Sex, volleyball and politics

It's a new world in women's college sports

This all could have been handled in a 30 minute phone call.

Instead, the saga of the San Jose State women’s volleyball team has become a sad soap opera, a national story and a culture uproar. And expect the uproar-edness to increase as the SJ State team goes to the season-ending Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas this weekend.

As you’ve probably heard, the story is that team co-captain Brook Slusser suddenly decided one of her teammates is transgender. And Slusser was shocked, outraged and deeply upset.

In fact, she said, she was terrified her big, muscular teammate would injure her during play.

In September she told TV host Megyn Kelly, “I have gone to my coaches and said I refuse to play against her if there is not a block up.”

Well that’s just terrible. Obviously, it was not fair if Slusser felt she was in that kind of danger. She needed to get out of harm’s way.

No need to stay and be unhappy. College athletic transfer rules have never been more lax. You don’t even have to sit out a year. You’re obviously a good player. I’m sure one of the colleges in your home state of Alabama would be happy to have you on their team.

Nope. Slusser wanted to stay. And be outraged.

So outraged that Slusser has joined a lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming she felt physically unsafe and that the teammate was getting an unfair advantage. The suit also tried to have the player banned from this weekend’s tournament.

Also she gave an interview on KTVU-TV, the local Fox affiliate.

Among other things Slusser said was:

“They are taking opportunities, scholarships and medals away from women who have worked their entire life for it.”

Ah, there it is. Medals.

So this isn’t a lone women’s volleyball player, personally upset. This is a sisterhood, the group that filed the lawsuit in the first place.

They are the ones who want to insist that trans men are taking over women’s sports, muscling aside the women. (They aren’t of course. You probably know the numbers — roughly 50 trans players out of 500,000 NCAA women athletes.)

This is just one step away from the they-change-your-child’s-sex-when-they-are-at-school crowd.

Obviously proved to be a very successful talking point. Witness the Kamala Harris pro-trans ads in the presidential election.

The problem is, that group has to have examples, preferably on video, to show how terrible the problem is.

They had one this summer, when trans swimmer Lia Thomas won a national championship to howls of protest.

But Thomas subsequently lost a lawsuit that would have allowed her to compete in the Olympic Games. So her national profile declined.

Another example was needed.

Hello San Jose State Spartans.

And it is working. So far Republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have supported protests against SJ State. Five teams — Wyoming, Boise State, Nevada, Utah State and Utah, have refused to play the Spartans, resulting in seven forfeits, which are counted as wins.

And, inevitably, President-elect Donald Trump weighed in, telling of seeing a horrifying video with a woman getting slammed in the face with a ball “I never saw hit so hard.”

(San Diego State, where the woman plays, fact-checked Trump’s fanciful account: “The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.”)

The problem is, the Spartans aren’t turning out to be a good argument for how trans men are dominating women’s sports.

First of all, they aren’t very good. They are ranked 119th-best team in the country, Their Mountain West Conference record is a tidy 12-5, but that is including those forfeits. Wyoming, which forfeited this year, beat SJS twice last year.

Also, it is hard to make the case that this alleged trans player is terrifying opponents.

As head coach Todd Kress wrote to a Utah State coach in an email obtained by the Chronicle, those teams than cancelled games this year were fine with her previously.

“Everyone has played against her the last two years,” Kress said.

Wyoming Athletic Director Tom Burman, whose comments were printed in the Washington Post. went even farther. She’s not even State’s best player.

“I do think it is important to note,” Burman said, “we have played against this athlete for the past two seasons and our student-athletes felt safe in the previous matches. She is not the best or most dominant hitter on the Spartans team.”

Also, NCAA rules state that a trans athlete must undergo a year of testosterone suppression before competing. In some cases, those athletes have less male testosterone than their female teammates.

The player has not identified as trans, nor had her name been made public, but the lawsuit and the attention have destroyed any chance to avoid the spotlight. Her name is regularly printed in media accounts, often with her photo.

This weekend’s tournament will almost certainly crank up media attention, especially now that a judge has refused to ban the alleged transgender player. Now we will see if teams in the tournament continue to boycott San Jose.

Even Slusser must be aware of the hypocrisy.

Both players are seniors who played together for three seasons. Slusser admits they were friendly and even shared group housing earlier. Even now there are videos of Slusser, and her teammates, cheering on and congratulating the player on the court after a good play.

To turn on her teammate, to out her and make her a national spectacle seems incredibly mean-girl cruel.

It may be wearing on her. Slusser’s explanation for the outing is sounding more dog-ate-my-homework all the time.

In the KTVU interview the much-reported “80 mph spike,” that the trans player was supposed to uncork, didn’t come up, maybe because volleyball experts estimate that even male players hit it at more like 60 mph.

Instead Slusser said she was intimidated by how high the player could jump. How would that injure you?

There was a wild story printed in an online publication that referenced Slusser’s name, that players got together to arrange that a player on another team would hit Slusser in the face with the ball. Kress called the story a “joke . . . littered with lies.”

Of course it is not a joke to the alleged trans woman. Not that this crowd takes her seriously.

In October, running for vice-president, J.D. Vance suggested it was as easy to change gender as to get a new hairstyle. Vance said it was “getting harder to get into Harvard of Yale” but one way to get in was “to be trans.”

In 2015, I interviewed a trans man for a column in the Chronicle. He talked about how wrenching the decision was. And how it began with him wondering “what’s wrong with me?’

And then, finally, accepting the reality. And the knowledge that he would then face a lifetime of sniggers, sneers and insults.

“No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘You know what I’d like to do today? Feel like a second-class citizen for the rest of my life,’” Mason J. said. “Some of the things I have had to contend with I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

Perhaps hardest, he then had to tell his family. His mother, he said, finally realized that he was on the verge of suicide.

“My mom often says she is more appreciative to have a living son than a dead daughter,” he said.

People don’t do this for an edge. Or a medal. It takes more than a notion to make that change. And even more to put yourself out there in public.

And here we are.

The politicians have lined up. The haters have BOYcott signs. San Jose State travels with a security detail.

And this weekend is the tournament.

The Spartans got a first round bye. They will play the winner of the Utah State — Boise State game. Both of those schools boycotted games with San Jose State this year.

If either team forfeits this time, the Spartans will go to the Mountain West championship. The winner of that game goes to the NCAA Championship.

Would the other teams really forfeit San Jose’s way to the title?

If they have any pride or respect for the sport they will play.

Fair and square.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Twitter: @cwnevius