FFS Friday: Brooke Slusser
She has joined as a named plaintiff in Gaines, et al. v. NCAA, et al.
September 27, 2024
UPDATE (September 30, 2024): Brooke has given her first public interview since joining the lawsuit explained below. In it, she says:
"It was a really hard pill to swallow, because I couldn't comprehend the fact that there was a man on the team, and it was almost as if I was in denial for a really long time that this was happening. So it was just really hard for me to wrap my head around.
"And then, it still being a topic we weren't really allowed to talk about. It was just kind of whispers behind closed doors that this is what's happening, but no one's really talked about it or addressed it."
The interview is available here.
FFS (Female Free Speech) Friday honors women and girls who are speaking out about the harms that “gender identity” poses to women and girls as a sex class. FFS Friday posts are free and shareable. If you would like access to content that delves deeper into the movement to protect the sex-basesd rights of women and girls and to stop the abolition of sex, please consider a paid subscription.
Today’s FFS Friday honors Brooke Slusser, who plays volleyball at San Jose State University; the team is undefeated so far this season. One of her teammates is Blaire Fleming, a man who claims to have a woman “gender identity.” Brooke has added her name to the list of named plaintiffs in Gaines, et al. v. NCAA, et al.
Photo: ICONS lawsuit page
In March, sixteen female athletes (representing a class of athletes) sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Georgia Tech (as well as several individual defendants) for discrimination under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Georgia Tech hosted the 2022 NCAA national swimming championships when Lia (Will) Thomas, a male swimmer who was not competitive on the men’s team, was permitted to compete in the women’s category and use the women’s locker room. Thomas went on to win the women’s 500 freestyle competition and to strip naked in front of naked women in the locker room.
The lawsuit is being funded and spearheaded by the group Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), and the athletes are represented by Bill Bock, a former US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) General Counsel who resigned from the NCAA Committee on Infractions earlier this year over its regulation permitting men to compete in women’s sports.
Brooke Slusser has now added her name to that lawsuit, stating that she was forced both to compete and to share a residence with Fleming without any prior notice that he was male.
Slusser transferred to San Jose State in 2023 and joined the women’s volleyball team. She also shared a residence with four of her teammates, including Fleming. At no point did anyone inform her (or anyone else) that he’s male. She says that she was frequently assigned by the school’s athletic department to room with him on road trips. She later learned that he had specifically requested to room with her.
According to the complaint, Slusser could tell that Fleming “played volleyball with jumping ability and power that surpassed that of any girl on the team.” She then overheard a conversation among students who referred to him as a guy and realized why.
According to Outkick:
Slusser said that while she did not want Fleming to be bullied, she was uncomfortable with the trans athlete's presence on the team. She questioned whether it was safe or fair for the other women on the team and for opposing teams. Slusser saw that Fleming was hitting the ball with more force and far harder than any woman she had ever played against.
…
Once knowledge of Fleming's biological sex became public, SJSU officials told the women’s volleyball players that they should not speak about it with anyone outside the team. If they were to speak publicly about Fleming being male, they were warned "things would go badly for the team members," according to the complaint.
And so she did the opposite: she put her real name on a lawsuit condemning the NCAA for its abhorrent policy of allowing male athletes to compete in the women’s category.
It will be women like Brooke and the other women honored in FFS Friday posts who will ultimately demonstrate that women and girls have had it with laws and policies that allow men to cheat and invade our spaces by calling themselves women. Brooke, if you’re reading this, today’s FFS Friday is for you.
Holy crapola--they were repeatedly assigning a man to room with a young woman because he requested it, although she didn't. How on Earth did they think that was appropriate.
He was stalking her in her own room.
The complicity of the coaches is a disgrace, and it appears to occur across the board in women’s sports. Isn’t it their responsibility to take care of and protect their athletes? Coaches know better than anyone that the performance gap between males and females is intrinsic and highly significant. What would happen if all coaches at every level of competition collectively wrote a female athletes’ bill of rights and refused to participate in a system that destroys the level playing field, disadvantages all women and, depending on the sport, guarantees that women are going to be injured, sometimes severely, due to the superior size and strength of males?
I wonder how the Olympic boxing coaches felt this year, standing by passively and watching their female athletes get pummeled and humiliated in front of the world. How do they sleep at night, knowing they stood by and said nothing?