It was probably only a matter of time before the controversy surrounding the transgender athlete on the San Jose State women’s volleyball team went national, and it did Wednesday night.
And San Diego State appears to be in the middle of it.
Former President Donald Trump seemed to reference the Oct. 10 match between SDSU and San Jose State while appearing on “The Faulkner Focus” town hall event that aired Wednesday on Fox News. At one point in the match, Blaire Fleming, the Spartans’ transgender outside hitter, spiked a ball that ricocheted off the upper body of SDSU junior Keira Herron. Herron fell backwards.
SDSU continued the point, which it eventually lost, but won the match 3-0.
As part of the town hall, Trump was asked about transgender athletes. He said that if elected president next month, he would ban them from women’s sports. Then he referenced a volleyball match.
“I saw the slam, it was a slam,” Trump said, without mentioning SDSU or San Jose State by name. “I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head. … We stop it. We stop it. We absolutely stop it. You can’t have it.
“You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”
Except, SDSU officials said, the ball never hit Herron in the face and she stayed in the match.
“It has been incorrectly reported that a San Diego State University student-athlete was hit in the face with a volleyball during match play with San Jose State University,” SDSU said in a statement. “The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play. We have called for corrections with multiple media outlets.”
The confusion likely stems from the Mountain West Network’s livestream of the match, where host schools provide announcers along with one or two basic camera angles.
The announcers indicated the ball hit Herron in the face, noting she had “pink in her hair and her face is starting to look like she’s matching that as obviously took the contact, but also gotta feel a little embarrassed as she tries to laugh off that last ball.”
Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming have all forfeited matches against San Jose State this season, presumably in protest. A fifth school, Nevada, announced it planned to play the Spartans, only for its players to release a separate statement earlier this week saying they voted to forfeit.
In each instance, the state’s governor has quickly offered support via social media posts.
“I wholeheartedly respect the decision of the players,” Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a statement. “No student-athlete should ever be pressured to play a game where they don’t feel safe – period. The NCAA has a responsibility to address this issue in a consistent way that protects the integrity of women’s sports and the student-athletes who participate.”
The NCAA’s transgender policy defers to the national sports federations for each sport. USA Volleyball policy allows transgender athletes on women’s teams if they have lowered their testosterone levels under 10 nanomoles per liter, typically achieved through hormone-suppressing medication.
Opponents argue that is still many times more than the average testosterone levels in women, which according to one study commissioned by track and field’s world governing body range between .6 and 1.68 nmol/L. Others say the science isn’t definitive.
Fleming transferred to San Jose State three seasons ago from Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C., as a bill banning transgender athletes in women’s college sports was making its way through the South Carolina legislature. Her gender history did not become public knowledge until last April, although sources have said several Mountain West coaches and athletes privately knew when they faced her in previous seasons.
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In late September, Spartans starting setter Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit in federal court in Georgia contesting the NCAA’s transgender policy, saying she was not told about Fleming when she arrived at San Jose State last year as a transfer from Alabama.
“(Slusser) recalls it was ‘scary’ having balls hit that hard at her and unlike anything she had previously experienced in her volleyball career,” the complaint says. “Many of the girls on the team spoke with Brooke about their fears of being hit by balls spiked by Fleming, and concerns about potential concussions from being hit by a Fleming spike were regularly discussed.”
The legal complaint also mentions an incident earlier this season in a win against Delaware:
“A SJSU freshman set Fleming for a spike, and Fleming smashed the ball into the face of a woman on the University of Delaware team’s back line, knocking the opposing player to the ground. Several days after the event, the teammate who had set the ball for Fleming came to Brooke in tears due to feelings of guilt that her set to Fleming had led to the Delaware player being hit in the head. The SJSU player wondered aloud whether she had done the right thing to set the ball for Fleming and whether she was responsible for any injury the University of Delaware player suffered.”
San Jose State has not made Fleming available to the media, while Slusser has spoken to multiple media outlets during the season. (Here’s a lengthy interview on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”)
“At San Jose State, we condemn any targeted campaign against any of our students, and we will continue to live the values outlined in the California State University Non-Discrimination Policy,” a university statement issued Wednesday said. “Our athletes all comply with 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 are concerned about the implications of doing so.”
A university spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle that they have no record of any volleyball player being significantly injured in a match over the past few seasons. The Chronicle also posted what appears to be a spectator video from a different angle than the live stream, showing Fleming’s spike coming off Herron’s upper torso and not her face.
San Jose State opened the season 9-0 but it has not won on the court since, losing to Colorado State, SDSU and UNLV. It has forfeit wins against Boise State and Wyoming. Utah State and Nevada are expected to forfeit their matches against the Spartans later this month.
San Jose State is next scheduled to play Thursday night at New Mexico. SDSU hosts the Spartans at Peterson Gym on Nov. 9.