Former SJSU volleyball star talks about living with a trans teammate without knowing the athlete’s biological sex

Brooke Slusser remembers the day she moved into “the villa.”

It was a four-bedroom apartment in San Jose, California, with bare white walls. Her mother and father took her and all her things there, from Texas.

She was the first tenant to show up that semester.

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Slusser was about to enter his junior year, as a transfer from Alabama, to play his 2023 college volleyball season for SJSU and head coach Todd Kress.

Slusser alleged that Kress was the one who encouraged her to live in that apartment. At the time, there were two apartments filled with SJSU volleyball players looking for another tenant for their lease, he says.

But Kress allegedly told Slusser to move to “the villa” because he thought she would “get along better” with the women in that unit, he claimed.

Slusser lived alone in the white-walled apartment for her first two days in San Jose. He experienced his first close-up exposure to a homeless man and witnessed a convention of cosplayers wearing animal costumes, called “furries.”

On the third day, Blaire Fleming arrived.

“He was the first person I met when I got to campus, and we were together, just the two of us, I want to say for the first day or two, after he got there until one of my other roommates showed up,” Slusser told News Digital.

At the time, Slusser had no idea Fleming was transgender. I had no idea they would eventually end up on opposite sides of a national culture war.

Throughout that school year in “the village,” Slusser shared many things with Fleming. They shared laughter, parties, food, germs, gossip and even secrets. Slusser, now with regret, said he shared his deep personal family trauma with Fleming in moments of vulnerability.

And Slusser said he still hasn’t even mentally processed one of the most regrettable things he shared with Fleming back then.

“You realize you’re just relaxing in bed with a man you have no idea about… [was] without knowing it, sharing a bed at that time with a man,” he said.

“It’s hard to process. I don’t even know if I can say I’ve fully processed it to this day. It’s just that you’re told something for so long, you think something for so long and act so normal about a situation, and then you find out it’s all a lie.”

Sometimes the other teammates who lived in the house would crawl into bed with them to watch movies or just talk, Slusser said. But other times Slusser said it was just her and Fleming.

“Watching movies curled up in bed, all the normal things you’d think girls do in an apartment, like my bathroom is across the hall from my room and I come and go and everyone’s outside doing their thing, and I probably would have covered up more,” Slusser said.

“I would have changed everything I was doing in that apartment if I had known it was a man. So it’s hard to say I can understand all that when I’ve been living with this situation for almost two years now.”

About two months into living together, Slusser said he began sharing personal secrets with Fleming and the other teammates in the apartment.

“There was a time when one of our roommates was struggling with something, and I just opened up to all of us in the living room talking about what had happened with my family, and how there is a better side to things, and things get better, and I’ve probably only told two people in my life what had happened at my house in Texas, so opening up about that was very vulnerable,” Slusser said.

With Fleming present for that conversation, Slusser said he put confidential information in the hands of someone he wishes he hadn’t shared it with.

Slusser said the person he believes is most responsible for this happening is Kress, for allegedly suggesting that she lived in “the villa” with Fleming, while there was another volleyball house she could have lived with.

“Todd Kress knowing this person was a man and saying I’m going to ‘fit in better’ with these girls on my volleyball team couldn’t have been further from the truth,” she said.

“We were all in the same class, so if we’re all there next year it’s not like we have to find another roommate, so she thought it would be good for me to be with all the girls that are in my class so we could spend two full years together.”

News Digital reached out to Kress and Fleming for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

News Digital has also reached out to SJSU for comment.

In response, the university provided President Cynthia Teniente-Matson’s announcement that the SJSU system and the University of California (CSU) are suing the “federal government” in response to a U.S. Department of Education investigation that found SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of Fleming, Slusser and the other players, adding, “We have no further comment.”

Lieutenant-Matson announced Saturday that the school would launch a legal offensive.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) offered a set of compliance points for SJSU to resolve alleged Title IX violations involving the trans athlete. Lieutenant-Matson stated that OCR’s conclusions “are not based on facts.”

“Because we believe OCR’s findings are not based on fact or law, SJSU and CSU today filed a lawsuit against the federal government to challenge those findings and prevent the federal government from taking punitive action against the university, including the potential withholding of critical federal funds,” Lieutenant-Matson said Friday.

Lieutenant-Matson also affirmed the school’s loyalty to the LGBTQ community in the announcement.

“Our support for LGBTQ members of our community, who have experienced threats and harm in recent years, remains unwavering. We know that the attention the university has received around this issue and the investigative process that followed has been disturbing to many in our community,” the president said.

“We have heard the fear and anxiety it has created and recognize that waiting for the university’s response has been difficult in a time that is already filled with uncertainty.”

Slusser said she cried with joy when she initially heard the news that President Donald Trump’s administration determined her former school was in violation of Title IX.

“I didn’t think it would affect me that way, but to finally see something, even though it doesn’t really affect me that much and what I went through, something was being done,” he said. “So that feeling made me cry… everything I’m doing is not in vain.”

Then, when she heard the news that instead of complying with OCR, the school was fighting back, she was so frustrated that she switched to X and made her first original post since October.

“It makes me so angry that SJSU still refuses to see that everything they did is wrong. I think they are simply too afraid to admit it and face the repercussions of their actions!” Slusser told News Digital immediately after hearing the news.

Now, a new legal precedent related to Trump’s authority to enforce Title IX for the remainder of his presidency is potentially at stake.

And the conflict behind it all goes back to a regrettable university recruiting and housing decision.

Slusser and Fleming ended up playing two full seasons together, as planned.

As Slusser alleges, Kress pushed for her, Fleming and the other two roommates to live in “the villa” for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, as they were all set to return as players in 2024.

Beyond “the villa,” Kress also allegedly put Slusser and Fleming in the same hotel rooms during trips to away games, according to former SJSU volleyball assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose.

“Blaire wanted to room with Brooke Slusser, and Blaire was comfortable with her, so Blaire gets what Blaire wants,” Batie-Smoose previously told News Digital.

Batie-Smoose is currently suing SJSU for wrongful termination.

In their first season together in 2023, SJSU went 13-18.

Slusser led the team in assists with a whopping 753, over 436 more than the second-place team leader in assists.

Fleming led the team in kills per attack with 3.57, 1.84 more than the second-place leader in that statistic.

Slusser previously told News Digital in December 2024 that at one point during the 2023 season, Fleming put a ball on his thigh and he had to nurse dark bruises on his thigh for an entire week after that.

Slusser had just assumed that Fleming was simply a very strong and talented biological woman at the time.

The team fell far short of qualifying for the Mountain West Tournament, but there was momentum the following season with a strong core of returning players, led by Slusser and Fleming.

And many of them were already living together in the same apartment, partying with other sports stars at school, and living the California dream.

The apartment became a regular destination not only for volleyball players, but for all San Jose State sports teams, Slusser said. She said her door was regularly left open for the school’s athletes to hang out and sometimes party.

“It was an open-door policy,” Slusser said.

The women who lived there cooked dinner together, Slusser said, and even organized a group trip to a local HomeGoods to get decorations for the apartment’s white walls.

“We were very close, we would do everything together,” Slusser said.

Despite everything, Fleming gained a special reputation with Slusser, when he thought that Fleming was just another girl. But it ended up being a cruel irony after Slusser learned Fleming’s birth sex.

“One of the things I liked most about Blaire as a friend was that I knew he would always tell me the truth, no matter what I asked him. That’s something he was known for on the team, when you ask him something, be prepared for the truth,” Slusser said.

One day. When Slusser asked other teammates how he looked, they told him, “You look amazing.” But when he asked Fleming, Fleming responded by telling Slusser that he needed to put on more suntan lotion, he said.

Then one day, Slusser discovered that transparency was an illusion.

That day came in the spring 2024 semester.

“I came home and all the doors were closed, which, like I said, is very strange, because we were very much an open-door apartment, always hanging out,” she said.

A news article had appeared earlier in the day. Slusser had not seen it yet.

“Blaire and my other roommate had asked me if I wanted to buy Chick-Fil-A, because I had a car and they didn’t. So I ended up taking them there and everything was quiet, again, l or which one is strange. And I remember we were parked and they were eating, and Blaire just looked at my roommate and said, ‘I don’t know how to tell him.'”

Slusser said her other roommate told Fleming to show her “the article.”

The article, published by the independent women-owned media outlet “Reduxx,” reported that Fleming was transgender.

“I read it, I sat quietly reading it in front of them,” Slusser said, before turning to Fleming and saying, “I hope you’re okay. I know you’re apparently being attacked online and I really don’t want that for anyone. But I think you know my opinion on this situation.”

Nothing happened immediately. They continued living together, going to classes and preparing for the 2024 volleyball season.

Once fall arrived, Slusser made a decision that would change his and Fleming’s lives.

“If I had a daughter one day, that was in my position and I would have never done anything about it and I would have been able to do it, then I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself,” she said. “Having children is literally my biggest dream in life.”

The rest is history

Slusser joined Riley Gaines’ lawsuit against the NCAA at the start of the 2024 season. Other volleyball teams began to lose. The team was an epicenter for regular national news coverage during an election season media cycle. And the team had to be assigned police protection on a regular basis.

At one point during all the chaos, Slusser posted a video on her Snapchat, featuring her and other roommates celebrating Fleming moving out of the apartment.

Slusser then took legal action just days before the 2024 election. This time, she was leading her own lawsuit with other Mountain West players against the conference and representatives from SJSU and CSU.

Slusser and her co-plaintiffs attempted to prematurely end Fleming’s season when they filed a request for a preliminary injunction that would have declared the trans athlete ineligible.

After weeks, then months of legal conflict and non-stop media coverage, all while navigating classes and the rigors of a Division I volleyball season, Slusser became ill.

She developed an eating disorder and began to become anorexic, she says.

Fleming, as a former roommate, previously addressed those claims.

“She has been anorexic and has had problems with food for as long as I have known her.[,] aka since 2023. He literally weighed himself 2 or 3 times a day and recorded it on the whiteboard in his room…. So I don’t really care or feel bad for her,” Fleming previously told News Digital about Slusser’s eating disorder revelation.

Slusser disputed those claims.

“These claims are simply not true. I have always led a very healthy lifestyle. Before these events occurred[,] I was very disciplined when it came to preparing for athletics and [kept] Follow up to make sure I was where I need to be.[,] be the best athlete. It wasn’t until all the craziness started that my healthy lifestyle became very unhealthy and I didn’t eat as much as I should,” Slusser previously told News Digital.

Through it all, she still showed up to practice every day and took her place next to Fleming on the court. They continued to travel together for games. They traveled to Las Vegas for the conference tournament, where they finished with the second-best record in the Mountain West, helped by six games lost.

They then advanced to the Mountain West finals without even having to touch the court in Las Vegas. Boise State lost in the semifinal round, marking the Broncos’ third loss to the Spartans that season.

It all ended in a championship loss to Colorado State. Fleming and Slusser’s volleyball careers were over.

But their controversy-plagued lives after their career had only just begun.

And for Slusser, born and raised a Christian in Texas, just a year and a half living in Northern California had taken a terrifying toll.

Stress, depression, anxiety and exhaustion caused him to temporarily suffer from the fear of losing what he was fighting for.

She faced fear for her own fertility and lost her menstrual cycle for nine months.

“I want to have the dream future that I imagine of having children in the future, I want as many as possible, and I think if that wasn’t possible, it would break my heart,” she said, adding that it “100%” caused her to panic and worry that it could permanently affect her.

“That was probably one of the biggest factors why I need to stay healthy.”

With the help of her family and regular prayer, Slusser recovered from her eating disorder and everything was back to normal physically, her father Paul previously told News Digital.

But not even the fear of that experience keeps Slusser out of the fight now. She continues to play an active role in the legal conflict related to the SJSU scandal, and even beyond.

In January, Slusser spoke in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in two cases involving state laws banning trans athletes from women’s sports.

And just last week he discovered that the outcome of those cases could play a major role in his own lawsuit.

Colorado District Judge Kato Crews dismissed all of the plaintiffs’ charges against the Mountain West Conference, but did not dismiss charges of Title IX violations against the California State University (CSU) system.

Crews deferred his decision on whether to dismiss those charges until after the decision in the ongoing BPJ v. W.V. Supreme Court case, expected to arrive in June.

The CSU provided a statement to News Digital in response to Crews’ ruling.

“CSU is pleased with the court’s ruling. SJSU has complied with Title IX and all applicable laws, and will continue to do so,” the statement read.

But Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock, is optimistic his side will prevail on those charges.

“We look forward to the case moving forward,” Bock told News Digital.

“I think the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and just as Congress and the members of Congress who passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided in the regulations that there had to be separate teams of men and women based on biological sex, I think the court will see that that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it that way, and I think it’s going to be a big victory in women’s sports.

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SJSU is waging a legal war on multiple fronts, suing the federal government and awaiting a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court regarding Slusser’s lawsuit, all while Batie-Smoose fights its wrongful termination lawsuit.

The results of those cases could forever impact the future of women’s sports in the United States.

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