School officials face charges after trans wrestler controversy fueled by the religious right
Video showed an ordinary high school wrestling match and prosecutors found no provable crime—but two Puyallup educators are now accused of waiting too long to report it
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There’s a disappointing but predictable update to a story I first wrote about in June.
In short, high school wrestler Kallie Keeler, of Rogers High School in the Puyallup School District in Washington, claimed she had been sexually assaulted during a competitive wrestling match by an opponent she later learned was transgender… even though video of the match suggested nothing criminal occurred. Experts I spoke to also said the allegation she was making were the kinds of things that happen in wrestling matches all the time. (In a sport with fast-moving hands, athletes are occasionally and accidentally touched in inappropriate places! This was nothing more, they said, than a couple of amateur high school wrestlers pulling off a couple of sloppy moves.)
The fact that the video showed nothing outside the regular scope of a match is, in fact, why no charges were ultimately filed. The Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association took no action. And the Pierce County prosecutors chose not to file criminal charges in the incident because ”it's clear that any potential charges could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Yet when there’s a right-wing group that can target trans athletes, you know they’re going to go for it. That’s why the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom filed a 74-page lawsuit against the WIAA, state officials, school district, Keeler’s coach, and everyone else in the orbit of high school athletics in Washington.
Now, over the past couple of weeks, school officials have been charged with gross misdemeanor for not reporting the alleged assault to authorities:
Principal Jason Smith, 55, and athletic coordinator Peter Collins, 49, were charged July 21 in Pierce County District Court with failure to comply with the mandatory reporting law.
…
Charging documents allege that Smith did not make any report to law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth and Families before Jan. 30. That was 55 days after the incident. The mandatory reporting law, RCW 26.44.030, requires professional school personnel to make a report within 48 hours of receiving a credible written or oral report.
Collins also is accused of failing to make a report for the 55 days between Dec. 6, 2025 and Jan. 30.
It’s entirely possible they didn’t report anything because, after looking at the evidence and speaking to experts, they concluded that there was nothing to report and this was all about a right-wing family going after the state for allowing trans wrestlers to compete at all, which all evidence suggests it is—which is why they first shared this story with a right-wing propagandist and brought the lawsuit with the help of a right-wing legal group.
In any case, both Collins and Smith pleaded not guilty to the charges earlier this week. Both men are currently on non-disciplinary paid administrative leave. (The Seattle Times notes that, “if convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.”)
Even now, comments on posts about this story, even on right-wing sites, are heavily leaning in the direction of This is a normal wrestling match. What’s the big deal? For people who don’t understand the sport, the claims might seem disturbing. But for people who do, it’s easy to shrug this off because it happens in tournaments all the time.
So the big takeaways from this story are the same as before: The physical contact that would be considered routine, legal, and unremarkable between two cisgender wrestlers is now being described by ADF as criminal sexual assault because conservatives have decided the mere presence of a trans girl changed the rules. It’s a horribly dangerous precedent. If every loss to a transgender opponent can be reframed as oppression—despite, in this case, video evidence that nothing criminal occurred—these people won’t stop until they’ve bullied every trans person out of existence.
The goal is to manufacture outrage. Because it’s not really about wrestling (which is why ADF didn’t cite any wrestling experts in its brief). It’s not even about a fourth-place finish, which Keeler may have earned in other ways. The bigots are always desperate for stories that make trans people appear threatening, predatory, or dangerous. Even if they have to use a relatively meaningless high school wrestling match to gin up material for a massive federal lawsuit and media campaign (complete with glamour shots of the family).
If advocacy groups like ADF can successfully convince the public that ordinary athletic contact automatically constitutes unfair competition—or assault!—whenever a trans athlete is involved, then there’s no need to have a debate about fairness in sports. That’s a debate they would lose because it still allows trans people to compete in certain situations. They don’t want that. This is about dehumanization, pure and simple.
And now the adults who dared to look at the situation holistically are the ones with the most to lose.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
The Alliance Defending Fascism is filled with people who think about what gay folks do with their genitals 24/7.
The so-called religious right is comprised primarily of professional victims who are determined to control everything and everyone around them in order they might feel better about themselves.