On Saturday, Oct. 26, several hundred people gathered at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center for a rally in support of the University of Nevada, Reno, women’s volleyball team, which made headlines by forfeiting a match against San Jose State University due to the latter’s inclusion of a transgender player.
UNR became the fifth team to forfeit against SJSU for that reason.
The rally, titled “Women’s Sports Are for Women Only,” was hosted by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), a group that’s funding a lawsuit against the NCAA over its policies regarding transgender athletes.
Multiple speakers voiced their support for the volleyball team’s decision, criticized the inclusion of transgender players in women’s sports, and condemned what they perceived as a politically motivated initial response from UNR administrators.
Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer known for her outspoken stance against allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports, headlined the event. She began her speech with a prayer and shared her experiences competing against Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania who won the NCAA championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in 2022. Gaines challenged NCAA president Charlie Baker, Mountain West Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, and UNR leaders to “do the right thing” by prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in categories that do not align with their gender at birth.
Gaines introduced nine players from the UNR volleyball team: co-captain Sia Liilii, McKenna Dressel, Sierra Bernard, Summer Suppik, Malia Pilimai, Kinsley Singleton, Masyn Navarro, Bella Snyder and Nicanora Clarke.
A visibly emotional Liilii addressed the crowd with prepared remarks.
“It hurts when our university has taken a position that could potentially hurt us,” she said. “My teammates and I were very emotional, and I’m not sure I can put into words what it feels like to dread what you have to face like this and know that we’re all on our own. Our rights and our voices were taken away.”
Liilii stated that as the team was preparing for its match against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Oct. 3, the UNR administration released a statement committing to play against SJSU without consulting the team.
In a subsequent statement, UNR clarified that it could not legally prevent the match from occurring under the Nevada Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on gender expression, but that players who opted out would not face penalties. The extent of support for Liilii’s position among the wider volleyball team remains unclear.
“How many young women will have to be beaten, or see their friends beaten out for an opportunity from a male before enough is enough?” Liilii said, referring to transgender women. “Men do not belong in women’s sports.”
The speakers who followed included players Singleton, Bernard and Navarro; Marshi Smith, a former Nevada and NCAA champion swimmer and co-founder of ICONS; Jen Hucke, a Nevada state and Stanford University champion volleyball player; Kendall Lewis, a Galena High School volleyball player; and Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, who pledged to introduce legislation to protect women’s sports in the next session.
Outside of the venue, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown posed with rallygoers at a Donald Trump merchandise booth.
The speakers mostly echoed the belief that transgender athletes enjoy an unfair advantage over cisgender women, and that the larger muscle mass and bone density afforded to them after undergoing male puberty poses a threat to the safety of cisgender women.
They also expressed alarm over the prospect of transgender athletes sharing locker rooms with cisgender women, framing their concerns as part of a broader cultural issue that they believe disregards “biological fact” for political reasons.
“Men are stronger,” said rallygoer Melissa Clement. “They’re built differently, and this transgender athlete may have taken hormones, may have done whatever, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact that the athlete has a build that’s different, and that doesn’t go away.”
The NCAA has signed off on transgender athletes in some sports and has set sport-by-sport testosterone thresholds. The American Civil Liberties Union says it’s a myth that transgender athletes have an unfair advantage, and that they instead have an unfair disadvantage in the form of harassment and threats.
There are no widespread scientific studies that show transgender athletes have an unfair advantage over cisgender athletes. Clement believes that scientific study in the area isn’t “objective,” and obfuscates the observable truth “from the beginning of time” that men are simply stronger than women.
Clement also believes that keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports is a social-justice issue. She is primarily concerned with what she considers to be the unfair treatment of women. She also said she doesn’t hold any ill will toward transgender people.
“When they take away women’s scholarships (and) women’s positions on sporting teams, and invade the privacy of the locker room, that is criminal,” she said. “I’m sorry. Men who parade around in women’s face, that’s no different than how upset we get with blackface. It’s the same thing I see.”
Other attendees voiced concerns about a societal shift toward accepting transgender identities.
“This is clinical insanity to assume that a man who just identifies as a woman becomes a woman, and I tested that theory in the state of California,” said Somil Viradia, a Los Angeles doctor. “I went down to the DMV, paid $35, and now in the state of California, I’m legally a female. It says so on my driver’s license because that’s how stupid our society has become.
“In modern-day America, they’re saying 150,000 minors identify as transgender. That’s because they’re not actually transgender. They are buying into a social fad that has been pushed by TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, etc.”
At the end of the rally, Gaines reiterated that objections to transgender athletes are not personal and emphasized that they should be allowed to compete in categories aligned with their gender at birth. Advocates for the transgender community believe that such ideas further alienate an already small community from the avenues of personal expression and belonging that sports can provide.
“I cannot speak to the feelings of other women,” said Matt Kopicko, director of prevention and programming at LGBTQ+ community resource organization Our Center. “I’m not a trans woman, but from my perspective, and from what I know in my community and the research that I’ve done personally, trans women are women, and that’s the statement.”
Kopicko did not attend the rally but takes issue with what he believes is the unjust targeting of transgender people by organizations and individuals addressing the issue from unscientific and disingenuous positions, largely for political gain.
“The trans community is an agenda for some people, and it ebbs and flows, and every single election year, there’s always some (group used as a scapegoat), and this year, it’s trans people,” Kopicko said.
Kopicko also criticized UNR for not taking a stronger stance in support of the trans community.
“The university is like, ‘Well, we’re not at fault, because we allowed the game to happen, and if it gets canceled because none of our players want to play, oh, well,’” he said.
As of the forfeit, the UNR volleyball team’s record stood at 11-10 and 4-6 in conference play. The team may still face San Jose State University in the Mountain West Tournament later this year, but has not yet said whether it would forfeit that match.