Fed Intervenes in Allegations Against Trans Student Athlete
Allegations of sexual misconduct against a trans student athlete, and a potential failure in mandatory reporting, have ballooned into a federal investigation, despite lack of evidence.
by Aly Gibbs
A match between a supposedly transgender teen wrestler and her cisgender opponent in December is being framed as sexual assault, investigated by the federal government, and possibly being charged as Rape in the Third Degree under Washington state law.
On December 6, a currently unnamed trans student athlete competed against Kallie Keeler in a Puyallup School District wrestling match in Pierce County, Washington. Keeler, a 16-year-old cisgender girl and student at Rogers High School, says she told school officials after the fact that her opponent sexually assaulted her during the match. Seemingly, no action took place until Keeler spoke to conservative content creator Brandi Kruse, who is based in Washington and has a particularly egregious obsession with trans kids. Kruse claims she asked the school district for a comment for her story on January 29, and that the district subsequently filed the report of sexual assault on January 30 as a result.
Footage exists of the moment in question, but all that can be seen is two students grappling on the floor, one of whom (Keeler) appears to be in physical distress. To my untrained eye, this looks a lot like two wrestlers wrestling. That is to say, there is no obvious evidence of intentional assault; wrestling is an extremely intimate contact sport, and unpleasant physical contact in the course of a match is simply par the course. This is not some new and profound revelation. Even the lightest research into women’s experiences with grappling in martial sports suggests that it can get uncomfortable very fast.
There is simply no world in which Greco-Roman wrestling (or classic wrestling, or amateur wrestling if you’re feeling silly) does not, from time to time, result in unexpected and unwanted physical contact. Keeler’s opponent being another cis girl would not have meaningfully reduced the possibility that she would have been, as she believes, assaulted, despite her insistence that this has never happened to her before. Many of the conservative outlets reporting on this story like to highlight that the trans girl weighs 190 pounds, but of course, so does Keeler; wrestling is ranked by weight divisions, and so Keeler and her trans opponent were on equal footing, physiologically speaking. Even in the footage that Keeler’s mother provided to Kruse, you can see that the girls are built almost identically.
As far as I can tell, there likely was no intentional wrongdoing on the part of the trans student athlete. Where there may be some concern, however, is Puyallup School District’s failure to report Keeler's allegations.
“School personnel are mandatory reporters, and we think just for the public’s comfort, at least, this should be looked into very carefully,” said Washington State Representative Cyndy Jacobsen. “This incident happened back in December, and when it began being reported, it was right when Brandi Kruse came out with her story. So, that is troublesome.”
As mandatory reporters, officials at Puyallup School District should certainly have forwarded Keeler’s complaints to the necessary parties right away, whether or not strong evidence supported her claims. In a more perfect world, authorities would investigate the claims and determine whether or not inappropriate behavior had taken place. That said, the world we live in is one where the federal government inserts themselves into state affairs on a whim, and a young girl may be threatened with felony rape charges over an accidental touch during a contact sport competition.
It’s a shame that federal investigatory bodies and men with power do not respond so quickly and aggressively to credible allegations of sexual misconduct with minors made against highly placed government officials, like the President of the United States, or nearly every single man and woman associated with him.
“Children must be protected from harm, and any allegation that a child has been victimized must be treated with the utmost seriousness and care,” House Republicans in Washington said in a public statement. “In light of these allegations, the school district must be completely open and accountable for anything that occurred and hold accountable anyone who intentionally failed to act or who covered up any allegations.”
Perhaps somebody at Puyallup should be held accountable for this alleged failure to report. Whether or not that will happen is up in the air right now, but what’s not debatable is that a young trans girl’s life may be ruined by Kimberly Richey and the Department of Education for simply participating in a school sport in a state where that’s completely legal.
A world where an accidental touch can be treated as a felony based entirely on your assigned gender at birth is one that terrifies me.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
