A Sheriff Organized an Anti-Trans Protest at a Seattle Soccer Game. It Didn’t Go Well

A group of anti-transgender protestors showed up at a women’s soccer game between the Seattle Reign and the Orlando Pride at Seattle’s Lumen Field on Sunday following several local news reports that Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank had been encouraging a demonstration.But many attendees at the game only saw a “fortress” of trans Pride flags surrounding the protesters that largely blocked them from view. Some of the flags vore the slogan “Trans Rights Are Human Rights.” Per social media posts, the protesters wore apparel from the XX-XY brand, a women’s athletic gear brand that often contains lightly coded anti-trans messaging such as “Refuse to Pretend,” and that advertises its mission as restricting participation in women’s sports only to those with XX chromosomes.So.It looks like some of those XX XY bigots showed up. Sort of? There might be... six of them? They're brigaded by trans flags.[image or embed]— Katrina Lehto (@lithera.bsky.social) November 1, 2026 at 6:48 PMAnother picture of flag fortress.[image or embed]— Katrina Lehto (@lithera.bsky.social) November 1, 2026 at 6:54 PM Prior to the Sunday match, the Tacoma-based News Tribune reported that the sheriff for Pierce County, which contains Tacoma and the surrounding area, had allegedly been organizing an anti-trans demonstration through email. Emails obtained by Defend Washington, a political action group opposed to a current Washington State ballot initiative seeking to ban trans girls from playing in girls’ school sports, showed that Swank allegedly planned to disrupt the match with anti-trans messaging. According to the leaked emails, he was looking for a group of people — up to about 90 — to purchase tickets in the same section of the field where Reign fans often wave Pride flags and other regalia. An October 26 email from Swank, with the subject line “stand up for women and girls,” asked people to “Go into the stadium with your shirt covered, and at half time, put it