(LifeSiteNews) — The official governing body of professional fencing in America has announced that a change to its rules allowing gender-dysphoric males to compete against women is on the table, but will only be adopted if superior governing bodies force it.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, 31-year-old Stephanie Turner, who previously made a point of trying to evade tournaments in which she would have to face “transgender” fencers, found herself up against gender-confused male Redmond Sullivan at the Cherry Blossom Open in Maryland. She learned about the matchup the night before, and made her decision how to handle it then.
After four matches against other women, she says, when the match came, “I took a knee immediately at that point. Redmond was under the impression that I was going to start fencing. So when I took the knee, I looked at the ref and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do this. I am a woman, and this is a man, and this is a women’s tournament. And I will not fence this individual.’”
Turner received a black card (the most serious penalty in fencing), was brought before the bout committee, and escorted out of the tournament, though women’s sporting fairness group XX-XY Athletics gave her its Courage Wins Champion award for her actions.
“USA Fencing enacted our current transgender and non-binary athlete policy in 2023,” the governing body told OutKick on April 8. “The policy was designed to expand access to the sport of fencing and create inclusive, safe spaces. The policy is based on the principle that everyone should have the ability to participate in sports and was based upon the research available of the day … USA Fencing will always err on the side of inclusion, and we’re committed to amending the policy as more relevant evidence-based research emerges, or as policy changes take effect in the wider Olympic & Paralympic movement.”
On April 18, USA Fencing issued a new statement that its board has prepared a revised “Transgender and Non-Binary Athletes Eligibility Policy.” If it takes effect, the “Women’s Category will be open exclusively to athletes of the female sex,” and the “Men’s Category will be open to all other athletes who are otherwise eligible for competition.”
However, it added, this new policy “will be implemented only if and when one or more governing bodies require these updates,” be it “the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and International Fencing Federation (FIE), and their Paralympic equivalents,” or future federal legislation.
In the meantime, it says, “USA Fencing’s current policy remains in place, and eligibility standards remain in effect.” The body also contained a de facto preemptive apology for the possibility of enforcing the new policy in the future, calling it “solely to ensure future compliance required by oversight organizations” and insisting that it “does not reflect any change in our strong support for each individual’s right to identity. We recognize that many people — particularly [so-called] transgender and non-binary athletes and their supporters in fencing clubs nationwide — will be profoundly impacted if this policy takes effect.”
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) panned the announcement as a “spineless move that satisfies no one.”
Allowing gender-confused individuals to compete in opposite-sex sports is promoted by leftists as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities.
There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be negated by hormone suppression.
In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone [use];” therefore, “the advantage to [gender-confused men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
Critics also warn that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
Polls show that the LGBT lobby’s protests of victimhood and insistence the issue is overblown is not resonating with the general public. Last month, Pew Research reported that 66 percent of Americans support limiting athletic participation to actual members of a team’s designated sex, with agreement among independents and Democrats also rising since 2022.
