A university volleyball participant who refused to compete in opposition to a organic male participant is telling her story in a brand new documentary, shared first with Fox News Digital.
Sia Liilii, crew captain for the College of Nevada, Reno’s girls’s volleyball crew, drew nationwide headlines in October when she and her teammates refused to play a scheduled match in opposition to San Jose State after studying that an alleged transgender-identifying organic male participant was on the crew.
Through the preseason, Liilii mentioned she was “blindsided” after coming throughout viral clips of the San Jose participant “hitting balls that had been undefendable and actually had been a security concern for many people.”
“Sixteen of the 17 of us had already just about determined and mentioned, ‘Hey, this isn’t proper. We will take a stand,'” Liilii says in IW Options’ “Hold the Line.”
Sia Liilii tells her story in IW Options’ “Maintain the Line.” (IW Options, a mission of Unbiased Ladies)
Weeks earlier than the sport, Liilii’s crew determined to forfeit their match in opposition to San Jose State, which was scheduled to happen on October 26.
Nevertheless, when the crew introduced their considerations to the athletic director, Liilii claims their resolution was not supported.
“We had been instructed we’re not educated sufficient on the topic,” she mentioned. “That we wanted to rethink our positioning on what we had been doing as a result of it was one thing we couldn’t comprehend but.”
“Our coaches supported us, they usually made it clear that they had been behind us in no matter resolution we made… however I do not really feel like we had been totally supported or backed by a whole lot of college officers at our faculty,” she added.
A scholar leads a bunch of demonstrators in Knoxville, Tennessee, in protest of the state’s 2022 transgender athlete ban. ((Saul Younger/Knoxville Information-Sentinel /USA At the moment))
The college despatched Fox Information Digital a press release denying that the gamers had been ever instructed they had been “not educated sufficient on the topic.”
“The College of Nevada athletics director and deputy director met with the Nevada volleyball crew and training employees on Oct. 7, 2024 the place each member of the crew current had a chance to share their emotions in regards to the state of affairs, ask questions, give their enter on subsequent steps and had been offered the chance for assets,” the assertion learn. “The crew was not instructed that they ‘weren’t educated sufficient on the topic’ throughout this assembly by the athletics director or the deputy director. On Oct. 14 and Oct. 22, 2024, the athletics director spoke with the crew for lower than 5 minutes throughout every prevalence and people gatherings had been operational in nature.”
College directors mentioned they instructed the crew they might not forfeit the match “for causes associated to gender id or expression” as a result of it will violate the state’s structure.
On the day earlier than the match, the college formally introduced they might forfeit the sport as a result of not having sufficient gamers prepared to compete in opposition to San Jose State.
Nevada was the fifth crew to forfeit its match in opposition to San Jose State, becoming a member of Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State, who all formally forfeited their scheduled video games in opposition to the California college.
Nevada is the fifth crew to forfeit its match in opposition to San Jose State amid an ongoing nationwide controversy over an alleged transgender participant on the crew. (AP Photograph/David Zalubowski)
Liilii, who grew up in Hawaii and earned a Division 1 scholarship to the College of Nevada in 2021, mentioned that not being supported by her college was “actually robust.”
“I used to be very afraid about coming forth, however I do not assume I would do something otherwise,” she says within the documentary.
Liilii is now becoming a member of different feminine athletes in preventing again in opposition to these insurance policies as an Unbiased Ladies’s Discussion board ambassador advocating for ladies’s sports activities.
“Equity and security in girls’s sports activities shouldn’t be up for debate, which is why we’re proud to characteristic the voices of Sia Liilii, McKenna Dressel and Kinsley Singleton,” Andrea Mew, managing editor for IW Options and producer of the documentary, mentioned in a press release to Fox Information Digital.
Sia Liilii speaks at an Unbiased Ladies’s Discussion board occasion. (Unbiased Ladies’s Discussion board)
THE CLOCK IS TICKING FOR THE NCAA TO CHANGE ITS TRANS POLICY AND PROTECT WOMEN’S SPORTS
“These girls received’t accept much less. Governing our bodies like The National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) must step up and cease letting woke insurance policies erase the achievements of those hardworking feminine athletes and lots of extra. Ladies’s sports activities ought to be about honest competitors, not bending the foundations for inclusivity. It’s easy — preserve girls’s sports activities for ladies and make the modifications now. No extra excuses,” she added.
“Ladies’s sports activities belong to girls solely and males’s sports activities belong to males solely as a result of it provides us an opportunity to champion the game with out being dominated by the opposite intercourse,” Liilii mentioned. “Nobody needs to be ready to place their profession in danger… If males are allowed to compete in opposition to girls, girls might be erased from sports activities.”
Liilii’s story comes amid a rising motion of feminine athletes demanding the NCAA revise its present insurance policies that permit transgender athletes to compete on girls’s groups.
Former collegiate swimmer and Unbiased Ladies’s Discussion board ambassador Riley Gaines has spearheaded this motion, submitting a lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA final March, which alleges its coverage on trans gamers violates Title IX protections for feminine faculty athletes.
Riley Gaines is sworn in throughout a Home Oversight Subcommittee on Well being Care and Monetary Providers listening to on Capitol Hill December 5, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Photos)
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Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., revealed this week that he plans to introduce a joint decision alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that may name on the NCAA to revoke eligibility of trans athletes who compete as girls.
Fox Information’ Jackson Thomas contributed to this text.
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