On Making a Spectacle

What happened when a woman refused to give up her rights quietly

A female fencer was blackcarded, given fencing’s most severe penalty, for refusing to fence a male opponent in a women’s-only tournament. She was disqualified, forced to sign a statement that she had refused to fence “an eligible” opponent, and escorted out of the venue. She’s on probation for 12 months. She suffered profound loss—friendships, opportunities, personal safety, trust and fairness in the sport to which she’s devoted decades of her life. The most common criticism of her protest? Why did she have to make such a spectacle?

The male fencer continued with the tournament, finishing 24th out of 39 in Women’s Foil. USA Fencing (USFA) jumped to his defense, issuing a public statement that the organization would continue to “err on the side of inclusion.” The male fencer was interviewed by Rolling Stone, downplaying the importance of that tournament (“...they’re for funsies”), and joking about the fringe nature of the sport. His main complaint, he told Rolling Stone, was that the media used his birth name and referred to him as a biological male. In other words, he suffered the revelation of facts.

This asymmetry of what happens when a woman stands up for her right to single-sex sports versus the consequences for a male who has self-identified into the female category highlights USFA’s long and ignoble history of institutional misogyny. Men in the female category, no policy, absurd policy, no restrictions, no problem. An unhinged chairman of the board, a CEO who wouldn’t know integrity or leadership if they bit him. Weapons-grade intimidation and humiliation meted to women who even think about speaking out. Other sports are running the same racket—it’s just that USFA got caught.

Further up the pyramid of guilt, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, that was very involved in allowing men into women’s sports, suddenly claims it’s not their job to get them out.

All of this was brought to light by a “silly little regional fencing tournament” that no one, really, no one, according to the male fencer, should have cared about. But Stephanie Turner did care.

I spoke with Stephanie Turner by phone

Thirty-one-year-old Stephanie Turner has been fencing since her college club days. “It’s more than a hobby for me, it’s a competitive outlet. I’ve invested thousands of dollars each year.” While she calls herself a “nobody” fencer with no Olympic aspirations, she expects to fence “always.”

“I’ve never agreed with men in women's sports. I just didn’t think it was ever a line that would be crossed. It’s an irrational argument, that men can self-identify as women and compete in women’s sports. Slowly, I heard more and more stories of this happening. Not just happening, but people championing men in women’s sports. The first time I was really aware of it was Lia Thomas in 2021. Even then, it was sort of a non-issue as far as I knew, until post-pandemic. Then there was an explosion of the gender movement. It was obvious that men shouldn't be in women's sports, and troubling that an athletic body would enable such a thing to happen without discussing performance outcomes.”

“Later, I realized USFA had been allowing male competitors in the women’s league even before they had a policy—no testosterone suppression, nothing.”

Of the omerta in fencing: “Most women are really afraid to speak out. For young women, fencing is the gateway into the Ivy Leagues. Girls are afraid to say something because it could impact recruitment. The vitriol around this topic is such that if you say something, you could end up like me—it’s not pleasant. People hate your guts. You lose everything—you’ll be harassed by referees for the rest of your life, you will never have a fair bout again, you’ll lose your job at a fencing club, you won’t be able to start a fencing club, you will lose every friend you’ve ever made in fencing. You may even lose your life.”

Why she took a knee: “I want to give other women hope that this will be resolved, to stay strong. I want to encourage people to donate to ICONS and XX-XY and other women’s groups to help bring an end to men in women's sports. Men have athletic advantages that cannot be mitigated by hormones or surgery. Even beyond that, this is the women’s category; men don’t qualify because they’re male.”

“When I brought it up, they [USFA] would just direct me to their inclusion policy. Clearly, they were not interested in changing it. I thought taking a knee would be a symbolic and nonviolent and peaceful protest, which is what everybody had been asking women to do. It demonstrated what happens when you peacefully protest—you miss out on a tournament and you’re punished. On the other hand, I refuse to engage in disruptive protest, or destruction of property. It's more powerful to do something like surrender to your own principles in the face of adversity rather than fight people in a destructive manner.”

Making sure her protest was on video: “I asked a friend to do something I thought she may not approve of, so I said she could leave if she wanted to. She said, ‘l support you,’ and she filmed it for me. I knew USFA would try to hide this act if I did not video it. You’re not allowed to disagree with their policy. The USFA board of directors had a history of intimidating and mocking women who opposed their inclusion policy. This [males in women’s sports] is an information war. People are unaware it’s happening. By posting the video, I could show this actually happened, and people have to ask themselves if they agree with it.”

What happened at the Cherry Blossom Tournament: “I didn't know that I was going to fence him. I knew he was entered in the tournament, but you don’t know who you’re going to fence until the pools are drawn up. I prayed to God, ‘God, I'm thinking about forfeiting. If this is your will, let Redmond and me meet face-to-face. If this is not your will, let this pass me and I’ll fence like any other tournament.’

Redmond Sullivan, a male who identifies as a woman, was one of the six fencers in Turner’s pool. Fencers face all the opponents in their pool. Sullivan was her fifth bout.

“I waited for the referee to say ‘Engarde, ready, fence,’ and at ‘fence’ I took a knee. He [Sullivan] came over to me, kind of confused, and said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ’I’m sorry, I have much love and respect for you but I will not fence you. I am a woman and you are a man and this is a women’s tournament.’ I was the calmest I have ever been. Maybe too calm—I didn’t fence that well.”

“Sullivan said to me, ‘Well you know, there is a member on the board of directors here who supports me, and there is a policy that acknowledges me as a woman, so I am allowed to fence, and you will get blackcarded.” I said, ‘I know.’”

“Everybody was pretty bewildered that somebody would do this, get blackcarded on purpose. Most people were looking at their phones, avoiding eye contact. Even if they did see me take a knee, you know, they had paid the registration fee, taken time off to come there. They know the way it is—they probably didn’t think protesting would be effective. And it would inevitably impact their personal life deeply.

“Normally you get blackcarded for unsportsman-like conduct. Hitting the strip. Or throwing your mask.

“The referee flashed the black card and told me to go to the bout committee. They tried to send me home with their trans policy. I signed the statement that I’d refused to fence an ‘eligible’ opponent under objection.” [Turner did not think Sullivan was an eligible opponent because he is male.]

Of “love and respect”: “I have love and respect for him as a Christian. I recognize him as a child of God; I don’t see his identity. He’s a human being, but at the same time, he's in the wrong place. He should be in the men's category.”

What’s next: “Because of USFA’s inaction, I’m working with a legal group called Fair Fencing to investigate the nature of my black card.

Fencing 101

Foil, epee, saber—most fencers specialize in one of the three weapons. There are age categories—youth, cadet, senior, and veteran— and skill ratings, entry level being U, and progressing E through A, with A being the highest rating. USFA is the sport’s national governing body that crafts the policies and rules, and organizes tournaments. Fencers amass points at regional and national tournaments that can lead to qualification on a US national team.

Locker rooms are a moot point since fencers put their whites and safety equipment on over their clothes.

The claim that fencing is a coed sport comes from the fact that athletes regularly train with those of the opposite sex, and local tournaments offer mixed sex competition, but fencers do not accrue points toward a national team in local tournaments. The howl by critics that Stephanie Turner had recently fenced a man is true—it was a mixed sex local competition. Regional and national tournaments are sex segregated because that’s where a fencer can accrue points toward a national team, which is, nominally anyway, male or female. In fact, Turner registered for Cherry Blossom because it is women-only.

Male Advantage in Fencing

Fencing is a combat sport. Power, speed, reaction time, and wingspan affect performance. Inviting an opponent into the combat space brings the opponent closer, within striking range. The closer you get, the greater the threat level. Men on average are taller, stronger, and faster than women, advantages which are not eliminated by hormones. The gold medalist in women’s foil is 5’4”. Most male medalists are about 6’. They can strike from a longer distance. Men’s pelvises are narrower which provide stronger, faster forward propulsion, like in a lunge. Men have bigger hands with greater grip strength which impacts fencing blade work. Being physically larger is a psychological advantage, too.

There are numerous studies that show hormones do not mitigate male physiological and anatomical advantages. One fencing-specific study says (I translate into correct sex language), "many testosterone-suppressed men are still competing with testosterone levels 5-times greater than the upper range exhibited by healthy, premenopausal elite female athletes, 0–1.7 nmol/liter. Although testosterone is suppressed compared to males, it has been shown that men with trans identities retain some of the advantages from their previous male physiology, irrespective of the duration of hormone therapy treatments."

Most women who identify as trans compete in women’s tournaments despite their identity because they recognize men have an advantage even if they don’t admit it. By all accounts, there has been only one woman with a trans identity who competed on a men’s fencing team. Female Bobbie Hirsch switched to the men’s team at Wayne State University, not a fencing powerhouse. Bobbie Hirsch is 5’2”. Even supplementing with testosterone, Hirsch participates. Nothing more.

Redmond Sullivan

Nineteen-year-old Redmond Sullivan closely guarded his media exposure after the March 29th Cherry Blossom Open, so I relied on previously published articles for background. Reduxx reported that as a high school junior in 2023, the six-foot Sullivan won a Girls’ Connecticut State Track and Field title in the shot put, while he was also competing on the boys’ fencing team at the same school. Sullivan matriculated at Wagner College on Staten Island after high school, joining the men’s fencing team in what would have been 2024, although according to Fencing Tracker, he started fencing in the women’s category in September of 2024, which would have been his freshman year at Wagner College. The NCAA transgender policy requires males to complete a year of testosterone suppression (to some unnamed level monitored by some unnamed person) before being eligible for the women’s team. It’s difficult to determine if this requirement was met. Sullivan has fenced in five tournaments in the women’s category.

About a week after Stephanie Turner’s protest and subsequent public shaming, Rolling Stone published a fantastically fawning, ludicrously biased interview with Sullivan entitled ‘My Entire Life Is Political’: Trans Fencer Attacked By Conservative Outrage Machine Speaks Out. According to Rolling Stone, Red (Fencing Tracker and Wagner College list Sullivan’s first name as Redmond), couldn’t speak to the media because “she was disheartened by inaccurate, unscientific, and hostile press.” Sullivan told Rolling Stone, “There are a million things more important to talk about than a silly little fencing tournament in Maryland, let alone a specific bout between ‘two people, neither of whom were going to win the event.” Rolling Stone did not mention that Sullivan originally registered on Wagner College’s men’s fencing team, nor that he fenced on the boys’ team in high school.

Rolling Stone muddled along, trying to make themselves and Sullivan sound reasonable: “Sullivan has been frustrated by coverage that not only features older pictures of her and her birth name [Redmond, which he used to register for the Cherry Blossom Open], but trades on the ‘patently false’ idea that ‘sex is binary and immutable’ and constantly describes her as a ‘biological male.’ And she finds anti-trans sentiment about protecting women’s spaces and sports, when couched in the language of feminism by figures like Rowling, former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, and former tennis pro Martina Navratilova…particularly disingenuous. ‘Feminism should include all women, including trans women, and, I mean, coming from a trans person, that’s less likely to be well received,’”

Wait, what? A trans-identified male finds “anti-trans” sentiment, i.e. references to his male sex, particularly disingenuous when it’s expressed by feminists. By Sullivan’s logic, feminism should include men, but most feminists don’t believe men are women. Oh gosh, he’s so close here.

Rolling Stone poo pooed the devastating effect Turner’s protest had on her life. “In addition to her accolades from the many journalists, celebrities, and influencers behind today’s moral panic over trans inclusion in sports, Turner received a $5,000 prize and was named a “Courage Wins Champion” by XX-XY Athletics, a sportswear brand that also opposes transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.” Rolling Stone did not mention that Turner was disqualified, while Sullivan was not, nor did they report on the shunning and threats she has received. Sullivan told the writer that “the actual fencing community” supported him, stunningly oblivious to the real-life demonstration of what happens to those who don’t support him.

The Rolling Stone writer forgot that Sullivan was “a woman,” when he brayed that Turner actually had no problem fencing men because she’d faced men only the week before. Oops. Errr, not that Sullivan is a man…It’s that… Moving along…

Warming to the interview, Sullivan described his dismay at a woman not accepting him in their sport: “I was bewildered — flabbergasted, even.” His sense of entitlement was such that he couldn’t comprehend that a woman would call him a man, to his face. And not play along. He seemed perplexed that someone would have the strength of her own convictions, that she would knowingly incur punishment for those convictions. Even when no one was backing her up. Strength of character seemed an utterly foreign concept to him.

Then he recounted a weird conversation that may have been an internal dialog, or maybe just something that sounded better, cooler, than what he actually said. He recounted saying this to Turner as she knelt on the strip: “Bro, what? Nothing close to this has ever happened. No one has ever had a problem with me fencing in a women’s event.”

Where to start with this? First, I recognize “bro” is part of the vernacular, but given the circumstances, it’s just astoundingly awkward. His maleness could not be clearer if he was wearing a neon XY codpiece. Did he really think no women ever, anywhere have had a problem with him barging into their sport because they didn’t say so TO HIS FACE? Sullivan’s inner female soul doesn’t seem to have any understanding of what it is to be female in fencing. To say nothing of the fact that Sullivan invented that conversation. His actual mewling, which would not play as well in Rolling Stone, was that he was hiding behind his friends in high places and a policy that says he can compete with women. And furthermore, my big friends will beat you up.

Sullivan had all kinds of suggestions for what Turner could have done to deal with her problem quietly, and to avoid exposing him as a man. He told Rolling Stone, “She [Turner] could have withdrawn herself from the tournament, or talked to the organizers and said, ‘Hey, I do not want to fence this person,’ and seen if they could have reshuffled the pools. She actively chose to have this interaction and film it and then send it to people to post it.” Why did she have to make such a spectacle? Sullivan was not interested in sparing Turner punishment, but in hiding his own glaring disrespect for women from the public. He just wanted women to shut up and deal with the injustice quietly, like they always had. It never crossed his mind that he was at fault, that he could have prevented this by competing in the male category. But, gosh darn it, Turner was determined to tell the truth and expose the problems in USFA, so she had to be punished.

Sullivan told Rolling Stone that after Turner took a knee, he knew he was “cooked,” which is odd, given USFA’s vehement support of men in the female category, and aggressive extinguishing of dissent. All it took was one woman who didn’t acquiesce, one woman to call him a man, for his identity to disintegrate, and the charade to be over.

USFA Leadership and a Culture of Misogyny

Feminist Andrea Dworkin wrote, “The public censure of women as if we are rabid because we speak without apology about the world in which we live is a strategy of threat that usually works. Men often react to women’s words as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence. So we lower our voices. Women whisper. Women apologize. Women shut up. Women trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back. Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.”

She could have been describing the culture at USFA.

Fencing was from its start the domain of privileged men of mid to upper economic strata; women’s participation has been at the discretion of men. Not coincidentally, gender ideology is a men’s rights movement whose adherents largely inhabit the mid and upper economic classes, Ivy League men and privileged women. Fun fact: Thomas Bach, the IOC president who stridently defended male boxers in the female category in the 2024 Olympics came from a fencing background. For an environment ripe for abuse, fencing has the added benefit of being very fringe, very much out of the public eye. It’s not on TV, it’s rarely in the news, most people could not name a single fencer.

In an environment as small and insular as fencing, one zealot can have outsize influence on the sport. Meet the Chairman of the Board of Directors of USFA, Damien Lehfeldt. A decorated college and post-collegiate fencer and coach, Lehfeldt has been a member of USFA for more than 30 years and has held many positions of authority over that time.

He articulated his eye-wateringly misogynistic stance on trans-identified men in women’s sports in a 2023 post on his blog, The Fencing Coach. Starting with assertions that “trans women are women,” he moved on to say that a separate trans division would deny trans-identified fencers their truth, that there is a possibility that “trans women” have physical advantages over “cis women” even after hormonal treatment but that since trans athletes will kill themselves (no citation on this assertion) if they cannot compete in alignment with their gender identity, women should not care about competitive fairness or outcomes. This is a page from the narcissistic abusers’ handbook with no documented basis in reality. That anyone, much less a member of the board of directors, would publicly express a manipulative suicide myth as an excuse to violate women’s rights is a giant red flag. One of the subheads in his manifesto of misogyny is Inclusion Above All Else. Recall USFA’s recent statement in support of Sullivan, that they would always “err on the side of inclusion.” They recognize their policy is unfair to women, but are comfortable saying publicly that they don’t care. Lehfeldt ends by describing a hypothetical competition between his daughter and a trans-identified male: “I hope I’ve done a good enough job articulating the depth of the issue, that she doesn’t care about the outcome and that both she and her opponent simply enjoyed the bout. I hope she understands that the young lady she competed with might not be with us in this world if she was forced to live a lie in a gender she didn’t identify with.”

Unsure that they’d read that screed correctly, a concerned reader asked Lehfeldt —Are you okay with cis females being at a disadvantage? He answered: Yeah. Lehfeldt posted this exchange to his Instagram.

By extending his personal misogynistic stance to his position on the board, Lehfeldt set the tone at USFA, openly inviting males into women’s fencing. But blatantly violating women’s right to fairness was only one aspect of the toxic culture.

The other was a habit of crushing dissent and humiliating any woman who dared to speak up for her rights. Only 11 days after Lehfeldt posted his manifesto, he posted a screenshot of an email from someone named Dorothy to his Instagram.

Lehfeldt responded to Dorothy, calling her whiny, cowardly, and a livid Karen for supporting women’s fencing for women. He finished acidly, “You bore me with these emails.”

Grossly inappropriate for a member of a national governing body board of directors. Dismissive, condescending, bitter. And wholly invented by Lehfeldt, both Dorothy’s email and his reply. You read that right—so eager was he to publicly humiliate the first woman who had the temerity to speak out, that when none did, he made one up. So that he could smack her down. And posted it to his Instagram. So, we can add spittle-flecked zealot to Lehfeldt’s bio. But it didn’t end there.

The reason we know Lehfeldt invented Dorothy’s email is because he told a Daily Mail reporter it was fake. Yup: “In a conversation with our reporter, Lehfeldt insisted the email exchanges were 'not real', despite them being posted as though they were legitimate conversations. [Stephanie] Turner, seemingly unaware that the posts were fake, told DailyMail.com: 'Damien Lehfeldt had been getting emails from people stating that they were concerned and that they were really upset about the transgender policy.’”

So, Lehfeldt invented a concerned USFA member email so that he could write a contemptuous, caustic reply, posted it publicly so everyone could see what would happen to dissenters, and the coup de grace, he proudly admitted the whole insane episode to a reporter. That rings the bell of Fully Unhinged. And that’s just the crazy that Lehfeldt himself has posted and admitted publicly. It’s not hard to see how this kind of behavior from a member of the board in a small, insular sport could quickly curdle the culture.

Even one raging zealot of that caliber can infect an entire organization, but USFA CEO Phil Andrews holds his own in creating an environment that brazenly discriminates against women. Immediately after Turner’s nonverbal protest, I emailed Andrews, listing the peer-reviewed studies, including a fencing-specific one, that showed hormones and surgery do not remove male advantage; the fact that British Fencing protected the female category; and that USFA’s actions did not demonstrate respect for women. I asked if USFA intended to review their male inclusion policy, and how they could call the female category female, when in actual practice it is mixed sex?

Andrews responded promptly:

When USA Fencing passed its current policy in late 2022, we did indeed state we would continue to monitor Fencing specific research into transgender athletics.

We acknowledge the work of the University of Hertfordshire: and welcome further research. In addition we have been actively reviewing the British policy and its’ implementation.

As our statement suggests; we are open to reviewing our policy as the situation in the wider Olympic and Paralympic movement evolves.

At this moment in time the Ted Stevens Act protects the right to compete in such a way that an individual national federation may not have a more restrictive policy than their international federation; therefore a change in policy at the IOC level would have an impact on our ability to review our own policy.

It’s curious he employed the well worn “need more research” gambit, used by such trans-activist-organizations-moonlighting-as-sports-officials as the IOC and the NCAA, because it highlights the fact that they actually allowed something so radical as men in women’s sports without any evidence it would be fair. And now that there are efforts to get men out of women’s sports, suddenly, more research is needed. Lots more. Almost as if there will never be enough research to get men out of women’s sports.

That British Fencing managed to protect women’s fencing without mass trans-identified fencers’ deaths by suicide was no doubt a troubling turn of events, but ultimately not a problem for USA Fencing. Andrews was confident in the IOC’s and the US Olympic Committee’s continued defense of men in women’s sports.

In typical trans activist fashion, Andrews misread the Ted Stevens Act as being a shield behind which USFA could hide their misogyny and discrimination. While the NCAA fought Title IX tooth and nail for a decade after 1972, Ted Stevens was equally committed to extending anti-discrimination on the basis of sex to all schools that received federal funding. The Ted Stevens Act reiterated women’s sex-based rights described in Title IX, but specified they apply to sports.

Andrews has been happy to let Lehfeldt’s extremist philosophies and virulent misogyny run unchecked, thus amplifying the toxic culture of the sport.

USFA’s rot predates Andrews. In the last 16 years, at least four trans-identified males have dominated women’s fencing, winning multiple international titles, representing the U.S. abroad on our sanctioned national teams. To repeat, U.S. funds paid for men to represent the U.S. internationally in women’s sports. USFA did not have a transgender inclusion policy until 2019, though they allowed men in women’s competition at regional, national, and international levels for a decade prior to that without restriction, without testosterone suppression. More on that farther on.

Stephanie Turner’s assertion that by speaking up about the violation of women’s rights she would never again have a fair bout rings true, and pervasive. The New York Times reported on activist referees giving preferential treatment to favored fencers and punishing those who didn’t toe the party line ahead of the Paris Olympics. Ex-fencers spoke about “unfair refereeing and match-fixing.” While the article did not mention unfair practices toward women, it did acknowledge that fencing has a problem with referees punishing those who fall afoul of USFA leadership. That would include women who speak up about men in the female category.

USFA’s Trans Inclusion Policies, and lack thereof

USFA’s 2009-2010 Athlete Handbook does not mention transgender athletes at all. Eligibility for various categories is based on age, skill rating, and para ability.

Reduxx reported that Elizabeth (Greg) Kocab has fenced as a woman since 2009, though USFA had no official policy in place at that time. Leadership simply allowed a man to represent the U.S. in international competition in the women’s category, and if any woman complained, she would be punished by unfair refereeing, by being left off of future teams, and she would never be elected to a position of authority.. “During the course of his fencing career, Kocab has taken home at least 35 women’s gold medals, five silver, and eight bronze. In 2011, he was awarded the world gold medal for veteran women in Croatia,” Reduxx wrote.

With no official male inclusion policy, Eden (Evan) Philpot racked up “four gold medals, two silver and one for placing fifth and eighth within a matter of months” after switching to the women’s category, notably winning those awards in two disciplines—saber and foil—which is unprecedented in fencing.

The 2019-2020 Athlete Handbook states that trans-identified females can compete in the men's category and use testosterone. Trans-identified males have to reduce their testosterone to 10nmol/liter (which is in the healthy male range!) for 12 months before competition and throughout competition to be eligible for the women’s league.

Reduxx also reported that in 2019, Boston College fencer Rylie (Mateo) Rueda switched to the women’s team and went from an understated career on the men’s team to winning a gold medal at NCAA Regionals. Let’s recall that even if his testosterone levels were being monitored, that level could still be in the healthy male range, a level ten times what’s normal for women. Male physiological advantages plus male level of testosterone provides enormous unfair advantage.

USFA drafted a new, even more vague, trans policy in November of 2022. Participation of males in the female category would be based on “gender identity, regardless of sex assigned at birth, or any other form of gender expression.” So, a male could, for example, grow out his hair or wear eyeliner to be eligible. Proof of 12 months of testosterone reduction to an unnamed level tested at some point before competition was required. This is laughable.

Though USFA stood by their male self-ID policy immediately after Stephanie Turner’s protest, a brand new policy has recently appeared on their website. Clearly, the bright glare of the media sent them scrambling to clean up the mess that’s been allowed to foment off-camera for at least 15 years. It states that the women’s category will be for “athletes who are of the female sex.” The men’s category is for virtually everyone else, including men, transgender women, transgender men, non-binary athletes, and athletes with DSDs. But there’s a caveat: this policy is not yet in effect, even though it was adopted April 15, 2025. “This revised policy is not currently in effect. It will only be implemented if required by oversight bodies (USOPC, IOC, FIE, IPC) or U.S. federal law. Until such time, the current policy remains effective.” The Executive Order that was helpfully named Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports, as well as the US Olympic and Amateur Sports Act (Ted Stevens Act), a federal law, seem to fit USFA’s description of being “required” to implement the new policy. And yet, and yet, USFA just cannot bring themselves to respect women’s rights. Maybe they’re holding out hope, fingers and toes crossed, that USOPC will back them up in their violation of the female category, as that proud organization has in the past. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. In their hour of need, with their hair on fire, it looks like the USOPC has hung USFA out to dry.

The USOPC

In its first meeting of the year, the United State Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s first order of business was to announce that they would not be doing their job. Chief executive Sarah Hirshland, who could not bring herself to say the name of the Executive Order, Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports, referring only to the order’s number, punted responsibility for athlete eligibility to international and national governing bodies. Like USFA. While, as we’ve seen, USFA is pointing to the USOPC to make that call. In fact, making sure that NGBs are in compliance with federal law is USOPC’s raison d’etre. Athlete eligibility is their job, and they’ve taken it very seriously, up to their elbows in making sure NGBs for the last decade did allow men in women’s sports and locker rooms. But now that their job entails making sure NGBs keep men out of women’s sports, they’re really dragging their feet. Can’t do it, don’t want to do it, it’s not even their job. The only thing they had the energy for in their amazingly empty press conference was to mouth some platitudes about fair sport for all athletes.

Taking a Knee Kicked Off a Revolution

The first words out of Stephanie Turner’s mouth were, “I don’t want to make this about me. It’s a much broader issue.” And she was right. The effect of her minute-long nonverbal protest that few others at the tournament even knew was happening has been seismic. It’s let the world know of the injustice and tyranny that’s gripped USA Fencing for at least 15 years, and shaken their leadership into corrective action. Whether she was influenced by Turner’s protest or not, just days later disc golfer Abigail Wilson walked off the course, refusing to compete against a trans-identified male. Other sports rife with males competing in the female category and a similarly toxic environment, like USA Cycling, are no doubt paying attention. And new Olympic sports—skateboarding and surfing—that have had either no female eligibility policy or controversy over it, will be well advised to start off on the right foot, which in LA28, will mean a sex-based women’s category..

“Almost every American family has been impacted by this,” Turner said. “This is not some fringe debate. It’s growing. I could just keep fencing as if nothing’s wrong, but why would I want to do that? I don’t.”