One Nevada Women's Volleyball player tells 2 News Nevada she intends to sit out for next week's game against San Jose State. This is because the Spartans have a transgender player on their team.

Transgender women participating in sports often brings heated discussions.

One Nevada Women's Volleyball player tells 2 News Nevada she is still intending to sit out for next week's game against San Jose State.

This is because the Spartans have a transgender player on their team.

"Women sports are for women and biological males have no place in womens sports," said Sia Liilii, Co-Captain and Outside Hitter for the Nevada Women's Volleyball team. "It's a safety concern. I never want to see anyone get in harm's way and they just have biological differences. They're stronger. They're faster." 

On Monday, the players came together and took a vote if they should join the other teams who forfeited, and the majority of the players agreed to sit out.

According to ESPN, there are 23 states with laws restricting transgender athletes in some capacity.

Nevada is not one of them.

University of Nevada, Reno President, Brian Sandoval sent out a statement saying in-part, "As a public university we are legally prohibited by Section 24 of the Nevada Constitution and other laws and regulations to declare a forfeit for reasons related to gender identity or expression."

Players say the initial statement from the university, early in week, which includes the statement, "The players’ decision also does not represent the position of the University," made them feel unsupported.

However, the one from Sandoval gave them more understanding.

"They came out with that second one that we support you, but we also support all of our students," Liilii said.

Southern Utah was the first domino to fall to forfeit against SJSU.

Four Mountain West teams followed suit, Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada.

The Mountain West Conference says it's up to each institution to make its own choice.

The NCAA Transgender policy is different for each sport and is determined by the national governing body of that sport.

USA Volleyball is the body for college volleyball.

They have a process transgender athletes must follow before they suit up for a team. 

One of the stipulations is that transgender women must have testosterone levels under 10 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) for at least one year before playing.

According to WebMD, the normal levels for men range from 10-35 nmol/L and for women, it's 0.5-2.4 nmol/L.

All transgender athletes must reapply after each season.

Blaire Flemming is the 6'1'' redshirt senior at the center of this issue, who leads the team in kills and blocks.

Flemming has played for the Spartans for three seasons.

We've reached out to Flemming and have not yet heard back.

Brooke Slusser joined the team last year.

She's saluting Nevada for their stance.

She's also joined the Gaines v. NCAA federal lawsuit suing the NCAA for letting transgender athletes compete in sports.

The lawsuit was filed after a transgender woman won the 2022 NCAA Women's Swimming Championship.

After a recent game, San Jose State's Head Coach was asked if there's tensions in the locker room.

"Yeah I don't know if that's something I want to get into," Coach Todd Kress said in a postgame press conference. "I think that what we do inside the locker and inside our group, is kind of just amongst ourselves."

Kress did say there's a lot of hate towards the team on social media.

"When you wake up and receive those messages every day it's going to take a toll and at some point the people that are sending those messages, I think they need to wake up and look at themselves in the mirror and really question who they are as human beings and what their end game is," he said.

Nevada's Liilii says she feels for Flemming.

"No one deserves the type of hate that I can imagine this person is getting and I have no animosity towards this person individually. It's never been about an individual, it's about the future of women sports," she said.

Lilli says that the team will meet before the match again, but the intention is to not suit up against the Spartans next Saturday.

There is still a lot of season left.

The Mountain West Tournament is next month and if SJSU finds its wat into the NCAA tournament, we could be seeing more forfeits and protest on the way.