A male athlete will be allowed to compete in the Mountain West Conference tournament after a United States district judge denied a motion to disqualify the player.
That athlete is San Jose State University’s transgender player, Blaire Fleming. Born Brayden, Fleming is a 6’1” male whose participation in NCAA women’s volleyball games has sparked five separate forfeits from opposing teams.
About a week prior to the judge’s decision, 11 female NCAA athletes and one coach filed a lawsuit against the MWC and SJSU alleging the female athletes were subject to a new “Transgender Participation Policy” that sought to “suppress the free speech rights of women athletes.”
Judge S. Kato Crews, appointed by President Joe Biden, denied a series of motions that sought to disqualify Fleming from playing in the conference as well as negate losses that other teams received by forfeiting against SJSU during the season.
‘The movants have failed to meet their burden to show irreparable harm.’
According to OutKick, the judge spent the first 30 minutes of the emergency hearing deliberating which pronouns to use when talking about Fleming.
Judge Crews ultimately decided that “the movants have failed to meet their burden to show irreparable harm, a likelihood of success on the merits, or that the balance of harms or equities is in their favor.”
“The threatened injury to the movants if an injunction issues is outweighed by the MWC’s interest in holding the upcoming MWC Tournament without an eleventh-hour shake-up to its currently planned structure,” the judge wrote. “The relief requested with the Emergency Motion would risk confusion and upend months of planning and would prejudice, at a minimum, Defendants and other teams participating in the tournament depending on the results of any reseeding.”
“The movants have failed to meet their burden to show irreparable harm, thus justifying denial of the Emergency Motion and USU’s motion partially joining in it,” Judge Crews also wrote.
After the ruling, the plaintiffs announced they would be filing an emergency appeal to the Tenth Circuit court asking for an emergency injunction.
The Transgender Participation Policy at the center of the lawsuit states that the NCAA will “not entertain inquiries or challenges regarding the eligibility of transgender student-athletes.” Schools are also not required to provide information to their opponents about whether or not there is a transgender athlete on their team.
SJSU has remained mostly silent throughout the controversy but has suspended one female coach who spoke out about the issue. Associate head volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose has since joined the lawsuit against the MWC and SJSU.
As well, SJSU was previously revealed to have asked other schools to pay for alleged losses SJSU incurred due to the forfeits.
If the MWC tournament is to go on as planned, SJSU will play a March 4 match against either Utah State or Boise State; both teams forfeited against them during the season.
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Fearless, Women’s volleyball, Ncaa, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Sports
