The State of Washington Let Males Wrestle Girls. She Paid the Price.

Stephanie Brown was filming from across the mat, the way she always did at her daughter Kallie’s wrestling matches. Then she saw Kallie’s face. Something was wrong, but she could not tell what. “I don’t know what she said or why her face looked like that,” Stephanie can be heard saying on the recording. What she did not know was that the opponent her then-15-year-old daughter was facing was actually a male athlete—and that he sexually assaulted Kallie in the middle of the match.

This wasn’t a wrestling move gone wrong. Kallie had been wrestling since she was four and had never experienced the violation she felt in that moment. It was sexual assault. And although she found the courage to report it, the adults in charge—her coaches, her school, and the officials who run girls’ sports in Washington—did nothing for nearly two months.

Kallie’s sexual assault was not a fluke. It was the product of bad policy. The state of Washington requires schools to let males who identify as female compete in girls’ sports, and it bars school staff from telling parents, so Stephanie had no warning and no way to keep her daughter off that mat.

A district court and a federal appeals court denied them protection. Now, Kallie and her mother are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that ruling, hold Washington officials accountable, and make her sports safe again.

Wrestling has always been Kallie’s sport

Kallie Keeler is a junior in high school in the Puyallup School District in Washington. Wrestling runs in her family. Her three older brothers wrestled, and she fell in love with the sport watching them compete. She began wrestling at age four and has stayed with it for more than a decade.

During the 2025-2026 season, she ranked first on her junior varsity team in the 190-pound weight class, one spot away from varsity. She also plays soccer, but wrestling is her favorite. She was 15 at the time of the December tournament and has since turned 16. Her mother, Stephanie, has stood beside her throughout, recording her matches and, now, fighting in federal court to get her back on the mat safely.

Sexual assault leads to silence from Washington officials

Kallie’s first tournament of the season was a girls-only event sponsored by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) and the district. For her final match, coaches and a tournament official directed her to the mat against an opponent from another school. Kallie and her mother assumed her opponent was a girl.

During the match, the male athlete sexually assaulted her, putting his fingers through Kallie’s spandex to penetrate her private areas. Such an act has no place in any context, let alone wrestling, and Washington law treats this as a serious crime.

Visibly distressed, Kallie let herself be pinned so the match would end, then ran to her mother in tears. Only afterward did a coach from another team tell her that her opponent was male, adding to her feeling of being violated.

Two days later, Kallie’s mother reported the sexual assault in writing to the coaches and gave them video of the match. A coach replied that she had not known the opponent was male and said she would follow up. Days went by. Then weeks passed. They hadn’t heard anything. Under Washington law, school personnel must report sexual assault complaints to law enforcement within 48 hours. As it turned out, the district did not notify law enforcement for nearly two months, and only after a journalist contacted the school for comment.

In other words, despite mandatory reporter laws, officials ignored the incident until it became a national news story weeks later. Worse yet, school officials are on record demonstrating a flippant and dismissive attitude towards sexual assault of a minor. When the Rogers High School principal was asked by Kallie’s mother, he said that he understood the complaint to be that a male wrestler “placed fingers in her daughter’s private parts.”

Asked whether he took that to mean penetration, the principal answered: “I did. But that’s wrestling.”

Even now, the district’s own Title IX investigation into the sexual assault—opened in late February—remains unfinished. Officials still refuse to reserve girls’ sports for girls or give parents the notice they need to keep their daughters safe.

Holding Washington officials accountable

Behind this sexual assault are Washington policies that made it possible. State and WIAA rules require schools to let males who identify as female compete in girls’ sports, and the district interprets its policies to prohibit staff from telling parents when a daughter will face a male opponent. That left Stephanie with no notice and no chance to opt her daughter out. Even after the sexual assault, the district declined to change that policy or to promise Kallie she would not be matched against a male again.

Faced with no guarantee of her safety, Kallie and Stephanie made the difficult decision to withdraw Kallie from wrestling for the rest of the season. By putting a male in a girls’ match, then treating her report of sexual assault as something they could ignore, these officials denied Kallie the protection she deserves.

Washington’s policy also still sidelines parents: The district won’t promise Kallie won’t be matched against a male again and won’t give Stephanie notice if she is.

Kallie and her mother filed a federal lawsuit in June 2026, asking a court to protect Stephanie’s right to direct her daughter’s safety and to enforce Kallie’s right under Title IX to compete without facing sex discrimination. In August, a district court denied their request for a preliminary injunction, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused to protect Kallie while her appeal proceeds. Now, Kallie and her mother are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to protect her.

The clock is already running out. Kallie is missing this year’s girls’ soccer season, and girls’ wrestling season opens this fall. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, she will have to choose again between leaving the sport she loves and returning to a policy that matches her against a male without warning.

The bottom line

Kallie was sexually assaulted, and Washington officials did nothing because of political cowardice. A boy can’t be a girl, but Washington state officials insist on pushing the lie of gender ideology over girls’ safety and privacy. Kallie’s story is proof that the lies and cowardice must end. Otherwise, girls get hurt.

Brown v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association

• December 2025: At age 15, Kallie unknowingly wrestles a male athlete at a WIAA-sponsored girls’ tournament and is sexually assaulted during the match. Within two days, her mother reports the sexual assault in writing to coaches and provides video.
• January 2026: Kallie does not rejoin the team because the district will not ensure her safety. Officials only reported the sexual assault to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office for the first time at the end of January, nearly two months after the family’s report and only after a journalist sought comment.
• February 2026: Kallie’s story is made public and goes viral. The U.S. Department of Education opens a Title IX investigation into the school district.
• June 2026: Kallie and her mother file a federal lawsuit against Washington officials.
• August 2026: The district court denies the preliminary injunction motion.
• September 2026: Stephanie and Kallie ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for an emergency injunction, which it also denied shortly thereafter.
• October 2026: Kallie and her mother appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.