A dozen female college volleyball players and one of their coaches have filed a lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference after their teams competed against a biological male.

The athletes and coach—also from the Mountain West Conference—say that their federal Title IX rights, as well as their First Amendment rights, were violated by San Jose State University and the conference commissioner. The SJSU team includes Blair Fleming, a biological male who identifies as a woman.

The lawsuit asks for SJSU’s wins to be vacated and for the school to be banned from the conference tournament, which is scheduled to begin on Nov. 27. The plaintiffs include the San Jose volleyball co-captain, two other former players, SJSU’s suspended assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smooth and players from four other Mountain West schools which have forfeited games against the college. The lawsuit says that the conference’s so-called Transgender Participation Policy is designed to “chill and suppress the free speech rights of women athletes.”

The Transgender Participation Policy was adopted in September, and since then, five teams have forfeited games against SJSU, citing safety concerns. Melissa Batie-Smooth, one of the plaintiffs, served as SJSU’s assistant volleyball coach. When Fleming joined the team, Batie-Smooth filed a complaint with the university on behalf of players who were uncomfortable with a biological male’s presence on the team. The university suspended Batie-Smooth just days later.

Batie-Smooth has continued to speak out on the injustice, despite her suspension. “Safety is being taken away from women,” she said on America’s Newsroom. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now, will be forever changed.”

Attorney Bill Bock, who has worked with athletes on many Title IX cases, is representing the women. “The NCAA, Mountain West Conference and college athletic directors around the country are failing women,” he said. “Because the administrators don’t have the courage to do their jobs, we have to ask the federal courts to do their jobs for them.”

Mary Szoch, a former Division I athlete and director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, spoke out following Batie-Smooth’s suspension earlier this year.

“For San Jose State to suspend a coach willing to point out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes shows that they are willing to go to any lengths to keep up this dangerous charade,” she explained. “As we move forward, we need to work for the day when everyone accepts biological realities, and the idea of a man playing a woman’s sport is called out as absolutely ridiculous.”

Says Christian apologist Jon Noyes of Stand to Reason: “Whenever Scripture addresses crossing gender boundaries, it’s always negative, whether it be Deuteronomy 22:5 or 1 Corinthians 6:9–10. Scripture clearly teaches God created the male-female binary and always presumes you identify with the gender of your biological sex. Any departure from this goes against human design and prevents human flourishing.”

Above: The San Jose Spartans volleyball team huddles during an Oct. 31 match against the Air Force Falcons.

Photo: Eakin Howard / AP