Kelly Johnstone

Rockaway Peninsula Dweller🇺🇸. MC1R Gene Carrier. 1X-BPC Kickball Champ. Proud Gooner. ⚽️ Gotham FC & USWNT Supporter. Celine Dion Fan. Pickle Enthusiast. 🥒

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Jalen Brunson, Aaron Judge, and this guy for best athletes in NYC right now

[Kelly Johnstone @Kjo328]

@taylorswift13 I mean come on ..give us a cute NYK retro crew neck or something ..show up for the city

[Chris Stephens @ChrisStephensMD]

My man

[Elizabeth Eddy @elizabetheddy2]

The W in NWSL

When I joined the National Women’s Soccer League 11 years ago, our games were live-streamed to fans on YouTube. Today, our league is halfway through a four-year, $240 million television contract. Our teams are among the most valuable franchises in women’s sports. Yet with this remarkable growth comes an urgent challenge: How do we preserve women’s rights and competitive fairness while fostering meaningful inclusion?

I’m proud to have played a small role in our league’s transformation from struggling startup to supercharged celebrity-maker. I’ve been a part of winning seven titles: three NWSL Championships, three regular-season titles and one International Champions Cup. But I’m concerned that without clarity about who the league is for, it will lose its identity and its momentum.

Recent controversies across women’s sports — from swimming to track and field — have highlighted the absence of clear eligibility policies in professional soccer, unlike a growing number of other competitions. This uncertainty serves no one, as questions and controversy abound over intersex and transgender athletes. Players have been excluded and then unexcluded, administrators have blamed and criticized each other, and fans have used the uncertainty to harass players. 

Leaders from across the political spectrum, including progressives like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, have expressed support for stronger protections for the integrity of women’s sports. Ensuring fairness prompted numerous international leagues to tighten eligibility. World Athletics did so in 2023 for international track and field competitions. Other countries’ domestic organizations did the same, including the UK Athletics Federation. World Aquatics (formerly FINA), international swimming’s governing body, adopted clear rules about sex and gender eligibility in 2022. England’s Football Association now requires ovaries at birth.

Addressing this challenge entails remembering why women’s sports categories exist in the first place: not to exclude but to create a space where female athletes can physically compete on equal footing. Studies show measurable differences between men and women in muscle mass, bone density and cardiovascular capacity, which directly affect competitive outcomes. Further research has found male muscular advantage is only “minimally reduced” — by about 5% over 12 months — by testosterone suppression.

Fairness and inclusion are core American values. Reasonable people can disagree about where to draw lines, but avoiding the conversation altogether by shutting out diverse views does not serve us. In fact, we owe it to current and future female athletes to solve this.

The NWSL must adopt a clear standard. One option is all players must be born with ovaries, as the FA requires. Another option is an SRY gene test, like those World Athletics and World Boxing implemented.

This SRY genetic marker indicates male-developmental pathways during fetal growth, providing objective scientific criteria for competitive categorization. Critics say genetic-testing policies can cause psychological harm. This concern must be taken seriously. Testing could easily integrate into medical evaluations through existing blood draws or noninvasive cheek swabs, conducted once per career under strict confidentiality protocols. Athletes testing positive for the SRY gene could receive comprehensive support, including counseling, privacy protections and inclusion in professional networks. World Athletics has successfully used similar protocols since 2018, with legal challenges ultimately supporting such policies’ scientific basis.

Creating pathways for athletes traditionally excluded from competing at the highest level would demonstrate inclusion and competitive integrity can coexist.

I know from experience the NWSL is more than just a sports league. For many, dreams are coming true in real life — dreams that were impossible before my generation. I also understand that for many athletes and fans, seeing intersex and transgender athletes compete and dominate on sports’ biggest stages also realizes a dream. How can we make an open arena reality for small and tragically marginalized minorities with nowhere else that may feel safe and inclusive to compete?

The answer is in the NWSL’s own history. Just as we built a new space for women to compete in the largest arenas, now we must honor that commitment and make the National Women’s Soccer League for women. I welcome leaders including the aforementioned American politicians to come together with the NWSL’s blueprint and build solutions.

Some pathway ideas: an open division within the NWSL, small-sided opportunities like the Soccer Tournament and World Sevens Football, pathways to stay in the game and free counseling. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know we’re all in this together. It will take time, space and creativity to cooperate as we move forward.

Decisions the NWSL makes — or shirks its responsibility to make — will shape opportunities for young athletes of all backgrounds for decades to come. We must get them right by finding the most ethical and innovative path ahead.

Women’s sports showcase the full range of human ability as we reach and exceed what is physically possible. Everybody needs a chance to break records and achieve the previously impossible. That is why we love to celebrate women competing against each other and why we need creative solutions to ensure everybody can compete on a level playing field. 

It would be nice to have no need for clear eligibility criteria. Unfortunately, when money, power and fame are at stake, which inevitably happens in professional sports, competitors may try to push on what is right or fair. Especially when the goal of winning requires using every available advantage.

[Taylor Swift @taylorswift13]

It was the End of an Era and we knew it. We wanted to remember every moment leading up to the culmination of the most important and intense chapter of our lives, so we allowed filmmakers to capture this tour and all the stories woven throughout it as it wound down. And to film the final show in its entirety.

The Eras Tour | The Final Show, featuring the entire Tortured Poets Department set, and the first two episodes of The End of an Era, a 6-episode behind-the-scenes docuseries will be yours December 12th on @DisneyPlus

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Cam Skattebo & Jaxson Dart

[Donald Trump Jr. @DonaldJTrumpJr]

I believe you mean $0.00

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Steak 'n Shake @SteaknShake]

Sometimes, people want to change things just to put their own personality on things. At CB, their goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the "old-timer" from the signage. Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away.

At Steak n Shake, we take pride in our history, our families, and American values. All are welcome. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers.

[Tunnel to Towers Foundation @Tunnel2Towers]

The Tunnel to Towers Foundation is honored to announce its plans to pay off the mortgages held on the homes of two fallen first responders: Army National Guard Combat Engineer & Battalion Chief Frank Harwood and Battalion Chief John Morrison. Harwood and Morrison were fatally shot while fighting a bush fire in Idaho on June 29, 2025.

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

WATCH: The Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani is such a shameless dirtbag he changes his accent depending on who he's talking to. He also used to be a "rapper" whose mom directed his music videos.

If New York City voters are dumb enough to elect this conman, they deserve every single bad thing coming to them.

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

President Donald J. Trump in The Situation Room, June 21, 2025

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

THE GOAT HAS RETURNED

Welcome back, Joey Chestnut @vivalafood_

[Alex B. @KnicksCentral]

When you finally solve that case

[Complex Sports @ComplexSports]

THE NOVA KNICKS ARE HEADED TO THE EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS 🙏🔥

[KFC @KFCBarstool]

👋👋👋

[Clem @TheClemReport]

Start ringing The Purge alarms on Seventh Ave. @NYCMayor

[Big Knick Energy @BigKnickEnergy_]

The Knicks are up 37 points on the NBA Champion Boston Celtics in an elimination game.

[Men in Blazers @MenInBlazers]

Drink it in, Wrexham ❤️

The Red Dragons are promoted to the Championship and are the first-ever team to win three successive promotions in the top five tiers of English football. Extraordinary scenes of ecstasy 🐲