FFS Friday: Jennifer Sey 2.0
May 30, 2025
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. FFS Friday posts are free and shareable.
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Last August, I published an FFS Friday post about Jennifer Sey, founder of the athletic apparel company XX-XY Athletics.
Today’s post is “FFS Friday: Jennifer Sey 2.0” because under Jennifer’s leadership, XX-XY Athletics is suing the state of Colorado over its law against “misgendering” and “deadnaming.”
We are unapologetic about our goal.
We are here to protect women’s sports and spaces.
On May 27, the company XX-XY Athletics filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado against various Colorado officials regarding Colorado HB25-1312. That law, enacted and signed into law by Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis earlier this month, amended the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to define “gender expression” to include “chosen name” and “how an individual chooses to be addressed.”
According to the complaint:
The Act then declares that Coloradans have a right to access “public accommodations and advertising” free of discrimination on that basis. This expresses the legislature’s intent that it be illegal for public accommodations like XX-XY Athletics, in their advertising, customer interactions, and elsewhere, to refer to transgender-identifying individuals with their given names or with biologically accurate language. XX-XY Athletics can no longer speak the truth in pursuit of its mission. XX-XY Athletics can no longer call men, men.
Even worse, the Act coerces the company to speak against its principles and alter the meaning of its core message. If XX-XY Athletics refuses, the company faces cease-and-desist orders, expensive investigations, hearings, and civil and criminal penalties. Colorado officials have not hesitated to go after businesses for violating the same law in the past, torching the First Amendment in the process (emphasis added). XX XY Athletics faces an imminent threat of enforcement as it will continue to speak in a manner consistent with its desired message and views.
It alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Jennifer is relatively new to TERFing, but not to speaking her mind. She was a young gymnast who, in 2008, published a book titled, Chalked Up: My Life in Elite Gymnastics. The book exposed the rampant child sexual abuse that rocked American gymnastics. In 2020, she was part of the production team for Athlete A—a documentary about the reporters who broke the story about USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s abuse, and featuring many abuse victims themselves. Jennifer initiated the project, wrote the story, found directors, and produced.
She began working at Levi Strauss & Co. in 1999, making her way up to chief marketing officer and brand president. But she spoke out about her opposition to COVID-19 policies and was vilified by her workplace. So she resigned in February 2022. She says:
This time, I couldn’t remain silent when the lockdowns were cruelly imposed on children during covid. And for the crime of saying I believe public school kids deserve to be able to go to school during the pandemic, like the kids in private schools, I was dragged, demonized and smeared.
Jennifer also worked at NOW in DC in the 90s and served on the board of me too in 2021 to 2022.
She has not stopped speaking out where she sees injustice. She says on the XX-XY Athletics website:
I teamed up with a rag tag group of cancelled, ousted and self-described misfits. And we created an athletic brand that would stand for the truth and America’s highest ideals: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, open debate and dissent and striving for excellence.
XX-XY Athletics is the only athletic wear company that stands up for female athletes. The rest have completely sold out women and girls. Plus, they make some awesome ads (at least one of which J.K. Rowling has shared on X).
Its mission:
We are unapologetic about our goal.
We are here to protect women’s sports and spaces.
Women deserve the opportunities that sports and single sex spaces provide.
Sex matters. It is the single biggest determinant of athletic performance. It is unfair and dangerous to allow males (XY) to compete in girls and women’s (XX) sports.
For women to compete safely and fairly, women’s sports need to remain female.
We’ll be here defending truth. And women and girls. Until that happens.
I have had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer in person on a few occasions, including once in Denver. I know that she means it when she says she is unapologetic about her goal and that she will not stop speaking out. This lawsuit proves it. Jennifer, today’s FFS Friday is for you.
Thanks for reporting this Kara. I am not a lawyer, but this seems like an egregious trampling of a company’s first amendment rights. Hopefully it has a good shot if it goes to the Supreme Court. As for the politics, the fact that nearly every democrat in power has decided to die on this hill with no debate about the merits of gender zealotry is so short sighted. They have no good answers when you bring up facts about women’s safety in traditionally single sex spaces, particularly prisons. And the mainstream media seems to go out of its way to not cover this with any objectivity, the way they do on so many issues. Their actions say they don’t care if they lose liberal and independent women. Never thought I would hear myself saying this but I see voting Republican in protest in the next few election cycles unless things change. In the meantime I am going to go buy some XX-XY Gear to support Jennifer Sey.
Check out the actual complaint, too. Unlike most legal documents, it’s clear, succinct, almost poetic in its language. Cannot wait to see what happens with this case.