On Wednesday, Oct. 2, the Utah State women’s volleyball team forfeited a seemingly inconsequential match against the San José State University Spartans. This wasn’t new — Southern Utah University, University of Wyoming, and Boise State University had all done the same in the last month.
Why? While none of the teams have given any reasoning for their sudden forfeit, it’s easy enough to connect the dots: Blaire Fleming, senior right side hitter for the Spartans, was outed as transgender by a far-right anti-queer magazine and, later, by her team captain in legal filings.
But this isn’t just a Mountain Conference problem. According to The Daily Princetonian’s Frosh Survey, 43.4% of new Princetonians support bans on transgender women competing in women’s sports, and only 28% oppose them. This data reveals that Princeton students hold anti-trans beliefs. We must admit this openly, interrogate why this is the case, and commit to ending pervasive transphobia in our own community.
Last month at a sports-focused event with LGBTQ+ alumni, Director of Athletics John Mack ’00 said that trans participation in sports “is not a Princeton issue. This is not an NCAA issue.” Instead, Mack argued that “this is a global issue, and you have to enter into the conversation with that in the back of your mind, because expecting answers is just unrealistic.” But Mack’s answer avoids accountability because change on campus can concretely make life better for trans and queer students at the University, as well as allow Princeton to become a leader in just sports policy.
We must address this because Princeton particularly, it seems, takes issue with trans athletes. After national uproar erupted around Lia Thomas’s status as a transgender college swimmer, the ‘Prince’ reported on the inflamed tensions that plagued the University’s swim and dive community. Princeton even made it into the lede of a 2022 New York Times article regarding Thomas’s competition, which referenced a Princeton women’s swim team meeting with the executive director of the Ivy League athletic conference. Members of the team were reportedly frustrated, “edging into anger.”
The purpose of this article is not to deride Princeton athletics, nor do I bring any profound solutions to the table. As a matter of fact, I’m receptive to the way that Princeton and the Ivy League conference have implemented the NCAA policy surrounding the inclusion of transgender athletes. That’s because their interpretation of the NCAA rules stems from a baseline of inclusion, not exclusion. What both students and the administration must work to change, as pointed out again and again by former Princeton wrestler AJ Lonski ’23, is the culture.
Lonski and Griffin Maxwell Brooks ’23, both queer student athletes, have written and spoken extensively about the ostracization that queer and trans athletes can face on campus. Lonski left the men’s wrestling team after his mental health suffered because of the anti-queer environment that the team allowed to fester. Brooks, who is transgender and non-binary, left the men’s diving team after a series of TikToks where they argued that the University, and Princeton athletics, aren’t welcoming to transgender people.
Right now, rules barring trans women from sports are supported by an alarmingly high percentage of the class of 2028.
Rhetoric against trans athletes concerns everyone — trans and not trans, athlete and non-athlete — because it is a sign of the broader transphobic sentiment to come, which has already affected parts of our society and caused serious harm to the LGBTQ+ community.
Yes, oftentimes, those who make the argument that transgender women have “unfair biological advantages” or make sports “unsafe” for cis women are not trying to cause harm, and there are legitimate conversations to be had about who gets to compete in what category of sports at the highest level.
However, the debate over women’s sports is overwhelmingly pushed by demagogues in bad faith, to use trans participation in sports as a wedge issue to demonize transgender people.
As the political zeitgeist of the right has become more anti-transgender, Princetonians committed to inclusion should not let this cultural phenomenon affect our willingness to address this in a nuanced manner, informed by data and compassion.
Rules targeting trans people in sports affect incredibly small populations. In Utah, an ultra-conservative supermajority in the state legislature overrode their Republican governor’s veto to pass a law that barred a whopping singular transgender student from playing K-12 sports. Last year, fewer than 40 of the current 500,000 NCAA athletes were transgender. It’s absurd that the right has created a furor this large out of a so-called “problem” this small.
If trans women do have any athletic “advantage,” it isn’t decisive: the singular out-trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas was slower than the NCAA record in the 500 freestyle by over 9 seconds. Thomas doesn’t even scratch the top 10 fastest times in women’s NCAA history. Thomas was a good swimmer in the men’s category — but that doesn't mean she had an unfair advantage.
Indeed, the academic “jury” is still out on whether transgender athletes have concrete biological advantages compared to their cisgender peers. A 2021 review from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport found that studies looking into the performance of trans people were often methodologically flawed. It also suggested that transgender women who undergo testosterone suppression have no statistically significant biological advantage over cis women. A 2024 article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine corroborated these findings, cautioning against the outright bans of transgender people playing in sports.
After her transition, Thomas lost an inch of height and muscle mass. In her words, Thomas didn’t transition to win swimming competitions; she transitioned to “be true to [herself].”
It doesn’t serve the Princeton community well to ostracize trans people by supporting anti-trans rules. While not all minds will be changed immediately by action we take on campus, the University and the student body — by acknowledging the lived experience of queer student athletes — can become leaders on this issue. For starters, the University and its students should stop platforming bullies like Riley Gaines, who spoke on campus last November at the invitation of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition and used her voice to attack and intimidate transgender people, athletes or not.
Since attention surrounding Thomas brought tensions to the surface of Princeton’s athletic community, the University community has had to reckon with what it means to be inclusive. Until now, comments like Mack’s exemplify an avoidant attitude. Blaire Fleming, Lia Thomas, and all queer and transgender people in NCAA athletics deserve to have a place, and the Princeton community must do its best to support them.
Charlie Yale is a first-year from Omaha, Neb.
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