Former Levi's exec launches XX-XY Athletics brand, TikTok bans pro-women ad: 'Most sexist thing imaginable'
An advertisement launched by the new pro-women's athletics brand XX-XY Athletics went viral on TikTok last month for its advocacy of the rights of women to compete in women's-only sports and use single-sex spaces. After the minute-long video garnered significant attention on TikTok, the brand was notified that it was banned from the social media platform for not complying with its "advertising policies."
"Our review indicates that your advertising content may violate TikTok's advertising policies by featuring offensive content," the letter from TikTok stated. The brand was given the option to "revise" their advertisement or appeal the ban.
Former Levi's exec Jennifer Sey, the founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, spoke with Fox News Digital about the ban, noting the company did not say which guidelines the brand was in violation of, but said the move by the social media giant only strengthened the company's resolve to continue advocating for women's sports and female-only spaces.
"Whatever their [TikTok] intention was, it certainly backfired for them because our platform is bigger, and our voice is louder," Sey said.
XX-XY Athletics, which launched in March ahead of the latest Title IX changes put forth by the Biden administration and the 2024 Olympics, sells women's and men's athletics clothes while advocating women's rights.
Jennifer Sey (XX-XY Athletics)
"If we can do that and put out amazing content that supports it, it becomes normalized to stand up for women and girls and I think for far too long, people on the non-far left have neglected the tools of culture," she said. "That is how ideas become embraced: through art and through brands. Politics are downstream from culture. We've got to win this in the cultural arena and so I think my brand can be a big part of that."
"This isn't just about laws, this is about people and changing hearts and minds and having them speak up because the laws will follow that," she added. "So, that's what I hope and that's certainly what we're experiencing. Women who have come out of the woodwork to support their daughters and dads have come out of the woodwork to say, 'I'm not going to stand by silently when my daughter is denied opportunity.'"
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Sey described the ad as "very uplifting," encouraging girls and women to stand up for themselves, stating they deserve their own sports, deserve their own spaces and deserve privacy and safety without being called a bigot.
"I find it pretty ironic that in running an ad, encouraging women and girls to stand up for themselves and not to back down when they're called names, we then get called names and are permanently banned from advertising on TikTok for violating their advertising policies, which they did not cite what policy we violated, but they said it was for offensive content," she said. "So standing up for women and girls is offensive now, apparently."
"In the wake of #MeToo, when a sideways glance from a guy at work could get him canceled, now women are being told to shut up, sit down and let these guys have what they want. It's just sort of mind-boggling to me. The misogyny is really astonishing," she added. "We can't have a fair fight if males are enabled and allowed to compete in our sports."
Sey made headlines in 2022 when she resigned as the top brand chief at Levi Strauss & Co. after she had become vocal in her opposition to extended school closures during the COVID pandemic. She worked in the fashion and apparel business for close to 30 years and had always been outspoken about her beliefs regarding women's rights in sports as a former elite gymnast, but the free speech limits she faced during COVID pushed her to her limit.
Since her resignation – she says she was forced out, while the company says she left voluntarily – Sey had been outspoken against woke corporations, authoring the memoir "Levi's Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job but Gave Me My Voice."
But when she was looking for a new job, Sey said she grew frustrated while interviewing with large, multi-billion dollar retail brands where she was regularly grilled by prospective employers about whether she regretted speaking out against COVID-era school closures and the views she held amid the pandemic. She decided she could no longer be part of the corporate C-suite.
"I was in this really unique position as a former elite athlete," she said. "I was an elite gymnast, national champion in 1986 and a very experienced leader within fashion and somebody willing to speak about controversial and uncomfortable truths to start a brand and athletic apparel brand for women primarily, though, we do make men's clothing, that stands up for women's sports and spaces. The idea was born and we actually started working last October and we launched March 25."
In April, the Biden administration finalized its updates to Title IX which many critics argue will erase advancements biological women have achieved in today's society through its broad interpretation of "sex" and while XX-XY Athletics was already underway, Sey said the proposed changes have only strengthened the brand's mission.
Jennifer Sey with a young female gymnast. (XX-XY Athletics)
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was originally a 37-word provision barring schools that receive federal funding from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, ensuring equal opportunity for women in the educational setting. The latest version of the regulation, which is on track to go into effect Aug. 1, expands that reach to prevent discrimination and harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation, which will have significant implications for women-only spaces, free speech and sports.
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"It actually has generated more interest in what we're doing [and] more urgency in what we're doing," she said. "The Department of Education issued what I would call an illegal rewrite of Title IX. They sort of smuggled in a change which completely erases the original meaning of Title IX, and the original meaning was to protect women and girls' sex based rights."
She added that the new rules erase "the original meaning of Title IX."
She said that anyone who thinks it's not that many trans-identified male athletes competing in women's sports should know that there are nearly 600 reported instances of women and girls who have been beat out by transgender women.
"To tell us we need to just sit down and be quiet because a bunch of males tell us we need to just seems, to me, the most sexist thing imaginable, and we're not going to do it," Sey said.
Jennifer Sey with brand ambassadors Paula Scanlan (L) and Riley Gaines (R)
Sey said transgender identifying females competing against biological women is dangerous and that by affirming that belief "we're being asked to further this lie that is so fundamental, that men and women are different and that sex is binary."
After the TikTok ban, Sey said XX-XY Athletics had its best sales day yet, which she said is indicative of the fact that people are no longer willing to "deny truth."
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"They've pushed us too far, the ideologues who are pushing this issue around gender ideology, which basically states that sex is not binary, and it's a spectrum and there's no difference between men and women," she said. "People thought I was kooky before, [because it] felt like it was a fringe issue… [but] when a platform like TikTok, the largest, most popular platform for young people in the country and the world is banning you for saying women and girls, stand up for yourself, people are just done."
Fox News Digital has reached out to TikTok for comment.
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Fox News' Nora Moriarty contributed to this report.
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