EXCLUSIVE: A Washington family has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in after lower courts refused to let a teenage wrestler compete this season without being matched against a male athlete.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed an emergency application with Justice Elena Kagan on behalf of K.M.K. and her mother, Stephanie Lynne Brown. The filing asks for an injunction pending appeal in K.M.K. v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). The plaintiff is listed only as K.M.K. She is Kallie Keeler, the Puyallup-area wrestler who has spoken publicly about here experience in being allegedly sexually assaulted by a trans athlete during a match.
Keeler has been on the mat since she was 4. Wrestling was the season she waited for all year. She has not competed in a WIAA event since leaving the team in January, and she has said she is unsure she will return if she can be paired against a male again without notice.
The application says Keeler was 15 when she wrestled for third place at the Lady Jag Kickoff on Dec. 6, 2025, a girls’ tournament at Emerald Ridge High School. She and her mother say they were not told her opponent was male. During the match, they allege, the opponent penetrated her. Another team’s coach told her afterward that the opponent was male, the family says.
When Brown asked for a guarantee that her daughter would not have to face a male without penalty, and for notice so she could opt out, the district refused. It offered forfeiture if Keeler already knew the opponent was male. It said gender-identity information would be kept confidential.
“No girl should have to choose between playing the sports she loves and her safety,” the application says. It asks the Court to bar officials from forcing Keeler to wrestle a male while the appeal goes forward, or at least to require notice and a no-penalty opt-out.
THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!
INSIDE THE SUPREME COURT BATTLE TO ‘SAVE WOMEN’S SPORTS’
The defendants are the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Superintendent Chris Reykdal, and the Puyallup School District. The athlete and the athlete’s family are not parties.
A federal judge in Tacoma denied a preliminary injunction on Aug. 23. The Ninth Circuit denied an emergency injunction on Sept. 25, calling the request a mandatory injunction and finding no likelihood of success strong enough to justify relief before the season. Wrestling in Washington opens in mid-November. ADF says that without an order now, Keeler loses the season Title IX is supposed to protect.
The filing leans on the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which held that states may limit girls’ teams to biological females, and on Mirabelli v. Bonta, a March parental-rights order.
The U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into the district in February. Two Rogers High School administrators were later charged with failing to make a mandatory report. Prosecutors did not charge the opponent.
The district has previously declined to comment, citing student privacy and litigation. OutKick sought comment from the WIAA, the Puyallup School District and the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction on the Supreme Court application.
