Republicans urge college athletic conference to ban transgender athletes

A group of more than a dozen Republican lawmakers is urging a collegiate athletic conference to ban transgender women from competition after reports of a trans student competing on the s women’s volleyball team of a participating university.

In a letter sent to the commissioner of the Mountain West Conference on Monday, Republican senators and House representatives said that 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 was composed of Republicans from three of the states where the conference schools are located: Utah’s Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. John Curtis, Rep. Blake Moore, Rep. Burgess Owens and Rep. Celeste Maloy; Idaho’s Sen. Mike Crapo, Sen. James Risch, Rep. Russ Fulcher and Rep. Mike Simpson; and Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman.

The lawmakers’ plea comes amid a monthslong controversy over the gender identity of a member of the San José 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 in this article, 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 filed by more than a dozen women athletes 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 is largely focused 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 — 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 returned several requests for comment in recent weeks.