FFS Friday: Michelle Koskella

January 31, 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. If you would like access to content that delves deeper into the movement to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls and to stop the abolition of sex, please consider a paid subscription.

Today’s FFS Friday honors Michelle Koskella, who has been speaking out before the California Interscholastic Federation’s Central Coast Section (CCS) about the importance of maintaining single-sex sports and spaces and the backlash women face when they speak out.

On January 29, the group Women Are Real (@WomenAreReals on X) posted a video of her speaking before the CCS about being labeled a “Creepy Perverted Bigot” by a school 𝕏 account due to her advocacy. The man who likely called her that was in the room at the time of her testimony.

This is what Michelle said to the CCS:

My name is Michelle Koskella. I am the mother of two athletes, a former CCS athlete and a current athlete. A recent New York Times poll showed that 79 percent of Americans of all political parties believe that biological boys should not be able to compete in female sports and share their locker rooms. This is a mainstream position. Yet despite this, when girls and women speak out on this issue, we often face harassment and bullying.

In 2023, I had a letter published in the San Mateo Daily Journal, in which I argued for keeping girls’ sports female. I criticized an article written by Steve Sell. Steve Sell’s son Justin then had his own letter published, but he didn’t just stick to the facts. He called me names: “vicious” and “dangerous,” “ignorant,” “heartless,” and “detached from reality,” and he accused me of bullying and harassing children. Then, in November, Steve Sell gave an interview on this issue to ABC 7 News. So I shared it on my Twitter account (X), and I disagreed with Sell’s position.

The next day, I was notified by X that the Aragon Athletics X account had added me to a list entitled “Creepy Perverted Bigots.” There were other women, some of them are here, who were also added to this list because we are outspoken on the issue of fairness, safety, and dignity for women and girls. As you all know, Steve Sell is the athletic director of Aragon High School and probably runs that account. His son Justin is also an employee of Aragon. But I’m an adult and I’m not going to be silenced, even though the experience was actually really scary for me. I’m here to speak for the girls who are also scared to speak out, even though they know that it’s unfair and wrong that boys are in their sports, sharing their locker rooms, taking their rewards, taking their playing time.

You guys are all here, I assume, because you also support girls’ and boys’ sports. And you can take a position. You can speak out. You can stand up for the girls and women that deserve your support. There’s an act in the Assembly right now, the Protect Girls’ Sports Act. Take a position. Do the right thing. Stand up for women and girls in sports.

Here is the letter she had published in the Daily Journal, where she said:

Editor,

I was disappointed to read that football coach Steve Sell is so dismissive of female sports and the women who have fought for years for the right to compete fairly.

First, despite the inflammatory language used, there were no “vicious attacks” on kids. A group of women (one-third of whom are lesbians) held signs reading “Protect Female Sports” at two high school track meets where biological boys were competing in girls’ events. Many of the female athletes and their families thanked the protesters and expressed that they were not able to object themselves for fear of backlash.

Sell states “irrefutable truths” (many of which are not truths but trans activist talking points), but what is irrefutable is that male puberty provides significant physical advantages in athletic competition. These advantages are not erased by hormone suppression, but at the high school level, there is not even a requirement to suppress testosterone for boys who “identify” as girls to compete with the girls. Sports have always been segregated by sex, not “gender identity.” And no one is trying to prevent any kids from competing in high school sports. All can participate with their biological sex. Just as we have age groups in youth sports (a 16-year-old can’t play 10U Little League) and weight categories in wrestling, we separate sports by sex with good reason.

High school sports provide tremendous physical and mental benefits and all deserve fair competition. Keep female sports female.

Michelle Koskella

Burlingame

She has also told her “peak trans” story in a podcast episode of the group Women Are Real.

To all women and girls who care about this issue, I urge you to speak out. You can do it, and courage calls to courage! To Michelle, today’s FFS Friday is for you.