Washington girl takes her fight to the Supreme Court after court filings say a male wrestler sexually assaulted her

A Washington high school girl and her mother have filed an emergency application at the U.S. Supreme Court. They are asking the justices to stop Washington from making girls wrestle males. The girl, Kallie Keeler, and her mother, Stephanie Brown, have gone public.

Court filings say Keeler was sexually assaulted during a girls’ wrestling match after she was assigned to wrestle a male. She was 15. Nobody told her or her mother that her opponent was a boy.

Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency requests from the Ninth Circuit, has given Washington until 4 p.m. ET (1 p.m. PT) on Tuesday, October 13, 2026 to respond. The case is K.M.K. v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, No. 26A458.

What happened on the mat

According to the application, Keeler has wrestled since she was four. She was ranked first in her weight class on her school’s junior-varsity girls’ team.

In December 2025, at a girls’ tournament sanctioned by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), she was sent out for a third-place match. Her opponent was a male competing in the girls’ division. She noticed right away that this opponent was “stronger and more powerful” than the girls she usually faced.

The filing says that early in the second period, the male reached between her legs and pushed his fingers into her vagina through her singlet, causing great pain. She tried to push him off and couldn’t. About a minute later, the filing says, he groped her again. She let herself be pinned to end the match. He took third place and the medal. She learned afterward, from a coach on another team, that her opponent was male.

The school district’s own Title IX investigator reviewed two videos of the match. The investigator concluded that the opponent “likely touched” Keeler’s vagina “with force,” according to the court record.

Keeler’s mother reported the assault in writing within two days and handed over video. But school officials didn’t report it to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office until the end of January — about 53 days later, past Washington’s mandatory 48-hour reporting law — and, the filings say, only after a journalist started asking questions. Her story went public in February, and the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into the district.

The application says that when the principal was asked whether he understood the complaint to mean penetration, he answered: “I did. But that’s wrestling.”

In June 2026, the Pierce County prosecutor declined to file criminal charges, writing that the contact was a foreseeable “by-product” of the match. The same male is still eligible to wrestle on the girls’ side this season, the filing says.

What her mother asked for, and what she got

Keeler’s mother asked the Puyallup School District for two things: that her daughter not be made to wrestle males without penalty, and that she be told before any such match so she could pull her daughter out.

The district said no. It offered only that Keeler could forfeit if she happened to find out her opponent was male. It said it would not tell her mother in advance, citing student privacy rules. And according to the filing, a district official said there was “no way” to let Keeler forfeit matches without penalty.

So Keeler quit. She has not played a WIAA or school sport since January. She is missing soccer this fall, and the girls’ wrestling season starts in November.

The rules she is challenging

Washington built girls’ wrestling as a separate sport in 2007 so there would be, in the words of a WIAA official, “girls wrestling girls and guys wrestling guys.” Then the WIAA added Rule 18.16.0, which lets students play “consistent with their gender identity.” No hormones, no medical evidence, nothing. A boy only has to declare a female identity. Schools are told not to ask for “proof of gender,” and nobody notifies the girls or their parents.

The state superintendent’s office, OSPI, requires every school district to follow that policy. According to the filing, OSPI has threatened districts that wanted to protect girls’ teams with enforcement, including the loss of state money.

Keeler and her mother are suing the WIAA, OSPI, Superintendent Chris Reykdal, and the Puyallup School District. They argue that putting males on girls’ teams violates Title IX, and that the state is violating a mother’s constitutional right to protect her own daughter.

How the lower courts ruled

June 9, 2026: They sued in federal court in Tacoma.
August 23, 2026: U.S. District Judge David G. Estudillo refused to block the policy. He said there was a factual dispute over whether males pose a safety risk or a competitive disadvantage for girls. He also said the mother was using her parental rights “as a sword.”
September 25, 2026: A Ninth Circuit panel (Judges Michael Daly Hawkins, William A. Fletcher, and Salvador Mendoza Jr.) also refused. It said the family had to meet a “doubly demanding” standard, and it worried that telling a mother her daughter would wrestle a male “could compromise other students’ privacy rights.”

A girl was assaulted on the mat, and the court’s concern was the privacy of the males in her division.

What they’re asking the Supreme Court to do

Lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom, led by John Bursch, filed the application on October 2. They ask the Court to:

order protection for Keeler from male competitors in girls’ wrestling while her appeal goes forward,
let her mother opt her out of matches against males without penalty, with notice when needed, and
in the alternative, take the case now (certiorari before judgment) and hear it this term.

“No girl should have to choose between playing the sport she loves and her safety,” Bursch said.

This is the question the Supreme Court left open in June

On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in *West Virginia v. B.P.J.*, decided together with Idaho’s Little v. Hecox, that states may keep girls’ sports for girls. That ruling covered Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

This case asks the next question: under Title IX, must they? As one law professor told the Washington Post, in June the Court said states may keep males off girls’ teams. This application “argues they must.”

Washington is one of 23 states that let males onto girls’ teams. A Supreme Court ruling for Keeler “would make a consistent body of law for the entire country,” Bursch told the Post.

Who’s backing her

Iowa, Idaho, and 22 other states filed a brief supporting Keeler on October 7.
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports, a network of current and former female athletes and their families, filed a brief on October 8. It argues that a student’s sex is not private when girls’ safety on the mat depends on it.

Washington’s answer is due October 13. After that, Justice Kagan can rule herself or send the request to the full Court.

This isn’t the first warning

The application lists other cases in Washington. A male won WIAA girls’ track state titles in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, a girl was hurt when a male on a Shelton girls’ basketball team tackled her. At least 13 member school boards have asked the WIAA to keep girls’ teams for girls. The WIAA twice declared those votes merely “advisory.”

Washington voters get a say on November 3 with Fairness in Girls’ Athletics (I-638), which would keep K–12 girls’ sports for females. But Keeler’s wrestling season starts before any new law could take effect. That’s why her family is asking the Supreme Court to act now.

No girl should be pinned, groped, and then told “that’s wrestling.” Girls’ sports are for girls.

Read it yourself: the Supreme Court docket and the emergency application.

Sources

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