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As San Jose State University nears a critical deadline in its Title IX dispute against President Donald Trump’s administration, another woman affected by the school’s 2024 volleyball scandal has come forward.
Former University of Wyoming volleyball star Macey Boggs said her team was “torn apart” over the decision whether to forfeit two matches against SJSU in 2024. The Spartans were embroiled in national controversy at the time due to the presence of a biological transgender athlete on the roster.
Boggs said in a recent interview that the players learned about the trans player, whom they had competed against two years prior, in the spring of 2024. When fall arrived, the locker room became a hive of tension and nerves due to the two scheduled games between Wyoming and SJSU and disagreements over whether or not to forfeit.
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Macey Boggs, former University of Wyoming volleyball star (Courtesy of Macey Boggs)
“You could tell things got a little hostile,” Boggs told PK Press Club Digital.
“Between the whispers to each other, and then we were no longer one team, one unit, it was like these two separate islands.”
Friendships were permanently ruined for Boggs and the rest of the Cowgirls, she said.
“Yeah,” Boggs said when asked if the situation “definitely ruined friendships.”
“There were some girls that I really liked and we got along really well, and then this situation happened, conflicts arose, and ultimately we went in different directions because of that…as soon as we played our last game, we all went in different directions…it was hard to maintain those relationships.”
How did we get there?
The first Mountain West team to forfeit SJSU that year was Utah State, becoming the first of five conference teams to do so.
Former Utah State star Kaylie Ray previously told PK Press Club Digital that the decision was left to a player poll and that the majority of players voted to forfeit.
Wyoming also left the decision to a player vote, according to Boggs. But this vote had a troubling outcome for her.
“We said it was up to the players, so we did an anonymous vote and we ended up playing because most of the girls on my team wanted to play,” Boggs said. But she and others weren’t going to play anyway, regardless of the vote.
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“A few of us were like, ‘We’re not going to play.’ So we decided not to play… There was a lot of conflict within the team… and it wasn’t something you should have to deal with on your team… It seems so stupid and something that tore the team apart.
The division came with several difficult conversations for Boggs.
But most of the discussions weren’t necessarily ideological, about whether men should be able to play women’s sports. Boggs said the conversations were mostly about the pain of taking two losses, when they were all working so hard to make the playoffs.
It was especially hard for the seniors.
“One of the hardest conversations, there were two, one of them was a fellow senior and she said ‘it’s my senior year, I don’t want it to be ruined by this. And I fully resonated with that because it was also my senior year and she was ruined by that,” Boggs said.
“One girl had really good stats in the Mountain West and in the NCAA and she mentioned, ‘How is this going to affect my stats?’ And that didn’t go well for me because I was like, “Okay, that’s a little selfish.”
“I understood where she was coming from… but at the end of the day, it’s a bigger issue.”
Boggs and the players determined not to play the game were preparing to make their intentions known to the coaches.
But just then, before Wyoming’s first game with SJSU on Oct. 5 of that year, the players were called to another meeting, Boggs said.
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Boggs claims Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman told them the Wyoming state government had asked them to abandon the game.
“By the time it was time to tell the coaches, we had another meeting, and finally the government decided that ‘hey, you’re not going to play,’ which was great,” Boggs said.
“It was our AD Tom Burman who told us, so he was the one who said, ‘This is the decision that’s been made, it’s been taken out of your guys’ hands. And I’m very grateful for that.’
PK Press Club Digital has reached out to University of Wyoming athletics and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon’s office for a response.
Public records show the university faced “outside pressure” to forfeit, according to WyoFile.
Gordon welcomed the package in a statement at the time.
“I fully support Wyoming Athletics’ decision to forgo playing its volleyball game against San Jose State. It is important that we uphold integrity and fairness in women’s athletics,” Gordon said.
The dispute has been resolved. But the consequences remain.
Wyoming finished the season 17-13, losing six of its final nine games. They finished two games shy of last place in the conference tournament and would have made the tournament had they won both of their games against SJSU. It was Boggs and other seniors’ last chance to play in the tournament in their Wyoming careers.
Within the locker room, disagreements over the initial vote left divisions. Boggs and the women beside him dug their heels deeper.
In November of that year, Boggs and teammates Sierra Grizzle and Jordan Sandy joined former SJSU volleyball star Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference. Slusser initially brought the scandal into the national spotlight in September, when she joined Riley Gaines’ lawsuit against the NCAA, with Slusser citing her experience playing and cohabiting with trans teammate Blaire Fleming without ever being officially informed of Fleming’s birth sex.
Boggs, Grizzle and Sandy joined Slusser and seven other conference players in suing Mountain West and the SJSU and California State University (CSU) system representative.
Boggs said the decision to go this far earned him the respect of his teammates who initially voted to play the game.
Once they joined, Boggs said she told her other teammates, “‘Hey, can we talk to you guys. We decided to join this trial and this is why.’
“And after that, they just like to understand…I think standing up for something can be extremely scary, and it’s something you have to be very brave and bold in.”
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Slusser’s lawsuit against Mountain West was partially dismissed by federal Judge Kato Crews earlier in March, with all charges against Mountain West dismissed.
However, the Title IX claims and representatives of SJSU and CSU were not denied. Crews is reserving decision on these accusations until after the decision in the pending BPJ v. West Virginia Supreme Court case regarding trans athletes in women’s sports and the implications of Title IX.
At the same time, SJSU and CSU are waging a legal war of resistance to the Trump administration’s efforts to get SJSU to resolve its alleged Title IX violations regarding how it treated Fleming.
After the U.S. Department of Education announced that an investigation had determined that SJSU had violated Title IX and proposed a series of compliance points to address the problem, SJSU and CSU sued the federal government to challenge the findings.
“I laughed,” Boggs said when she heard the news of SJSU’s lawsuit. “It seems a bit silly. I truly believe we shouldn’t even have male-centric trials in women’s sports.”
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon responded to the lawsuits on March 11, giving schools 10 days to reach an agreement or face reduced federal funding and referral to the U.S. Department of Justice.
With that deadline looming just a week away, Boggs is the latest scandal-affected woman to speak out about the experience, joining Slusser and Ray.
Slusser and Ray have gone viral on social media in recent weeks after speaking out, sparking criticism and even insults online from people with pro-transgender views.
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Boggs said she has faced online attacks from the other side since her decision to drop out and join the lawsuit in 2024, and is prepared to face more, if necessary.
“I’ll bear the weight all day, I’ll take any hate that comes, because I truly believe in it. If you’re going to say these crazy things, I’d rather you say them to me than to these girls I’m fighting with.”
