‘Running for Cows’: St. Paul Native to Bring Mooving Message to Anti-Female ‘Milk Marathon’
For Immediate Release:
November 4, 2025
Contact:
Alex Payne 202-483-7382
On Sunday, November 16, 25-year-old South St. Paul native and vegan athlete Starlynn Costa will be running in the Every Woman’s Marathon in Scottsdale, Arizona—not to celebrate the event’s sponsors, but to protest them. Wearing a tank top that reads “Dairy Exploits Females” on the front and “You Can’t Be a Milk-Drinking Feminist” on the back, Costa will call out the hypocrisy of a women’s race funded by the dairy industry—which systematically sexually assaults female cows and steals their newborn babies so that the milk meant to nourish them can be sold to humans.
“Running is something I love to do, and running in protest of the dairy industry, which treats mother cows like disposable milk machines, pushes me to run even stronger,” says Costa. “I’m proud to drive home the message that this shameful race makes a mockery of female cows’ suffering and exploitation.”
“This miserable milk race is using women to promote a product derived from the misery of mother cows who are abused and then slaughtered once their usefulness runs out,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “Starlynn is a shining example of a new generation of women who are rejecting dairy and embracing justice for all.”
Costa—a vegan for nearly nine years—was born in St. Paul and grew up in South St. Paul. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in communication at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, and the University of South Alabama in Mobile, respectively, before moving to New Jersey to be closer to family. She was inspired to start running after watching the film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, in which a horse named Spirit saves other horses from being ridden by humans. That story, along with going vegan, helped lead her down a path to animal activism.
Now an assistant correspondent at peta2—part of PETA’s youth division—Costa works with students to help them plan animal liberation events at their schools. She’s participated in several PETA actions herself, including protesting outside the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show to slam breeders for contributing to the homeless-animal overpopulation crisis, and helping coordinate a tour PETA’s life-size animatronic elephant, Ellie, to schools across the country to teach students about the cruelty of animal circuses and elephant rides. In her spare time, Costa likes to sing, draw, and write stories, and sip on vegan hot chocolate, whether it’s January or July.
PETA notes that female cows produce milk only when they’re pregnant or nursing, for the same reason human women do—to feed their babies. Given the chance, mother cows form deep bonds with their young. In the dairy industry, cows are repeatedly forcibly manually impregnated (raped)—workers insert an arm into the cow’s rectum and a metal rod to deliver semen into her vagina. Newborn males are routinely slaughtered for veal, while female calves endure the same fate as their mothers until their bodies wear out and they’re sent to slaughter.
Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their food-related carbon footprint and slashes their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. PETA’s free vegan starter kit is filled with tips to help anyone looking to make the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
