FFS Friday: Ella Frei

July 24, 2026

FFS (Female Free Speech) Friday honors women and girls who are speaking out about the harms that “gender identity” poses to women and girls as a sex class. Thanks so much to Amy Sousa (@KnownHeretic on X) for a lovely post appreciating the series.

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Today’s FFS Friday celebrates Ella Frei, a 17-year-old high school senior in Wisconsin who recently delivered a banger of a speech before her school board, explaining exactly why male students don’t belong in girls’ sports or spaces.

That photo is from her Instagram account, and I got it from a yahoo!news article.

Today’s FFS Friday could have been about many women and girls. It could have been about Sophie Cunningham, a WNBA player who recently said that male athletes do not belong in women’s sports. It could have been about Briley Lechner, another high school athlete who has spoken out, drawing on Cunningham for inspiration. Incidentally, this is Briley’s X bio:

High school athlete • standing up for Title IX • listen to the girls

Esther 4:14 “…Born for such a time as this.”

I love it! Go Briley!

But today has to be about Ella Frei, because of the amazing speech she gave to her school board earlier this week.

Her post of a video of her speaking to the board says this:

They taped maps in our hallways telling girls where else to go. We were expected to perform humiliation rituals so the adults wouldn’t have to make a decision. Then they hired lawyers to make our case disappear.

Yesterday, I decided to once again confront my school board.

Ella isn’t playing.

This is what she said to her school board:

I’m a senior at Richmond High School. I’ve thought a lot about what to say tonight.

All I’ve ever asked for is to be able to have safety and privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms and fairness in my sport. That’s it.

This was never just about a bathroom. The same rule that lets a boy into girls’ bathrooms lets a boy onto girls’ teams.

Side note: on Tuesday, I published a piece about a horrible case out of a federal district court in Illinois. In that case, a federal judge said that the Supreme Court cases clarifying the legality of single-sex sports laws did not apply in a case about single-sex bathrooms. This high school senior girl knows that the word sex means the same thing for both bathrooms and sports. Why doesn’t that federal judge?

Back to Ella:

I am not alone. Not in Wisconsin, or in America. The voices of girls have risen so high they reached the Supreme Court on June 30th. The highest court in the land ruled that Title IX is biological sex, not gender identity. And the way I see it, that’s just common sense.

Gender identity is a feeling. Title IX doesn’t protect feelings, it protects girls.

This board told us that the Supreme Court ruling would guide your decision, that Title IX would matter. And still, nothing but another broken promise. I thought you guys would have to do the right thing, but once again, I was wrong to believe that you actually care about real girls.

You have lawyers in federal court, asking a judge to throw our case out before anybody has to hear a word of it. I read what your side filed. It says the Supreme Court left this up to the states. It says Wisconsin hasn’t decided. And it says that this district chooses not to protect girls. Chooses. That’s their word, not mine. So every time somebody in this room says your hands are tied, your own lawyers already told a federal judge that isn’t true.

We know your plans for us. It’s written down. More single-stall bathrooms, and you’ll excuse us for being late to class. A hall pass. That’s it. That’s what the adults came up with.

A boy is in our locker room, and your answer is that we don’t get in trouble for being tardy.

I stopped using the bathroom in my own school. I’ve had people threaten my life. I turned 17 while strangers online talked about what they’d like to do to me. And some of the adults who work in this building joined in on it.

Here’s the truth. You already know I’m right. Most of the girls in this school feel the way I do. If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t be so secretive. I know voices would be louder if they weren’t intimidated by the haters. The messages. The names. The threats from grown adults, people who work in this district. People who are supposed to look out for me, and for us, going online to go after a teenager who is asking for privacy.

It’s pretty gross, actually.

But, somebody has to stand up, and that somebody is going to be me. I can take it. I would rather take it than have some 14-year-old freshman, too scared to speak up in her own school.

And what makes all of this so stupid is how easy it was. One student wanted a private bathroom. This school has four of them. One of them is usually for teachers in the teachers’ lounge. Give him one. And every girl keeps what she’s had. Nobody’s embarrassed, nobody’s on the news, and it’s over by lunch.

Our lawyer said that in April, you moved 200 girls instead of one [boy]. And then you hired attorneys to keep it that way.

I don’t understand why this is so hard for you. You’re the adults. You’re supposed to protect us! The winds are changing. You can feel it. The Supreme Court, Riley Gaines, girls standing up all over the country, and all of the ones right here who are just waiting until it’s safe to say what they really think.

That’s the way this is going. Everyone in this room knows it.

School starts in three weeks. So I’ll ask you this question I walked in with: Have you spent any real time figuring out how to protect the girls in this district? Everyone here deserves an answer to an easy question.

Heck, I’m just a kid, and I figured it out!

It’s really that simple. Thank you.

Hear hear! I really hope this girl goes to law school! (Incidentally, the lawsuit she is referring to is described here, and I plan to write about it soon.)

Ella: THANK YOU. You should not have to explain to normal adults that boys do not belong in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, or sports. None of this should be falling on you. The adults in charge have simply failed you and your fellow female students and teammates. But I’m grateful to you for speaking out. It takes bravery, which you have in spades. There are women and girls, including me, all over the world who will have your back. Today’s FFS Friday is for you.