Girls’ teams need sex-based rules. SJSU coach says school hid a failed test

Girls' teams need sex-based eligibility rules, enforced in the open, and former San Jose State coach Melissa Batie-Smoose says SJSU did the opposite in 2023. In an Oct. 22, 2026, interview with OutKick's Jackson Thompson, Batie-Smoose, the team's former associate head coach and now head volleyball coach at Cisco College, said associate athletics director Laura Alexander confirmed to her that Blaire Fleming was not showing up for the required blood test. Then, she says, Alexander told her: “that after the test, that the testosterone levels were too high, and Fleming is ineligible to play and will not be going on the trip that day.”¹

She says that result was kept "a secret" from the rest of the team. An SJSU November 2023 game recap said Fleming had not competed since Sept. 16 “due to injuries.” The allegation is also in her Oct. 13 federal lawsuit, which names the California State University trustees and 11 university employees².

NCAA rules set a hormone limit

The test mattered because the NCAA's own rule said it did. The NCAA's Phase Two policy, in place through the 2023–24 school year, required transgender women to complete at least one year of testosterone suppression before competing on a women's team. If an athlete became ineligible, NCAA rules required the school to immediately keep that athlete out of competition¹.

A testosterone threshold concedes the biological reality that a male body carries an advantage on a women's court. The NCAA tried to manage that advantage with a blood draw, and a blood draw protects no girl if the result is buried.

On Feb. 6, 2025, the NCAA restricted women's teams to athletes assigned female at birth, a day after President Donald Trump's executive order. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld restrictions in West Virginia and Idaho, ruling that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause permit schools to reserve female teams based on biological sex². A line drawn at sex is one no lab report can blur.

The injury report left questions unanswered

The public got a different story. SJSU’s recap attributed Fleming’s absence to injuries, a public account Batie-Smoose disputes. Batie-Smoose says the timing is wrong: "The injury happened the day that Fleming went to go get tested, and it was very questionable¹."

Her lawsuit goes further and says she believes the reported hand injury "was an excuse to hide his ineligibility to play because of his hormone level." Fleming returned in November of that season after missing 17 matches¹. One account is a game recap. The other is a federal complaint.

The coach says speaking up cost her job

Batie-Smoose moved her family from Connecticut to California in January 2023 to take the SJSU job. During the 2024 season, former co-captain Slusser publicly challenged Fleming's participation, and several opponents refused to play SJSU. On Oct. 29, 2024, Batie-Smoose submitted a Title IX complaint alleging unequal treatment and failures to address concerns about the transgender athlete and the female players². SJSU put her on paid leave days later, on grounds she disputes¹.

Her suit says that on Nov. 2 an administrator blocked her from the gym before a home match, took her identification and keys, and told her to leave. On Jan. 31, 2025, athletics director Jeff Konya notified her that her appointment would not be renewed, in a letter issued on behalf of President Cynthia Teniente-Matson. Her new complaint alleges that head coach Todd Kress berated her in front of athletes, "calling her ‘Trump-loving’ or a ‘Trump lover’ and mocking her political affiliation²." Bloomberg Law reports that the suit claims her suspension and firing were at least in part based on her speech and her religious beliefs³.

SJSU has an answer from the courtroom: in dismissing her earlier complaint, Judge Noël Wise wrote that it "supports that she was disciplined for violating a confidentiality law, not for opposing discrimination on the basis of sex." Wise allowed her to amend the complaint within 21 days. The Education Department's civil-rights office, meanwhile, questioned why the university suspended her but not Kress². Why was the coach who filed the complaint pushed out of the gym while the head coach stayed?

SJSU owes families answers

On Jan. 28, 2026, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights concluded that SJSU violated Title IX in athletic participation, sex-separated facilities and its handling of discrimination complaints². The California State University system sued the Education Department in March, arguing SJSU followed the law and the NCAA rules of those seasons¹. That defense runs into the rulebook: an ineligible athlete had to be kept out of competition immediately, and nothing in it licenses a secret.

Asked about the testosterone allegation, SJSU said only: "Due to pending litigation, San Jose State is unable to respond to your inquiry¹." The case, Batie-Smoose v. The Board of Trustees of the California State University, No. 5:26-cv-11808, is active in the Northern District of California. The court issued a summons on Oct. 16⁴.

Parents of female athletes should demand that SJSU answer, and lawmakers and the Education Department should press for it, because men do not belong on women's teams and the families who trust a program with their daughters are owed the truth. Did a 2023 test find Fleming over the NCAA's limit, as Batie-Smoose says Alexander told her? Yes or no? Did SJSU decide the team would not be told, yes or no? Does SJSU stand by its injury account despite Batie-Smoose’s lawsuit alleging it was an excuse to hide Fleming’s ineligibility¹?

Sources

1. Ex-SJSU volleyball coach alleges trans player failed testosterone test, result was kept 'secret' from team | OutKick
2. Ex-SJSU volleyball coach files new lawsuit alleging retaliation for Trump support, religion amid trans scandal | OutKick
3. San Jose State Coach Claims Trans Dispute Led to Firing (1)
4. Batie-Smoose v. The Board of Trustees of the California State University et al — 5:26-cv-11808