LOGAN – Members of the Republican majority in the Utah House of Representatives were on hand on Oct. 29 to see the Utah State women’s volleyball team sweep the University of Nevada 3-0 at the Wayne Estes Center on the USU campus.
But their presence there had less to do with the love of women’s sports and more to do with politics.
Organized by Rep. Kera Birkeland (R-Morgan), the lawmakers were demonstrating their support of the volleyball teams’ principled stand earlier this month to forfeit a scheduled match at San Jose State University.
Although USU officials have declined to specifically discuss the reason for that decision, most observers – including Gov. Spencer Cox and other Utah politicians – have presumed that it was in protest over the presence of transgender athlete Blaire Fleming on the San Jose State volleyball team.
“It is essential that we preserve a space for women to compete fairly and safely,” Cox shared on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Our female athletes are left grappling with this difficult issue because the (National Collegiate Athletic Association) has failed in its responsibility to protect female athletes and women’s sports.”
In an open letter issued by Birkeland and more than 30 other GOP lawmakers, she went even further in condemning the NCAA by calling their current rules “regressive, discriminatory, unfair and hurtful” to women athletes.
“Utah’s NCAA member institutions are currently subject to misguided and discriminatory NCAA rules which allow male athletes to complete on women’s sports teams,” Birkeland charged. “These rules defy science and commonsense while violating state and federal law,” including Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972.
Under pressure from the LGBTQ+ community, the NCAA Board of Governors adopted a policy in 2022 governing transgender male participation in women’s sports that mirrored those of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committees.
Based on a report from the NCAA’s Office of Inclusion and Sport Science, that policy was intended to “support an inclusive environment that promotes and develops the mental and physical health of transgender and non-binary student-athletes in collegiate sports.”
In 2022, however, the Utah Legislature voted overwhelming to over-ride Cox’s veto of a bill that would have banned transgender students from playing girls’ sports in high schools.
That action made Utah the 12th state to implement a ban on transgender athletes at high school level.
Despite the NCAA rules, volleyball teams from Nevada, Boise State, University of Wyoming and Southern Utah University have also declined to take the floor against San Jose State in recent weeks.
The text of Birkeland’s letter saluted those schools for supporting their women athletes and called on the leaders of Utah’s institution to defend the right of female athletes to “a safe, level playing field and equal opportunity.”
That is particularly true of institutions receiving public support and funding, she added.
“Our institutions have the responsibility to assure young women of this basic level of respect and protection,” Birkeland argued. “It is unconscionable that we should be placing our female athletes in a position to defend themselves when this responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the leaders of their institutions.”
She also promised that the Legislature would commit to a thorough review of all Utah laws and regulations to prevent discrimination against women as defined by biological sex alone.