A federal judge in Denver has rejected a request to ban a college volleyball player who is alleged to be transgender from competing with her team in a conference tournament beginning this week.
Earlier this month, San Jose State University women’s volleyball team captain Brooke Slusser filed a lawsuit along with SJSU associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose and 10 other current and former Mountain West Conference players against the conference. The suit sought an emergency injunction to have an SJSU player who is alleged to be transgender declared ineligible to compete in the tournament.
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As the Associated Press notes, the player in question has competed at the college level for the past three seasons, including two seasons with the SJSU team. She drew little attention prior to recent allegations about her gender identity. While the defendants in the case have not denied the presence of a transgender woman on the SJSU team, according to the AP, the player in question has not commented on her gender identity publicly. Some media outlets have named the player, but LGBTQ Nation is not doing so.
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On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews denied the plaintiffs’ request on the basis of its emergency nature.
“The Court finds the movants’ delay was not reasonable, there is no evidence to suggest they were precluded from seeking emergency relief earlier, and the rush to litigate these complex issues now over a mandatory injunction places a heavy lift on the MWC at the eleventh hour,” Crews wrote, according to ESPN.
Several teams, including those from Southern Utah University, Boise State University, Utah State University, and Wyoming University, had previously forfeited their matches against SJSU this season over the alleged trans player. The lawsuit also sought to have the losses accrued from those forfeits vacated. Crews, however, said that the teams were aware that those forfeits would amount to losses at the time and denied the request to vacate them and re-seed the tournament.
The lawsuit claimed that the plaintiffs’ Title IX and First Amendment rights were violated by having a transgender woman on the team and that she posed a “safety risk” to other players. Crews did not address those claims in his ruling. However, he did reportedly note that several recent circuit court decisions have cited the Supreme Court’s ruling that discrimination on the basis of transgender status or sexual orientation amounts to sex-based discrimination, which is prohibited under Title IX.
In a statement, San Jose State University said that it would “continue to support its student-athletes and reject discrimination in all forms.”
“All San Jose State University student-athletes are eligible to participate in their sports under NCAA and Mountain West Conference rules,” the statement continued. “We are gratified that the Court rejected an eleventh-hour attempt to change those rules. Our team looks forward to competing in the Mountain West volleyball tournament this week.”
Both ESPN and the AP reported that the plaintiffs had filed a notice for emergency appeal with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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