When is rape rape in Washington State?

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Sports, particularly contact sports like any martial art, including wrestling, tend to be rough. Athletes compete knowing of the reasonable, foreseeable risk of injuries, which can sometimes be serious. But when does the expected and understandable rough-and-tumble of sports become assault? Is it when a dishonorable athlete takes advantage of that assumption of reasonable risk to inflict purposeful harm on an opponent? And when does it become rape? When a boy pretending to be a girl sticks his fingers into the vagina of a female opponent?

Amazingly, some are suggesting that’s just part of the game. If you’re a female wrestler, you have to expect and accept some vaginal penetration, especially when you don’t know your opponent is male. If you don’t like that, you shouldn’t be wrestling trans.

And no; this isn’t hypothetical:

December 2025, Puyallup, Pierce County, Washington. Fifteen-year-old Kallie Keeler is participating in her first wrestling tournament of the year. She and her mother thought it was all-female. No one told her otherwise. Coaches and tournament officials set her up:

During the match, the male athlete sexually assaulted her, doing what wrestlers call an “oil check,” an illegal move where a wrestler will use their fingers to penetrate an opponent’s private areas through their spandex. This flagrant violation can result in penalties, disqualification, and criminal charges. Such an act has no place in any context, let alone wrestling, and Washington law treats this as a serious crime.
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Visibly distressed, Kallie let herself be pinned so the match would end, then ran to her mother in tears. Only afterward did a coach from another team tell her that her opponent was male, adding to her feeling of being violated.

Imagine that.

Two days later, Kallie’s mother wrote to the coaches and gave them video of the rape. A coach claimed not to know the alleged rapist was male and said she’d deal with it. By law, she had 48 hours to tell the police. She didn’t until two months later after a journalist questioned the school. It will be no surprise to learn local prosecutors refused to act.

In reviewing the case, the prosecutor’s office cites a case concerning a basketball game where a player was punched and injured. An appellate court found that a person who willingly participates in sports consents to “potentially offensive contact.” Further, inappropriate touching of the genitals in wrestling is common enough where it has a nickname and any offensive or harmful touching was “a direct by-product of the game.”
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Get that? Purposeful digital penetration of a girl’s vagina, through her Spandex uniform, is
“a direct by-product of the game.” And as long as rape has a coarse, juvenile nickname, it really isn't rape. What then, wouldn’t be allowed? Strangulation? Gouging out eyeballs? Biting off noses or ears? Purposely breaking fingers or limbs? What are the sports nicknames for that?

Graphic: X Post

In the photo--a still from her mother's video--Kallie is being raped. She hasn’t wrestled since, reasonably afraid of adults failing to protect her--again. Fortunately, she has effective representation:

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is representing Kallie, who is now 16, and her family in a federal lawsuit filed against the state. Kristen Waggoner, who is ADF’s president, CEO, and chief counsel, shared a short video clip that contains what they say is the moment the sexual assault allegedly happened.

The ADF lawsuit points out rape isn’t a foreseeable hazard of girls’ wrestling, nor is practicing girls’ wrestling consent to wrestle boys. It’s bizarre that in 2026 in America, that must be said and adjudicated.

Kallie Keeler was betrayed by multiple adults in authority, who knowingly allowed her to wrestle a male without her knowledge or consent. They bear responsibility for what happened to her—and they are continuing to put female wrestlers in harm’s way through their actions and policies.

That’s why, besides suing governing bodies @wiaawa, @waOSPI, and the Puyallup School District, we’re also suing:

– State superintendent Chris Reykdal
– Kallie’s principal
– Her school district’s Title IX coordinator
– Her opponent’s coach

… and not just in their official capacities, but as individuals.

The Federal Department of Education is involved too:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights began investigating this case in February to “determine whether the District violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) by allowing males to compete in female sports, allowing males to access locker rooms designated for use by female students, and failing to adequately respond to allegations of sexual assault.”

The 74-page complaint filed by the ADF can be read here.

It’s doubtful that any of the adults who betrayed Kallie and allowed her to be raped—under the laws of most states, including Washington, digital penetration is rape—can be criminally charged under state law. Hopefully, they’ll all be found civilly liable, and the penalties will be sufficient to ensure this never happens to another girl.

They, and every public organization that failed to protect Kallie, deserve it. Let’s see how they feel about trans virtue signaling then.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.