A group of more than a dozen Republican lawmakers is urging a collegiate athletic conference to ban transgender women from competition after it was reported that a trans student competed on the women’s volleyball team of one of the conference's universities.
In a letter sent Monday to the commissioner of the Mountain West Conference, Republican senators and representatives said the NCAA Division I conference was violating Title IX sex discrimination protections and failing to meet requirements of its own handbook regarding gender equity.
“Permitting biological men to play in women’s sports is not equitable; it is an injustice,” the letter reads. “Under these guidelines, it is only fair that biological males play men’s sports and biological females play women’s sports.”
“Clearly, the Mountain West Conference has dropped the ball,” it continues.
The group of lawmakers is made up of Republicans from three of the states where the conference schools are located: Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee and Reps. John Curtis, Blake Moore, Burgess Owens and Celeste Maloy of Utah; Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch and Reps. Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson of Idaho; and Sens. John Barrasso and Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.
The lawmakers’ plea follows months of controversy over the gender identity of a member of the San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team, though the letter mentions neither SJSU nor the player by name. The player, whom NBC News is not naming, has never spoken publicly, and SJSU has not confirmed that one of its players is transgender.
In September, SJSU volleyball player Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit more than a dozen female athletes filed against the NCAA, which oversees collegiate athletics, about trans athletes’ participation in school sports. The lawsuit argues that the NCAA violated the Title IX rights of cisgender female athletes by allowing transgender women to compete against them. The suit focuses largely on former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who sparked controversy when she competed in the national women’s swimming championships in 2022.
Just last week, Slusser and 10 other former and current athletes in the Mountain West Conference filed a separate lawsuit against the conference and three SJSU staffers, accusing them of violating players’ Title IX rights.
At least five women’s university volleyball teams — those of Utah State University, the University of Wyoming, Boise State University, the University of Nevada and Southern Utah University — began forfeiting matches to SJSU following initial speculation about a transgender player.
Michelle Smith McDonald, an SJSU spokesperson, said Wednesday that the university’s athletes “comply with the NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations.”
“We abhor that our students would be used for political purposes and we continue to be concerned about the implications of doing so,” she said in an email. “We will continue to take measures to ensure the safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete, and we remain committed to fostering an inclusive and caring environment for our student athletes.”
The SJSU player at the center of the dispute has not replied to several requests for comment in recent weeks.
