Secret recordings reveal Oberlin bosses scolding lacrosse coach for talking about menstruation with teenage athletes because it’s ‘transphobic’

The former head coach of the Oberlin College women’s lacrosse team produced recordings where her bosses demanded she stop discussing menstruation out of fear of offending trans women. 

Kim Russell had been at the center of an ongoing conflict with officials at Oberlin after she posted her personal viewpoint on transgender swimmer Lia Thomas winning an NCAA championship in 2022 in March last year. 

She has since become an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum but she didn’t leave the liberal college before recording some of the disciplinary process.

Russell released one of the recordings, which resurfaced on social media earlier this week, where she spoke to Natalie Winkelfoos, the school’s associate vice president for athletics, about a coach she’d hired to discuss menstruation.

Winkelfoos is heard telling Russell that the ‘period talk,’ as she put it, was ‘a boundary that we should have discussed as a team, if everyone was comfortable with that.’

Russell was also accused of not thinking about ‘reasons why someone might not get their period or they may not have a good relationship with it’ by an unnamed Oberlin lacrosse player. 

Russell said she simply felt the lacrosse coach could be useful to the team. 

‘I brought in someone who specializes in the female [menstrual] cycle,’ Russell said.  ‘And she’s a lacrosse coach, so she would help us with plays or drills and I got great feedback as she was here from players on the team.’ 

Russell was eventually removed from her position with the team, – which is now being coached by an interim replacement.

Russell had reposted a headline that facetiously congratulated NCAA silver medalist Emma Weyant for being the true winner of the championship, after she placed behind Thomas at the 2022 competition.

‘What do you believe? I can’t be quiet on this … I’ve spent my life playing sports, starting & coaching sports programs for girls & women …’ she wrote.

Her post sparked an internal controversy at Oberlin, prompting administrators to step in and lambast the coach.

In one conversation with administrators, which Russell recorded, Winkelfoos said: ‘Unfortunately, you fall into the category of people that are kind of filled with hate in the world.’

Creg Jantz, senior associate director of athletics, told Russell: ‘It’s acceptable to have your own opinions, but when they go against Oberlin College’s beliefs, it’s a problem for your employment.’

Russell says she has not spoken to either of them since the saga blew up. 

‘I did speak to the athletic director as she presented me with the new role they have offered me,’ Russell said. 

‘Originally I was told all of these things, that I fall into a group of hate, that people are calling me transphobic, transgressive and unsafe.’

‘My office was a place of solace, a place where people could come and cry, and be loved and get support. 

‘I have just been blown away by the continued increase in biological males playing in women’s and girls sports.

‘I am so passionate about this because the reason we have these opportunities to play and coach is because of the women who came before me, who fought for us to have these opportunities.

‘I don’t think the younger generation understand that these opportunities weren’t here years ago.’

In a short documentary released by the Independent Women’s Forum, Russell, who has been head coach at Oberlin for six years, said that during the meeting she ‘felt like a little kid being yelled at and told I was wrong.’

‘People saying, “A transwoman is a woman. How can you not think that?”‘ she recounted.

‘I had prepared myself emotionally because I knew what was coming. I felt like I was burned at the stake. I felt like I was stoned and hanged all at the same time,’ she said.

Winkelfoos went on to tell Russell that she was being perceived as ‘transgressive, transphobic and unsafe.’

That ‘broke my heart because you love these kids like they’re your own,’ Russell said of her players, one of whom had gone over her head to the athletic department to report her social media post.

Later in the documentary, Russell said: ‘It is scientific that, biologically, males and females are different. Period. I don’t believe biological males should be in women’s locker rooms. Where’s the Me Too movement now? What happened to that?’

Following the post, Russell was asked to write an apology letter to the athletics department and her team, but she ultimately declined to do so.

Riley Gaines, a former Division I NCAA swimmer, who has competed against and tied with Lia Thomas, has become a leading advocate for fairness in women’s sports and praised Russell for maintaining her position under pressure.

‘This is really really huge. The voice we’ve been missing is that of coaches,’ Gaines wrote in response to the new documentary.

Oberlin is currently in the middle of another massive legal battle stemming from its woke policies and how they’ve impacted the community.

Last year, a jury ruled that the liberal arts college owed the owners of a local bakery $36.5million after defaming the company and the owners by describing them as racist, after an incident in 2016 when the storeowner chased down three black students who had stolen from the business.

The school at first attempted to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court, which announced it would not take up the case last summer.

The school is currently engaged in a legal battle with its insurance company, which is refusing to cover the multi-million dollar payment.