Trans athlete controversies help power women's sports activist brand XX-XY Athletics in first year

The women's activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics celebrated its one-year anniversary this month.

It proved to be a lucrative business by marketing the protection of women and girls from transgender athlete inclusion, reaching seven figures in sales and selling more than 50,000 products.

It accomplished this despite heated criticism from trans activists and even restrictions on social media based on the content in its marketing.

But the brand also benefited from widespread pushback on the enabling of trans athletes in girls sports. 

"Whenever there are setbacks, more people seem willing to lean in and support the cause," founder Jennifer Sey told FOX Business.

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There were several controversies involving trans athletes and censorship that helped power XX-XY Athletics to a successful first year, according to business documents obtained by FOX Business.

The brand had its biggest surge in engagement in early October amid an explosion in national awareness of the San Jose State University volleyball scandal. By that point, SJSU's volleyball team had already had four matches wiped off its schedule due to forfeit after co-captain Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit against the NCAA over her allegations about trans teammate Blaire Fleming. 

XX-XY ATHLETICS LOOKS TO REDEFINE MAINSTREAM IN 2025

Around the same time, the brand launched its viral "Dear Nike" advertisement, which drew millions of views across social media platforms. 

The brand's second-biggest surge in engagement came in mid-June, after the company was banned from TikTok for the first time.

"When we were first banned from advertising, we got like 10 different answers," Sey said. "One was we can't show a child in an ad without an adult in frame. But we always had an adult in frame when there was a child in the ad, so that was a lie. Another was that it was considered hate speech that we misgendered. … Another was we were driving to our own website and our own website was considered unacceptable."

XX-XY Athletics' has since returned to TikTok and has been running ads since early March. 

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Another big week for the brand came in late July, after the global controversy involving Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting.

Khelif and Yu-ting do not identify as transgender. However, both boxers were previously disqualified from International Boxing Association world championships for gender eligibility issues. Their participation and eventual gold medals incited global outrage, and many critics declared that boxers previously disqualified for gender eligibility issues competing against females was unfair. 

And even though the brand has thrived on controversies involving women and girls having to compete in concerning situations and advertising censorship, Sey believes it can also thrive if those controversies are reduced.

With President Donald Trump's administration seeking to enforce a national ban on trans athletes in women's and girls sports, Sey expects a successful ban will also help her business even though it has thrived on its resistance messaging so far. 

"I think it will have a very positive impact because it normalizes it and makes it the law of the land," Sey said.

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