Kallie Keeler used to spend the whole year waiting for wrestling season.
The Washington teenager has been on the mat since she was 4 years old. Even when she was playing soccer, wrestling was still the sport that stayed on her mind.
“It’s, like, all I look forward to all year,” Keeler said. “I’ll be talking about wrestling in the middle of soccer season.”
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But now, after Keeler and her mother Stephanie Brown filed a lawsuit with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) over an alleged sexual assault to Keeler by a trans athlete during a match in February, the sport that once shaped her life has become the center of a legal battle, a school controversy and a public debate she never expected to join.
Keeler said she has not decided whether she will continue wrestling next season, after she was allegedly told by officials she may have to face that same trans athlete in future competitions.
“It just depends where everything is at by the time wrestling season comes around,” she said.
The lawsuit names multiple government and school parties, including the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington Superintendent Chris Reykdal, the Puyallup School District and multiple school employees, according to prior reporting. The transgender athlete and the athlete’s family are not defendants.
The case centers not only on what Keeler says happened during the match, but also on what she and her mother say happened afterward: a lack of communication from school officials, no meaningful resolution before the family went public, classmates accusing Keeler of lying and the possibility that she could be matched against a male athlete again without advance notice.
Brown said the decision to sue came after she believed the school system failed her daughter.
“The decision to file the lawsuit was because the schools didn’t take our report of what happened to her seriously,” Brown said. “They didn’t do anything to investigate it, correct it. They didn’t even keep in contact with me.”
For Keeler, the day began as the end of a long tournament.
“I remember that it was just my last match of the tournament, so it was already pretty late and I was pretty tired,” Keeler said. “I was wrestling for third place, and then the match was, like, going normally, and then towards the end of the match was when I got sexually assaulted.”
Keeler said she had never wrestled the opponent before and did not know going into the match that the opponent was a biological male.
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“I did not,” she said when asked whether she knew before the match, claiming she found out afterward.
“I found out after the match was already over when a coach from a different school came up and told me,” Keeler said. “I was shocked, and then I was more uncomfortable about the situation than I already was.”
Keeler said she tried to find her coaches in the immediate aftermath but could not.
“I tried to find my coaches, but I couldn’t find my coaches,” she said.
Brown said Keeler told her “right away,” and Brown then began contacting school officials herself.
“From that point, I kind of took the lead in talking to the coaches, and I made sure to send them an email and let them know what happened and ask them to kind of handle the situation,” Brown said. “They assured me they were looking into it. They assured me it was gonna be handled. They passed it off to all these people, and then we just never heard anything else about it, like nothing further about it until we started pressing them.”
ADF attorney Kate Anderson, who is representing the family, said the video of the match showed Keeler was visibly upset after coming off the mat.
“This was a really disturbing situation, and you can tell from the video that circulated on it, but Kallie came off the mat crying and very visibly upset,” Anderson said. “Her coaches were around. They saw. They didn’t address that with her. They just went on to the next thing, which is why she struggled to find them later, and then Stephanie had to report it by email as soon as she could.”
Brown said the first response from a coach was that school staff did not know a biological male was in Keeler’s bracket.
“The reaction was that the coach said that they didn’t know that there was a biological male in the bracket,” Brown said. “They said they would never have put her on the mat had they known, because she said she wouldn’t have put any of her athletes in that position.”
But Anderson said that while the family initially heard sympathetic comments, the district and athletic association later maintained that Keeler could be placed in the same situation again.
“While the school district kind of gave lip service to that right away, they’ve now maintained, as has the athletic association, that this can happen again,” Anderson said. “If Kallie goes back into wrestling this year, that they can match her against a male athlete again, and that they won’t tell her or her mom ahead of time.”
That possibility has left Keeler unsure about her future in the sport.
“It’s kind of unsettling,” Keeler said. “It really makes me contemplate whether I do want to continue with wrestling throughout high school or not.”
The lawsuit has also changed life for Keeler away from the mat, especially at school. She said some of her relationships with teammates and friends from wrestling have faded since the allegations became public.
“A lot of my friends from sports, like from the wrestling team, we don’t really talk anymore because of the whole thing,” Keeler said.
When asked why, Keeler said, “They really liked the coach, and they just kind of fell off when the whole thing came out.”
Brown added, “They’re blaming her for the coach being in trouble.”
Brown said she does not know what, if any, discipline the coach has faced. But she said the fallout among students began after coaches were being discussed and questioned.
“Girls were telling her this was her fault and just kind of stuff like that,” Brown said. “There’s been a lot of harassment at school from other kids.”
The attention has followed the family beyond school hallways. Brown said she and Keeler have been recognized in public after the case drew attention.
“It’s brought a lot, a lot of added stress,” Brown said. “We’ve gone out in public and people have been like, they recognize her or they recognize me, and they’ll whisper and they’ll talk. And at times it’s been uncomfortable…
“You can just hear them whisper. They’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s Kallie,’ and people just talk. They recognize her and/or me now that my face has been out there.”
The family’s legal argument is that Washington state education officials, the WIAA and the Puyallup School District violated Keeler’s rights by enforcing policies that allow male athletes who identify as female to compete in girls’ sports without notice to female athletes or their parents. The complaint alleges the policies led Keeler to unknowingly wrestle a male opponent in a girls’ tournament, where she says she was sexually assaulted, and that officials then failed to properly report, investigate or remedy the incident.
Anderson said the family is seeking immediate protection before the next wrestling season.
“The biggest piece is that Stephanie has asked that her daughter be able to continue wrestling and be guaranteed that she won’t be matched against a male,” Anderson said. “Or at the very least, she be made aware that she’s being matched against a male athlete so that she and her mom can make a decision that’s going to protect her safety and privacy going forward.”
Anderson said the school district and athletic association have denied that request.
“They will not give her notice again,” Anderson said. “That’s really the heart of the motion we just filed with the court, is to have the court step in and say as the case continues, she can be protected from having to wrestle a male athlete again.”
The Puyallup School District previously told Fox News Digital it had not been formally served with the complaint at the time of that inquiry and was reviewing the matter, but could not comment further because the matter involved student privacy and anticipated litigation. Fox News Digital previously reported it had reached out to the WIAA and the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
For Brown, the most painful part of the public reaction has been hearing people dismiss what Keeler says happened as simply part of wrestling.
Brown said critics have repeatedly used the term “oil check,” a phrase sometimes used in wrestling to describe an invasive illegal maneuver.
“A lot of the things that we’ve heard is just, ‘Oh, it’s just an oil check. If you can’t handle an oil check, you shouldn’t be a wrestler,’” Brown said. “We’ve heard that so many times. She was hearing that from peers at school, too.”
Brown rejected that argument.
“An oil check is, by definition, sexual assault,” Brown said. “That’s not something that should happen in boys’ categories or the girls’ category. It’s not okay, and it’s not a normal part of wrestling.”
Brown said Keeler’s long history in the sport makes that argument especially frustrating.
“Kallie’s wrestled since she was 4” Brown said. “It used to be co-ed up until the end of junior high when kids are going through puberty and that switch in the body happens. This has never been an issue. She’s never been violated ever.”
Brown said her sons wrestled, too, and she does not accept the idea that what her daughter described is a typical part of the sport.
“For people just to say, ‘Oh, it’s just a normal part of wrestling,’ like my boys wrestled too, and it was never a thing with them,” Brown said. “This is not your typical everyday wrestling situation.”
Anderson said the alleged act was not incidental contact during a move.
“It’s not having something that just happens as part of a move,” Anderson said. “This is something that’s a flagrant foul, and in her case was a pretty significant sexual assault. And so for people to blame her or to suggest that she signed up for that really needs to be stopped.”
Brown said the family’s objection to what happened has repeatedly been framed by others as hostility toward the LGBT community — a characterization she says is false.
“Two things can be true,” Brown said. “We can support a community, but we can still not agree with what’s happening in sports or with her in particular.”
Brown said her family has close personal connections to the LGBTQ community.
“I have very close friends who have trans kids, and we’ve always welcomed them and made them feel supported and comfortable with who they are,” Brown said. “I have family members who are part of the community. One of my own children is part of the community. I have a stepson who’s part of that community.”
Brown also said one of her older son’s former partners identified as nonbinary and “always felt supported” in their home.
“I just don’t like being painted as someone who doesn’t support the community because we do,” Brown said. “But also I don’t support what happened to my daughter, and I don’t support biological males in women’s sports.”
Keeler said the people closest to her understand that she would not fabricate an allegation because someone is transgender.
“I feel like they’re pretty supportive about the whole thing because they know that I wouldn’t just make something up because somebody is trans,” Keeler said. “They know me personally, and they know my story on a more different level because of how close we are.”
At school, however, Keeler said she does not report every comment or accusation.
“I don’t really report it to the school,” she said.
Brown said her daughter does not feel she can trust school officials with those reports after what happened with the original allegations.
“I don’t think she’s in a position where she feels like she can trust anyone to go to at the school to report it, because they didn’t do anything with any of the reports prior to the things that are happening now,” Brown said. “She’ll tell me what’s happening.”
According to Anderson, the school district did not open a Title IX investigation in earnest until after the case became public.
“They waited to open an investigation until this case started in the news and people became aware in the community and there became some pushback on social media,” Anderson said. “That’s the first time they really started to, in earnest, open a Title IX investigation.”
Anderson said the family believes school officials had a duty to report and investigate the allegation earlier.
“They’ve drug that investigation on and on, and it’s still ongoing,” Anderson said.
Keeler’s own experience in wrestling cuts across much of the debate. She did wrestle boys when she was younger, she said, because club wrestling and middle school wrestling were co-ed. But she and Brown said that changes by high school.
“It ends at eighth grade,” Brown said of co-ed wrestling. “That’s when a lot of changes are happening for boys and girls.”
Keeler said the difference between wrestling boys and girls is noticeable.
“Guys are more aggressive right off the bat and have more strength a lot of the time,” Keeler said. “They have more strength in their upper body, when girls have more strength in their lower body. So I feel like it’s easier to get control when you’re wrestling a girl versus a guy.”
Asked whether she sensed that difference during the match at issue, Keeler said, “A little bit.” But she said it still did not occur to her that the athlete she was wrestling could be a biological male.
“Some girl wrestlers, they work out a lot, so they have a lot of upper body strength,” Keeler said. “It didn’t really cross my mind that I would be wrestling a biological male.”
Anderson said that fact is central to the family’s complaint.
“That’s the real key, too, is it wasn’t even in their minds that this could happen,” Anderson said. “It wasn’t even a possibility because they had no idea.”
For Brown, the case is about protecting her daughter’s ability to keep doing the sport she loves while having the information Brown believes she should have had the first time.
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For Keeler, it is simpler and harder: She wants to wrestle, but she does not know whether the mat will feel safe again.
She is 16 now. She has been wrestling for 12 years. And after everything that has happened — the match, the lawsuit, the whispers, the accusations, the lost friendships and the uncertainty about next season — she is still waiting to find out whether the sport she loves will remain part of her life.
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