A lost game and a viral video. A blow angry at the door. Death threats. An avalanche of political pressure, which leads to an audience scheduled for Wednesday in Washington.
The fencing sport niche is generally not one that causes a feverish emotion beyond the thrust and stop of its games. But it has become the last sporty point of view after the executive order of President Trump in February to prevent transgender athletes from competing in sporting events of girls and women.
Athletes have been affected at the youth, secondary and university level, but the cultural fire storm has spread to all levels and types of competition, including Olympic sports.
The Trump administration seeks to restrict who will be eligible to compete in women’s events at the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which will include fencing competition. American consulates have been ordered to deny visas to the transgender athletes they see to enter the United States for sporting events.
Fencing has been under a weird and uncomfortable focus since a generally discreet regional tournament called The Cherry Blossom Open was held in College Park, Maryland, on March 30. In a match with medium -level features that is not the Olympic caliber, Stephanie Turner, 31 years old, took her knee, took a knee in the protests and decreased to her Olymical opponent, Stephanie Turner. The moment went viral.
According to Mrs. Sullivan, Mrs. Turner said at that time: “I respect you a lot, but this is a women’s event. I am a woman and you are a man. I will not fence you.”
Mrs. Turner, who lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, was disqualified from the tournament for refusing to compete against an eligible opponent. Mrs. Sullivan had competed for Wagner College in States Island until February, when the NCAA complied with the union with the executive order of Mr. Trump. Competing independently at the Cherry Blossom event, he held 24th place among 39 participants.
In the midst of the consequences of the episode, the USA. Fencing, the national governing body of sport, is located in the center of an increasingly fuel debate about the inclination and clean play. The March incident has politicized in conservative circles and has been discussed with reflexive intensity that evidenced by science. There has been a leg relatively little investigation with respect to transgender athletes, and almost none on transgender athletes in fencing.
Phil Andrews, Executive Director of USA Fencing, said that shortly after the incident, he opened his forehead in Denver to meet a man who complained with him vociferantly about transgender athletes who participated in women’s sports.
“I wanted to let him know that I was the scum of the earth and a misfortune for humanity,” Andrews said in a telephone interview. Things got worse, he said, when he began receiving death threats by email and telephone calls.
The Trump administration and Texas Attorney General said they would investigate the fencing incident. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican or Texas, also in Chimed. The representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia and the president of a subcommittee of the Chamber on Government’s efficiency, has scheduled an audience on Wednesday in Capitol Hill.
When announcing the audience, Mrs. Greene said without justification that “the radical leftists who push so that biological men compete against women are destroying fair competition and putting female athletes in physical danger.”
The Board of Directors of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee discussed the issue last month, but responded vaguely by transmitting a teleconference with journalists. Gene Sykes, the president of the Board, said he would work to make sure that “women have a fair and safe competitive environment.”
Usopc faces immense scrutiny with respect to the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The Trump administration has asked the International Olympic Committee to ensure that choosing for participation in women’s sporting events is determined “according to sex and not gender identity or reducing testosterone.”
Mrs. Turner has been called Rosa Parks of Fencing by her lawyer. He also received $ 5,000 as a “courage award” for a sports application that opposes the transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. But Mrs. Turner has also faced critics. She has announced that she is moving away from sport at the moment.
He had previously said in interviews with conservative news organizations that he felt he was at physical disadvantage competing against a transgender woman.
However, a week before Maryland’s competition, Mrs. Turner participated in a mixed gender fencing tournament in Swarthmore, pa. According to the results published by Fencingtraracker.com, Mrs. Turner defeated four male features in the FOIL category and ended eighth among 32 competitors. A family of people with their fencing history said that Mrs. Turner has a 7-7 professional record against male sprains.
“He has incredible holes,” said Sullivan in one of several telephone interviews.
Some critics of Mrs. Turner have called her performative and hypocritical protest. But his lawyer based in Washington, Charles Wang, said in an interview that if a woman decides to participate in a mixed gender competition “that is free; but he cannot force them to fence a man.”
Since 2021, transgender athletes in Olympic sports have faced different rules established by each international sports government agency. Swimming and athletics, for example, effective prohibits participation in competitors elite events that experienced pubertation as men.
The International Fencing Government body does not have a rule that governs transgender athletes. In the United States, spells are generally allowed to participate according to their gender identity, thought at higher levels, transgender athletes who seek to compete in female events must suffer testosterone suppression for at least one year.
On April 18, USA Fencing said he was willing to change his policy to demand that athletes compete in accordance with their biological sex if the continuous election rules become more restrictive. Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, chosen in March as the first woman president of the IOC, has discussed a possible general prohibition or transgender athletes of women’s sports.
A 2023 study conducted at the University of Hertfordshire in England acknowledged that it was not a current investigation with respect to the transgender elite features. But the authors said that literature suggests “a physiological advantage retained unfair” of mass, strength, power and height of transgender athletes experienced by male puberty and then participate in competitions of women’s fences. The SID studio needed more research.
A more general study of 2024, funded by the International Olympic Committee, contradicted one of the main arguments made by Anti-Transivistas.
One of the authors of the study, Yannis Pitsiladis, a member of the COI Health, Medicine and Science Committee, said that when the study that its results showed that the transgender athletes that the transgender athletes that have suppressed their supplies of testicles are omitted are Asspel were published. Men. “
USA Fencing says there are less than 50 athletes that are identified as a transgender among the approximately 40,000 members registered in the Federation. Special at the local and regional level, male and female festors frequently train and compete with each other.
Fencing is tactics and strategy more than a mere height, scope and strength, officials point out. Lee Kiefer of the United States, twice Olympic champion in female aluminum fences, measures only 5 feet 4 inches high. In total, American women designated at birth defeated transgender women in most fighting, and also win most of their contests against men, according to the Federation.
Mrs. Sullivan competed as a man in her first season at Wagner College while taking hormonal suppressors, and as a woman for the university in this school year until the prohibition of NCAA. Before Mrs. Turner’s protest, Mrs. Sullivan said that no one had expressed groups about equity or security.
“It is ridiculous to think that trans athletes have an unfair advantage,” said Sullivan, adding: “I lose for 70 years and 12 -year -old children who have not passed through puberty.”
