How the War Over Trans Athletes Tore a Volleyball Team Apart

One year ago, a website publicly outed Blaire Fleming, a starting member of the San Jose State University volleyball team, as a trans woman. That incident, writes Jason Zengerle for The New York Times Magazine, elevated Fleming from “a mostly unknown college volleyball player to an unwilling combatant in the culture war” concerning identity and competitive sports. For this story, Zengerle, the first journalist to speak with Fleming about her experiences, casts a wide net, interviewing “athletes, coaches, family members, N.C.A.A. officials, scientists, activists and officials from the Biden and Trump administrations and the Harris campaign” and obtaining emails through thoughtful public-record requests. His feature details the tumultuous recent history of trans-participation policies and a conservative media ecosystem pushing against them, all while closely tracking the relationships among the San Jose Spartans team as they strain and then fracture. “Do I think I’m the last? No,” Fleming tells Zengerle. “There are going to be trans people in sports.”

In the fourth set, Colorado State reasserted its dominance and won the match 3-1, leaving Fleming sprawled on the floor in defeat. She had played the final game of her college career. Slusser and the other Spartans, many of them in tears, headed to the locker room, but Fleming lingered on the court. After congratulating some Colorado State players, she made her way into the crowd of spectators to see her mother, with whom I was sitting.

I told Fleming I was sorry her season was over. She let out a mirthless laugh.

“Don’t be,” she said.