Don’t blame Boise St. players for forfeit. Decision out of their hands

The announcement late Wednesday night that Boise State’s volleyball team has pulled out of the Mountain West tournament semifinals, refusing to play San Jose State for a third time this season due to the presence of a transgender athlete, is not a surprise. 

In fact, it’s the only credible decision the Broncos could have made. Had they chosen to compete against the Spartans with their season on the line, after refusing to do so during the regular season, it would have completely undermined the seriousness of the stand Boise State has chosen to take against transgender participation in sports. 

“The decision to not continue to play in the 2024 Mountain West Volleyball Championship tournament was not an easy one,” Boise State said in a statement. “Our team overcame forfeitures to earn a spot in the tournament field and fought for the win over Utah State in the first round on Wednesday. They should not have to forgo this opportunity while waiting for a more thoughtful and better system that serves all athletes.”

In a video posted to the team’s social media account moments after Wednesday’s win over Utah State, they were jumping up and down and screaming in joy as one of their teammates pinned the Boise State logo on the next round of the bracket. It certainly did not look like a team on an inevitable march to end its season voluntarily because they did not approve of a competitor who meets all eligibility requirements and whom they had competed against without incident the previous two seasons. 

The post even contained the hashtag #whatsnext, a bizarre choice considering that a statement pulling out of the tournament actually came next. 

You cannot blame Boise State’s players if they are bitter that it ends this way, if they feel cheated out of an opportunity to play for a conference championship and a spot in the NCAA tournament.

But their anger should not be directed at San Jose State, which has complied with all NCAA rules. It should not be directed at the player in question, whom USA TODAY Sports is not identifying because she has not commented on her gender identity. And though the NCAA is an easy target, even the association has no role here: It is only applying the standards for transgender athletes that were adopted by USA Volleyball.

Instead, these young women at Boise State lost a chance to fulfill their goals because politicians, activists and professional grifters turned them into political pawns and the leadership of their school, including president Marlene Tromp and athletics director Jeremiah Dickey, were too weak to push back.

The result is that Boise State sacrificed its volleyball team to the bloodlust of a group of people who have turned anti-trans activism into a religion, using megaphones and misinformation to stir the kind of hatred in people that is hard to contain once it’s unleashed. 

I am not assigning that hatred to Boise State’s players. I don’t know how they actually felt about the prospect of playing San Jose State or the player in question because none of them have addressed it publicly. I would imagine that, like with most teams of 15 women in college, there was a variety of opinions. I am certain that at least some of those players are heartbroken that they won’t have a chance to compete and would have made a different choice if it were up to them. 

But I am confident that the decision whether to play was not completely in the players’ hands. The forces at work here were much, much more powerful. The narrative of having a team that stood up to the woke insanity taking over college sports is far more important to the Idaho state house and people like Barbara Ehardt. 

Who is Barbara Ehardt? She’s a former women’s college basketball coach who became a state representative and authored the country’s first bill banning transgender athletes in women’s sports. 

I met and interviewed Ehardt in March 2022 outside of the Georgia Tech aquatic center, which had briefly become the center of the sports world as Penn’s Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Div. 1 national championship. 

Ehardt had come to take part in protests along with several others from all corners of the country and even a couple from overseas. She was asked what she would say to Thomas.

“You’re the one who is discriminating,” Ehardt said. “You had your opportunity.” 

The implicit suggestion was that Thomas, who previously swam on the men’s team, had transitioned primarily, if not exclusively, to win at sports. And speaker after speaker at the protest pushed the same theme: That if people didn’t put a stop to this right now that women were going to be erased from sports by the bigger, stronger, predatory men deciding at the drop of a hat that they were transgender. 

That is, of course, not what has happened. Instead, even as sport governing bodies have tightened their regulations in a good faith effort to figure out what is both fair and scientifically relevant — Thomas, for example, wouldn’t have been eligible under the rules that the NCAA subsequently adopted — the anti-trans groups continue to use a sledgehammer to address an issue that needs a scalpel. 

And also some understanding. 

If you think that the player at San Jose State is trying to push some agenda, you are severely mistaken. This is a young person who transitioned early in life, played high school and club volleyball as a woman and never intended her presence to make any kind of statement, political or otherwise. She just wanted to live her life as a solid, but unremarkable college athlete who would have blended into anonymity had she not been outed this past spring by a website that specializes in transphobia and invasions of privacy. 

While people like Ehardt and former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has made a media career out of the grievance of tying with Thomas for fifth place in one of their races back in 2022, would tell you that this story proves they were right all along, I see it the opposite way. 

The fact that a mid-major volleyball player who went unnoticed for three seasons has now blown up into a raging controversy shows how wrong they are.

This is really what they were worried about? This needs federal government intervention? This is so important that a group of young women at Boise State had to sacrifice their season to make a statement? Two years after Lia Thomas, this is all you’ve got? 

I frequently get asked, given how often I’ve covered these controversies over the last couple years, how I feel about transgender participation in women’s sports. In some cases, there are clear fairness issues worth addressing — but with better research and science, not emotion, reflexive hate and blanket bans that would have negative unintended consequences.

I don’t think people fully grasp the ramifications of the kind of world that would be. Beyond the sheer ugliness of someone’s daughter being accused of being transgender if they look too masculine or are just naturally more athletic than their peers, do we really want to go down the road of genital checks so that your 12-year-old can play soccer? We have seen enough examples of pedophiles and abusers using youth and college sports as an access point to commit crimes to know how bad of an idea that would be.

But these kind of thoughtful debates seem impossible at this moment when extremists dominate the discourse. Fundamentally, I don’t believe refusing to compete changes things much or helps anyone — except, oddly enough, a San Jose State team that will play for the Mountain West title and a spot in the NCAA tournament. 

‘In this time of Thanksgiving, we are especially thankful for those who continue to engage in civil and respectful discourse,’ San Jose State said in a statement. ‘We celebrate and support all of our students, including our student-athletes as they compete for our community on this holiday weekend. While we are disappointed in Boise State’s decision, our women’s volleyball team is preparing for Saturday’s match and looks forward to competing for a championship.’

The Spartans will play either Colorado State or San Diego State, both of whom have played — and beaten — San Jose State this season. Unlike Boise State, they won’t leave with any regrets about how their season ends.