The women of the University of Nevada at Reno volleyball team plan to defy their school by refusing to compete against a team with a biological male player.
“We are risking our main goal, which is a Mountain West championship,” University of Nevada women’s volleyball team captain and outside hitter Sia Liilii told The Daily Signal. “A team is a group that bands together to reach a common goal, and that is the purpose of our spot-on team. No one wants to lose and put that at risk, but this is bigger than wins and losses.”
“It is the future of women’s sports,” she explained.
The majority of the Nevada volleyball team voted to forfeit its Oct. 26 game against California’s San Jose State University, where biological male volleyball player Blaire Fleming has led an almost undefeated season.
The Nevada women are the fifth team in the Mountain West Conference to boycott San Jose State University this season on behalf of women’s sports.
“Our team had multiple meetings to discuss this issue,” Liilii said. “We all have a voice that deserves to be heard. A vast majority of our team voted to stand in solidarity with the teams that forfeited, and as a team, we sent a letter to our administrators letting them know we would be releasing a statement that we will not be playing.”
The Nevada women’s volleyball team sent a statement to the university saying the team stands “united in solidarity with the volleyball teams of Southern Utah University, Boise State University, the University of Wyoming, and Utah State University.”
“We demand that our right to safety and fair competition on the court be upheld. We refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” the statement says.
After the women decided not to compete against San Jose State, the University of Nevada at Reno administration released a statement expressing its intent to go forward with the game.
“The University intends to move forward with the match as scheduled, and the players may choose not to participate in the match on the day of the contest,” the statement said. “No players will be subject to any team disciplinary action for their decision not to participate in the match.”
Despite lack of support from their school, the Nevada volleyball players still plan to boycott the game. They are prepared to face whatever comes their way.
Athletic Director Stephanie Rempe did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Liilii said the team’s stance is not about transgender player Fleming, but the future of women’s sports.
“Men do not belong in women’s sports,” the college senior said. “If you are born a biological male, you do not belong in women’s sports. This is not about one individual athlete. It is about fair competition and safety for all women’s sports.”
Fleming’s teammate, San Jose State University volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser, applauded the Nevada team for their “courage” in taking a stand for women’s sports.
Between now and Oct. 26, when Nevada is scheduled to face San Jose State, the players are taking things game by game.
“We have other matches to focus on at the time, so that is the center of our attention and enjoying playing together,” Liilii said.
High-profile politicians, including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; Senate candidate Sam Brown, R-Nev.; and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., attended Nevada’s Tuesday game, in which the team beat Utah State University 3-2.
“I am so proud of you,” Gabbard told Liilii, according to the Reno Gazette Journal.
In 2020, Gabbard, while still in Congress, and Mullin introduced the Protect Women’s Sports Act to keep males out of women’s and girls’ athletics.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, also expressed his support for the Nevada team, saying, “No student athlete should ever be pressured to play a game where they don’t feel safe—period.”
Biological males competing in women’s sports is expected to be a “sleeper” issue in the 2024 elections.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters think biological males should not be allowed to participate in women’s and girls’ sports, according to new national polling from Scott Rasmussen shared with The Daily Signal.
Republicans have highlighted Democratic support for males playing women’s sports in ad campaigns against them. An ad against Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says Brown is “too liberal for Ohio” because he voted “to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports.”
An ad in Wisconsin says Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin “voted to let biological men into women’s sports.”
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., “voted to let men compete against our girls,” and “those aren’t Montana values,” another ad running in Montana says.
Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump pledged to “ban” transgender-identifying biological males from competing in women’s sports in a town hall with only female voters hosted by Fox News’s Harris Faulkner on Wednesday.
Trump referenced an incident last week in which San Jose’s Fleming spiked a volleyball in the face of a San Diego State women’s volleyball player, knocking her to the ground.
“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” he said. “But other people, even in volleyball, they’ve been permanently—I mean, they’ve been really hurt badly. Women playing men.”
North Carolina high school volleyball player Payton McNabb suffered a concussion and neck injury in November 2022 after a transgender opponent spiked the ball in her face at an estimated 76 mph.
The net in men’s volleyball is more than 7.5 inches higher than in the women’s game to compensate for the increased velocity, jump height, and power men have. Even men would be more likely to get concussions if they played volleyball against each other with a women’s net height, according to Marshi Smith of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports.
The mother of a Nevada women’s volleyball player told The Daily Signal she is proud of her daughter’s team. The mother asked to remain anonymous for her daughter’s privacy.
“I’m dumbfounded how the trans group asks for ‘tolerance,’ yet when biological females ask for safe places in our locker rooms (which is supposed to be a given under Title IX), fair competition, and safety on the court,” the mother said, “we are denied and labeled hateful and transphobic.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to remove a quote from one of the Nevada volleyball players.
Elizabeth (Troutman) Mitchell is the reporting fellow for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
God bless them. It’s simple XY (boys/men) compete with XY and XX (girls/women) compete with XX women PERIOD!! Yes there are accepted mixed sports like tennis and target shooting with rifles and pistols and that’s fine along with other mixed sports. With tennis it’s one man and a woman competing with another man and woman. Nothing wrong with that.
If an XY boy wants to be a phenotypic woman, no amount of female hormones or surgery is going to change the XY body habitus PERIOD!! If they go that route, as far as I’m concerned they give up competing with XX females if they were born XY!!!
Get the XY (male) transgendered out of women’s sports as soon as possible. It is a mother e’ffing travesty to allow it to continue. I didn’t realize that until that woman volleyball player was spiked and injured by an XY male parading as an XX female. THAT HAS TO STOP!! The stupid “gubbermint” needs to cut off funding to colleges that allow it but you know the demonrats won’t do that!! VOTE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN people and end this travesty of a demonrat “gubbermint”.
Mike Pence screwed himself in the rear end when he vacated himself from President Trump. Too bad for him as his political career ended then. May he reside in the bushes of history for being so stupid!!!
Kurt Savegnago
Stand strong!! You will be blessed for taking up the torch for all young women who will follow. God bless you all!
Wow,I must admit to BEING PROUDLY TRANSPHOBIC.I cannot fathom one reason why these people want to be women when they were born males.My only conclusion is that they are mentally sick and should be under care,NOT competing in women’s sports.They presumably don’t have the guts to compete against real MEN.Shame on the people who support this bloody stupidity.
Good for them!