University of Nevada winger Sia Liilii and her teammates had taken just a few bites of their pregame meal before a game at rival UNLV earlier this month when their phones started buzzing nonstop.
Texts began pouring in, informing the volleyball players that their school had just announced their intention to move forward with a scheduled match against San Jose State on Oct. 26.
For Liilii, the most troubling part wasn’t Nevada committing to facing an opponent believed to have a transgender player among its top forwards. It was because university administrators had not spoken once with Liilii and her teammates to gauge their comfort level.
“We were quite upset when that statement came from our university,” Liilii told Yahoo Sports. “It dawned on us that we had to talk about what we wanted to do as a group, make a decision and stick to it.”
The alleged transgender player at San Jose State had been a topic of conversation among Nevada volleyball players for weeks. They would have preferred to observe the player in question rather than compete with the player. They had marveled at the ricocheting of opponents.
Once the university announced its plan to move forward with the San Jose State game, talks among the Nevada players became more serious. According to Liilii, they held a series of team meetings last week to let players voice their opinions and determine a plan of action.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Liilii said. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.
“In all our team meetings it always came back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you were born as a biological male, you do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
Last Sunday, Nevada women’s volleyball players informed university leaders that they planned to forfeit their upcoming match against San Jose State. The next morning, the players, with the help of a right-wing political consultancy, released a statement announcing their plans to forfeit and Liilii to further explain the decision.
Within hours, the University of Nevada responded by doubling down on its previous position. The players’ decision to opt out was, according to , “made independently” and “does not represent the position of the university.” Citing state law prohibiting discrimination, the university reiterated its intention to move forward with the San Jose State competition as scheduled but said it would not punish players who choose not to participate.
The byproduct is a scenario unusual even for modern college athletics: a standoff between a team inspired to take action and the university it represents.
The backstory
Before finding itself at the center of the national firestorm surrounding transgender athletes, women’s volleyball at San Jose State couldn’t have been more obscure. This is a program that last won a conference title in 1985, last appeared in the NCAA tournament in 2001 and rarely draws more than a few hundred fans to home games.
The player, who is believed to be transgender, played two seasons without incident at San Jose State earlier this year. She wasn’t an all-conference team, nor was she among the Mountain West leaders in kills or homicide rates. Yahoo Sports is not identifying the player because neither she nor San Jose State has commented on her gender identity.
Her presence first drew attention last April, when Reduxx published a story claiming that a San Jose State women’s volleyball player was transgender and had withheld her biological gender from teammates and opponents. The self-described “pro-woman, pro-child” outlet said it began reporting the story after receiving a tip from an opponent’s mother.
Last month, another San Jose State women’s volleyball player, co-captain Brooke Slusser, joined a federal lawsuit challenging the NCAA policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. Slusser roomed with the player in question after transferring from Alabama in the fall of 2023, but only learned about her teammate’s alleged gender identity after Reduxx outed her.
In the legal filing, Slusser insists that her alleged transgender teammate hits the ball with such force that it gives San Jose State “an unfair advantage” and poses a safety risk to other players during practices and games. Slusser claimed that in practice the player’s spikes were “faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball.”
Those comments from Slusser threw a lit match onto a pile of kindling. Local and national media began reporting the story, activist groups attacked San Jose State, and right-wing politicians exerted their influence.
On the eve of the September 28 game at San Jose State, Boise State revealed it would not play and accept a forfeit loss. Wyoming and Utah State followed by forfeiting their October games against the Spartans. In each case, the schools chose not to explain why they weren’t playing. In both cases, the announcements were followed by applause for the decision.
Political pressure appears to have played a role in Wyoming’s decision to forfeit after initially announcing plans to play San Jose State as scheduled. In an Oct. 1 open letter to Wyoming’s president and athletic director, Sen. Cheri Steinmetz tacitly threatened to cut funding if the school “participated in the extremist agenda of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) or promoted the lie that biological sex can be harmful.” changed.”
“We all know this is not possible,” Steinmetz added.
In response to the forfeit, San Jose State released a statement saying, “It is disappointing that our SJSU student-athletes, who are in full compliance with NCAA and Mountain West rules and regulations, are being denied the opportunity to compete.” The Spartans (9-3) started the season with nine straight wins, but have lost three straight games since this controversy broke and their best player, Nayeli Ti’a, went down with an injury.
No one on either side of the debate over transgender athletes disputes that the San Jose State player in question fully complied with the rules.
In January 2022, the NCAA updated its eligibility policy for transgender athletes to a sport-by-sport approach where each individual governing body can determine its own eligibility criteria. USA Volleyball must submit documentation of their testosterone levels from at least the previous year to prove they do not exceed the “normal female reference range for their age group.”
Different points of view
For the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA title, the controversy that has engulfed women’s volleyball at San Jose State is “heartbreaking.”
In 2019, CeCé Telfer won a Division II national championship in the women’s 400-meter hurdles while competing for Franklin Pierce University. The attention her performance received led to hate mail, death threats and renewed calls for legislation banning transgender athletes from competing against women.
“Not only is it painful, it also costs us our lives.” “These harmful laws and actions make people feel entitled to dehumanize and defame us, to deny us basic rights and dignity.
“We have to do better. This fight isn’t just about banning trans women from sports – it’s a scapegoat for deeper bigotry, a cover for oppression, and even the erasure of entire communities.”
When asked if she sympathizes at all with the plight of the San Jose State player in question, Liilii told Yahoo Sports, “I don’t think I would feel comfortable making that known.” Liilii recalled noticing subtle differences about the San Jose State player’s strength and athleticism before she had any inkling that the player might be transgender.
“Last year I was a junior and this person was on the team,” Liilii said. “I vividly remember seeing this person hit over our block, which is scary as a defender.”
At the time, Liilii thought, “Maybe this person is just a really good volleyball player.” The revelation that this player may be transgender made Liilii look at things differently.
Liilii described it as “scary” to volunteer to be the face of her team’s protest, but the support she has received over the past 72 hours has helped. Among those voicing their support is Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, who wrote on X on Tuesday: “I wholeheartedly respect the players’ decision.”
“No student-athlete should ever be pressured to play a game in which they do not feel safe – period,” Lombardo added.
That night, as Nevada won a five-set thriller against Utah State, Liilii found some familiar faces behind the Wolfpack bench. Showing their support, and perhaps currying favor with voters, were Nevada Senate candidate Sam Brown and former 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
Despite her university’s position that she cannot officially cancel the upcoming game at San Jose State for legal reasons, Liilii said she and her teammates are not wavering. She reiterated that they fully intend to lose, even if it means hurting their hopes for the Mountain West regular season title.
How will the Nevada players fare when they draw San Jose State in the Mountain West Tournament next month with an NCAA Tournament bid on the line? Liilii acknowledged that “the stakes are higher” and said “that would be something that my team and I would have to discuss.”
“I just hope that what we do will lead to change by then,” Liilii added. “I just hope that the people in power at least see that there are women in their conference who have a certain opinion about it. I mean, five teams have already lost.”
The main purpose of the protest for Liilii is to be an advocate for change, to, in her words, “stand up for what is right.”
“I hope that future generations do not have to be in the position that I and my teammates are in and that the young women of the Mountain West Conference are in,” Liilii said. “I have nieces and I have sisters. It would break my heart if they had to experience this too.”