill of Rights, rolling back the damaging effects of HB 1296. 

The Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports measure is also very much needed in Washington State. In December, Washington’s alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger reported, “In Washington, trans girls and boys have played with, and against, cis girls and boys for nearly two decades.” 

“Cis” is a term made up by transgender activists to designate real boys and girls, rather than those who mimic the opposite sex with clothes, makeup, drugs, hormones and surgeries. 

Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) requires all local educational agencies “to allow all students, including transgender and nonbinary students, the opportunity to participate on the interscholastic sports team that most closely aligns with their gender identity.” 

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education are currently investigating OSPI for allowing “males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities, thereby raising substantial Title IX concerns.” 

Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, supports both initiatives. Noble told us: 

FPIW has proudly supported these initiatives, and we will continue to advocate for parental rights and the safety of our children as these initiatives move through the legislative process. 

Focus on the Family also supports parental rights in education and protecting girls and women’s sports. We trust Washington Christians and conservatives will engage with the initiative process and support these to important measures. 

Related articles and resources: 

Family Policy Institute of Washington

Let’s Go Washington : Rally to Support The Initiatives

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Focus on the Family Transgender Resources

How to Get In Touch With Your State Policy Group

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Dozens of athletes, business owners, lawmakers and activists rallied to protect women’s sports yesterday while the Supreme Court heard arguments in State of West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox — two cases which will determine whether states can enforce laws keeping boys out of girls sports.

The rally, hosted by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the law firm helping litigate BPJ and Little, boasted a roster of powerful speakers — including eight women forced to compete against or alongside men.

“I was pleased and honored to be at the Supreme Court rally,” Tim Goeglein, Focus on the Family’s vice president of External and Government Relations, told the Daily Citizen, describing the lively, tight-packed crowd.

“Focus on the Family believes girls should compete against girls, and that boys should compete against boys,” Goeglein continued. “That makes sports competition fair for everyone.”

He concluded:

We believe fairness will be upheld [in BPJ and Little], affirming foundational justice in one of the most high profile sets of cases in this Supreme Court term.

Riley Gaines, Brooke Slusser, Kaylie Ray, Kaitlynn Wheeler, Stephanie Turner, Selina Soule, Sara Casebolt and Alexa Anderson each experienced firsthand the damage men cause by invading women’s sports.

Gaines and Wheeler, who swam together at the University of Kentucky, were forced to compete against and change in front of Lia Thomas — a man.

Slusser practiced and lived with Blaire Fleming, a teammate on San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team. The university never told Slusser that Fleming was a man.

Slusser and Fleming played in the same conference as Ray, the captain of Utah State’s women’s volleyball team. Ray and her team chose to forfeit games against Fleming.

“The leaders whose responsibility it was to protect student athletes chose silence,” Ray recalled at the rally.

“Instead, they placed the burden on us — individual players — to forfeit in order to preserve our dignity.”

Turner took a knee at a USA Fencing competition rather than compete against a man.

“That act was not defiance,” she told rally-goers. “It was desperation. It was a cry for help.”

Soule, Anderson and Casebolt each lost high school track and field races to boys. Anderson received hate mail for refusing to share the podium with a male competitor.

All eight athletes addressed the rally, not with bitterness, but with earnest desire to protect their fellow athletes — including family members — from enduring the same hardship.  

Turner felt alone after she took a knee. But she did it so other girls would never have to. Meaningful change begins when a few people make the choice to do good, she reflected, even when it’s costly and uncomfortable.

Wheeler spoke on behalf of her younger sister, who was “made to feel like the problem” after objecting to undressing in front a man.

“[My sister] didn’t consent to this ideology,” Wheeler emphasized, speaking loudly to drown out disruptive counter protesters:

She didn’t consent to the exploitation happening in the locker rooms. She should never have had to sacrifice her privacy for someone else’s identity. And she shouldn’t have to sacrifice her privacy so adults can avoid telling the truth.

Gaines brought her three-month old daughter along to the rally, protected by a tiny bullet-proof vest.

“My world was flipped upside down three months ago when my husband and I welcomed our little baby girl into this world,” Gaines recalled fondly.

She concluded:

I hope one day, when she’s old enough, she will look back on the fight … that we have been fighting … and recognize that we’re fighting for her. We’re fighting for her to be able to call her champion. We are fighting for a fair and safe and just and righteous country and world that she will inherit.

The Daily Citizen praises these athletes for their courage and selflessness in advocating to keep men out of women’s sports.

Additional Articles and Resources

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Cases on Boys in Girls Sports

UPenn Will Strip ‘Lia’ Thomas of Medals, Apologize to Female Athletes

SJSU Hired Same Law Firm to Simultaneously Defend and Investigate Male Athlete on Women’s Team

NCAA and San Jose State ‘Transgender’ Volley Player Usurp Women’s Rights

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit — Won’t Play Team with a Man

USA Fencing Explicitly Prioritizes Men’s Feelings Over Women’s Safety and Athletic Achievement

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Appeals Court Revives Case Disputing Men’s Participation in Girls High School Sports

Riley Gaines Announces and Celebrates New Baby

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases concerning Idaho and West Virginia laws prohibiting male athletes from competing in girls sports.

This morning, the Daily Citizen listened to the Court’s oral arguments – so you don’t have to.

The two cases, Little v. Hecox and State of West Virginia v. BPJ, could have massive implications for the future of girls sports and determine whether states can recognize biological reality and reserve girls and women’s sports for females. You can read the Daily Citizen’s summary of the cases.

Following oral arguments, it seemed likely a majority of the Court would uphold Idaho’s and West Virginia’s laws protecting female athletes.

Here are the top five moments you might have missed.

1. Justice Samuel Alito Defends Reality of Biological Sex

Justice Samuel Alito asked Kathleen R. Hartnett, attorney for the male Idaho student who filed the lawsuit over the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, for a definition of what it means to be a “boy or a girl or a man or a woman.”

“We do not have a definition for the Court,” Hartnett replied, admitting she would not define what “sex” means.

“How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means?” Alito replied.

2. Alito Defends Female Athletes

In a back-and-forth with Hartnett, Justice Alito also defended female athletes who don’t want to be forced to compete against males.

“There are an awful lot of female athletes who are strongly opposed to participation by ‘trans’ athletes in competitions with them,” Alito said, asking, “What do you say about them? Are they bigots? Are they deluded in thinking that they’re subjected to unfair competition?”

“No, your honor,” Hartnett replied. “I would never call anyone that.”

3. Justice Kavanaugh Calls Growth of Girls Sports “Inspiring”

Posing a question to Hartnett about how permitting males into women’s and girls sports could harm female athletics, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed to the great growth in female sports in the last five decades.

“One of the great successes in America over the last 50 years has been the growth of women and girls’ sports, and it’s inspiring,” Kavanaugh said.

There “are a variety of groups who study this issue, think that allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and will, you know, create unfairness,” he added.

“For the individual girl who does not make the team or doesn’t get on the stand for the medal or doesn’t make all league [due to a male athlete], there’s a – there’s a harm there, and I think we can’t sweep that aside.”

He asked,

[There’s] a lot of people who are concerned about women’s sports and think this raises a big problem. And I just want to make sure you can explain that.

4. Alito Reiterates Reality of Biological Sex

In another back-and-forth, Justice Alito questioned Hartnett about what a woman is, and how “sex” must have a biological basis.

“Suppose … a student who has the genes and the reproductive system of a male and had those at birth and has never taken puberty blockers, never taken female hormones, never had any gender-altering or affirming surgery, says, nevertheless, I am a woman. That’s who I am. Can the school say, ‘No, you cannot participate on the girls’ team?’” Alito asked.

“Yes, they can,” Hartnett replied.

“But that person – is that person not a woman in your understanding? If the person says, I sincerely believe I am woman, I am, in fact, a woman – is that person not a woman?” Alito pressed.

“I – I would respect their self-identity,” Hartnett replied. “But in terms of the statute, I think the question is, does that person have a sex-based biological advantage.”

5. Alito Finally Gets a Definition of What “Sex” Means

Justice Alito asked Hashim M. Mooppan, Principal Deputy Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, who argued in favor of Idaho’s law, what “sex” means under Title IX.

“We think it’s properly interpreted pursuant to its ordinary traditional definition of biological sex, and I think probably given the time it was enacted, reproductive biology is probably the best way of understanding that,” Mooppan replied.

“All right,” Justice Alito replied. “Thank you.”

Decisions in the cases are expected by the end of June.

The Daily Citizen will keep you updated about Little v. Hecox and State of West Virginia v. BPJ.

Related articles and resources:

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Cases on Boys in Girls Sports

Photo from Getty Images.