XX-XY has taken a rare position in the world of CSR.
An American brand of recent vintage, XX-XY Athletics, tells us that it “has had a breakout year,” having reached $1 million in sales before its eighth month in business. Despite its association with women, the brand has full product lines for men, as well as accessories. Its most famous endorsers, however, are women: swimmer turned activist Riley Gaines, collegiate gymnast Neely Gaines, collegiate volleyball player Sia LiiLii, professional golfer Mauren Miller and martial artist in taekwondo Jaycee Bassett.
XX-XY was founded by Jennifer Sey, a former gymnast who was selected seven times for the US Women’s National Team and had a remarkable 1986, when she was the US Women’s All-Around National Champion and the US Olympic Committee Athlete of the Year. Once she’d retired from athletics she moved into business, taking a job in 1999 with Levi Strauss and working her way up to Chief Marketing Officer and Brand President. Then came the lockdowns and the school closures. Sey spoke up in opposition to both and had a hard time over the next two years, resigning from Levi’s in 2022. From these adversities she drew a memoir, Levi’s Unbuttoned. This was in fact her second memoir, after Chalked Up, which focused on her years in gymnastics. She has also produced a Netflix documentary, Athlete A, on the Larry Nassar scandal – a scandal we reviewed briefly in our profile of Feisal Al Hussein, candidate for the recent IOC presidency.
XX-XY is Sey’s third time mouthing off, if you will – this time against the transgender movement, its effects on the public and private sectors, and especially its effects on women’s sports. She is one of a handful of renowned women to speak out on this subject – alongside Martina Navratilova and J.K. Rowling – even if they don’t agree on much else politically.
XX-XY describes itself as “the only athletic brand to stand up for women’s sports,” asserting that it favors free speech, because “without it we aren’t free,” and exhorts customers not to “buy from brands that hate you,” going on to say: “The Truth Fits. Wear It.”
In keeping with this philosophy, the brand has released an ad in response to Nike’s recent ad for the Super Bowl, which we covered in February.
Like every other brand out there, XX-XY has its share of CSR initiatives. Last year, it established the XX-XY Athletics Fund, which has in turn set up the Courage Wins Award, for “female collegiate and high school athletes” who “have been threatened with loss of scholarships if they speak out against competing against male athletes entering their sports.”
The Fund is a reaction to the Biden administration’s amendment of Title IX, a US law enacted in 1972 and dealing with discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal funds. In essence, the administration swapped out sex for gender identity.
XX-XY also maintains partnerships with the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS Women) and the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) – not to be confused with the International Women’s Forum or the International Weightlifting Federation (both also abbreviated IWF).
ICONS was founded by Marshi Smith, a former swim team captain at the University of Arizona at Tucson, and Kim Jones, a former All American tennis player at Stanford University, and otherwise made up of “current and former collegiate and professional athletes, their families and supporters.”
Among other things, ICONS is raising money to fund (so far) three lawsuits, all on behalf of female athletes and all over policies on transgender participation in sports. Among the defendants are the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Ivy League Council of Presidents, Harvard University, Georgia Tech, the University of Pennsylvania and the Mountain West Conference.
The lead counsel on all of these lawsuits is William Bock III, a partner at Kroger, Gardis & Regas, former General Counsel for the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and lead attorney for the investigation into Lance Armstrong. He once had a seat on the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions but early last year, after about eight years of service, tendered his resignation – over this same issue of transgender policy.
The IWF, a non-profit with headquarters in Virginia, describes itself as “the leading national women’s organization dedicated to developing and advancing policies that are more than just well-intended, but actually enhance people’s freedom, opportunities, and well-being.” It operates five “centers” – for Economic Opportunity, for Energy and Conservation, for Education Freedom, for American Safety and Security and for Women’s Law.
