Female Fencer Punished With 12-Month Probation After Refusing to Compete Against Male
Stephanie Turner: “I’m going to be taking a break from fencing for a while in the U.S. circuit, so that’s a little bit of a disruption for me.”
USA Fencing sentenced Stephanie Turner to 12 months of probation after she forfeited a match against a male athlete.
The blow also made Turner decide to step away from the sport she loves.
“I’m going to be taking a break from fencing for a while in the U.S. circuit, so that’s a little bit of a disruption for me… It has disrupted my training, it has disrupted my interactions when I go out in public, and it will certainly disrupt my competition because I won’t be competing in the United States any time soon,” she told Fox News Digital when asked if her expectation that taking the knee would “destroy her life,” came true.
Instead, Turner will focus on her new mission in the movement to ban trans athletes from women’s sports.
“I will remain in the public eye for as long as it takes to resolve this,” she said.
Late last month, Turner took a knee instead of fencing Redmond Sullivan during the Cherry Blossom Open.
Turner told the ref: “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.”
The referee issued Turner a black card, the most severe penalty in fencing.
A black card means an expulsion from the competition. The fencer could face further sanctions.
Turner made it a point not to register for tournaments with male athletes.
Yes, USA Fencing has no problem with males competing in the female categories.
Sullivan registered after Turner. She saw him on the list and decided to take a knee the night before.
Turner is another lifelong Democrat who changed after the left embraced males in female sports and spaces. She “voted red down the ticket” in 2024.
Turner said she will testify at a hearing scheduled by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “addressing USA Fencing’s gender eligibility policies and the incident involving Turner and Redmond.”
The fencer hopes the exposure forces USA Fencing to change its ways.
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Comments
President Trump should appoint her to a supervisory position above the USA Fencing organization while pulling all of their Title IX funding.
USA Fencing probably doesn’t get federal funding… At least not under Title IX. That is for schools
Ted Cruz spoke of USA Fencing’s role in selecting athletes to compete in the Olympics, and that one of his committees will be looking to revoke that privilege if it fails to take action to correct this terrible wrong.
USA Fencing is an NGO. Trump has no authority over them beyond the possibility of cutting off federal funding if such funding exists.
Most NGOs are tax exempt.
Quick google says USA Fencing is one of them – via the IRS.
Harvard them.
They’ll want to fight it in the courts, but let them – we need a test case to establish precident that forcing women in a women’s sport category to fight born-male athletes who for whatever reason don’t want to fight in the more competitive men’s category is a civil rights violation. That women have a right to their own “safe spaces” in separate sports competitions.
Separate sports categories is a Chesterson’s Fence situation – there’s a common sense reason for them which hasn’t gone away despite whatever the latest Liberal bugaboo craze is. A (failed) heavyweight boxer shouldn’t get to “identify” as a welterweight for completions, An adult un-handicapped athlete shouldn’t get to “identify” as handicapped to compete in the Special Olympics. And an older athlete shouldn’t get to “identify” as a younger one to compete in younger sports competitions.
It’s a matter of both common sense, safety and basic fairness.
Tell these “athletes” they have to “pick on someone their own size”.
First there must be a rule violation concerning their tax status.
Bob Jones is the precedent.
For a charitable organization to be tax exempt it must “serve the public interest”. Courts have already ruled that violating civil rights is proof of not so serving. Indeed a charity exemption can be lost for multiple reasons.
I used to work for a long-established “charitable organization” – BMI (Battelle Memorial Institute). It was established by the will of Gordon Battelle, a rich Indiana steel magnate who had no direct heirs and didn’t want his money to go to 3rd cousins or such. Its charter was “to increase knowledge in science and industry” and evolved into mainly a not-for-profit research institute for hire. Among the spin-offs it had a hand in inventing or making practical were the original zerox patents, white-out, devaluing US coinage (the modern “sandwich” quarters can be blamed on us), and a host of other material science improvements (including new heat resistant materials) Computer database improvements (such as “Soundex” for foreign ship registries and such as DB thesaurus based searches), and medical research support.
Over time it’s endowment grew to the point that the IRS came after it’s tax exemption – on the basis that as a “charity” it needed to not just follow its charter to increase knowledge but instead donate the majority of it’s income to others instead of growing it’s endowment with a bit of charity work on the side. Major change.
So the IRS definitely can and does revisit tax exemptions based on the current behavior of an org.
Send them a message, tell them to stuff it.
What if there is a parallell universe where everything is upside down and backwards?
What would it be like?
Well, in such a universe they would punish a woman for not competing with a man! They would all be laughing and the devil would say, “Welcome to hell.”
It’s not swashbuckling with a heavy sword. Intuitive speed and lightness is what wins. Men and women should be equal in it. If she’s any good she should be able to win. I’m assuming the trans guy is not great, is why he’s there.
I mean look at women classical piano players if you doubt speed and lightness exists in women.
Not the point- it’s a woman’s tournament. Get that point?
Xe/Xem is an old school misogynist.
A troll are generally classified as “it”
“ Intuitive speed and lightness is what wins”
——————————————————
What does that even mean, especially on a functional level.
You could probably make the same lame argument for martial arts tournaments, but who would be comfortable with a woman squaring off against a man….
That’s bullshit. Strength is one of the components of speed. Reach is also an advantage. Endurance is an advantage.
It’s not weightlifting, and co-ed fencing exists. But the average man has a substantial advantage over the average woman.
But even if it was a competition of something where men and women were equal, it was supposed to be a woman’s tournament and a man there as a competitor is a cheater.
Yes, the tranny sucked against men, and has won many tournaments against women.
This quote i found pretty much encapsulates everything I’ve read on this subject, including some research papers. “Fencing is a sport that relies a lot on physical strength/power/speed/agility.” A biological male of comparable size and training to a biological female will gave advantages in most if not all those areas. A better strategic grasp of the sport may make it possible to overcome them, but it’s a lot harder.
While the performance gap between the sexes may not be as marked as in other sports, it is still there, and becomes more obvious the higher up you go.
And while not swashbuckling, nor a sport with major risks to life and limb, it still has a risk for injuries to ankles, wrists, etc, and the greater the physical inequalities between the combatants, the greater the odds the weaker fencer will sustain one.
I’ve never seen an ankle or wrist injury in fencing. Nor is the sport populated by football players. It’s mostly normal-build guys. In fact I don’t remember any injuries in two seasons to anybody.
“Normal built” females rarely defeat “normal built” males in any sport, unless they’re the punter on a football team.
Well, I was doing some research into fencing injuries (I’ve got a few horror stories from my father such as his friend who had an opponent lose a button off a blade tip and it went through the neck portion of the mask and missed spearing him by a fraction of an inch, but that was in the ’50s) and the general consensus in the fencing forums was that injuries were uncommon, but that most were things such as sprained ankles from stepping wrong or losing their balance, not from injuries from the actual fencing. Wrists can be damaged from falls too; just ask my daughter who spent two months in a cast from a fall at her karate studio which was not the result of sparring, simply falling and catching herself incorrectly.
So the injuries aren’t technically from the fencing, and they don’t seem to be very frequent either (yay!), but they can happen during bouts or practice.
Don’t know enough about competitive fencing to know if the biological advantages of sex play a role here. Would note that, for whatever, reason, USA Fencing seems to think there is a reason for dividing the sexes in competition. Otherwise, there would not be a men’s program and a woman’s* program.
* Plus crossovers.
Basic arm length certainly comes to play. Guys are taller and lankier
I fenced sabre. There’s no strength component. It’s how fast and accurately you react to a double disengage, etc. It’s an intuitive move, like playing piano fast. You know where you have to go and you go there.
A parry is a formal thing – the blade is in the right place, and forcing through it (for instance by strength) doesn’t count. Once you do a formal parry then you have the right of way and can score on him and any hit on you won’t count. It’s the formality that makes women equal. It’s a movement thing.
I fenced foil. (And for those not in the know, the “sabre” in fencing is not a cavalry sabre, it’s about as light as a foil – the grip is different and the scoring between the two disciplines is different, but otherwise there’s no significant difference.) Men are stronger, faster, and being generally taller usually have a reach advantage. Similarly ranked male and female fencers are not at parity.
I saw the same thing in martial arts. Females could be more highly-ranked than males, but in any training in which physicality (rather than technical skill) was involved, lower ranking males could regularly best females. This is unsurprising. What is surprising is that suddenly many people have begun to deny the obvious.
And also for everyone else, a successful parry is one that knocks one’s opponent’s blade “out of line.” It is not just a matter of placing one’s own blade “in the right place.” The fencer must take way the opponent’s control of his own blade. This is not something that can be done without regard for an opponent’s speed or strength. That is, technical ability is not the only component of a successful parry as rh is suggesting.
As a person that has fought with tai chi swords as well as Chinese war swords. I can tell you reflected inertia ratios do matter. That’s the inertial ratio between the sword and the bearer. And it’s completely defined by the mass, length and balance of the sword compared to the mass, strength, reach, of the arm carrying it. It directly affects the ability, accuracy and speed of changing a swords direction in mid travel. We are not talking rocket science here just basic Newtonian physics.
Any male who claims to have fenced and states makes have no advantaged… has never been involved in the sport
Being bigger makes you a bigger target.
You also have a longer reach.
The arm is also a target, in sabre. In fact one of the easiest ways to sneak in points is a cut to the hand if the guy is careless with the bell, and it preempts his right of way. You get hit but it’s your point. An example of the rules counting more than the battle it’s supposed to be derived from. It suffers from the disadvantage that it’s hard for the judges to see, though they may hear it.
You have the lead for the “Stupidest Post Of The Day” award. The day is young. Let’s hope you can hold on!
If that is the case, why didn’t he choose to enter the men’s division (as a woman) and break new ground in the destruction of sporting events?
Because he can’t beat men
Touché 🤣🤣🤣
ISWYDT
Fencing takes endurance too. Strength counts in a parry. Most male fencers can beat most female fencers when paired by ability/ranking. Being similarly-ranked does not make for parity or fairness between male and female athletes.
The same can be said about tennis, that “all it takes” is quickness and the ability to place the ball where your opponent cannot return it. Cherry-picking like this ignore other elements of the game. John McEnroe was excoriated for saying Serena Williams wouldn’t stand a chance against any of the top males in the game. Yet Williams herself, when asked where she would rank among the men, placed herself at 70-something. Female athletes know that they’re a great disadvantage to men in most sports. They do not compete in a Leftist fairyland where men can become women.
A hit over a parry is called a hit over steel and does not count. I never felt any endurance factor at all. It’s standing around mostly.
Think of it as being mostly head fakes, though that isn’t technically what goes on.
I didn’t realize that sabers could be used to dig holes.
It kills me but I’m going to have to agree with rhhardin and his arguments, The only possible advantage I see to makes in this sport is reach. However, one man may have a greater reach than another and the sport doesn’t have divisions based upon reach. It shouldn’t have them based upon gender.
Having declared this I would leave it up to an event organizer as to what to do. I don’t know what the fencing NGO really thinks. They probably want the problem to just go away, They are stuck in the middle and will be sued no matter what they do.
There are other sports I’d put into the same category. Chess, car racing, horse back event whether dressage or racing. Sailing events but not rowing, Archery and shooting events. etc…
Have you ever fenced… clearly not so STFU
How about you try and make me oh so valent internet warrior,
Thought so.
Ooohhh the big brave man threatens gals…guessing you do that a lot
A liar and an idiot… nice combo
No threat. I gather reading comprehension is not your strong point,
There is absolutely no lie in what I said either. I gave an opinion in case you don’t recognize one which apparently you don’t.
As for idiot I’m north of average. Make of that what you will if you can which I doubt.
As for you, your obviously an angry female. Why I neither know why or care. My post was complete benign, It made no accusations. It merely stated my opinion on the matter. It was bland opinion frankly. It was enough to set you off for whatever reason and you decidedly stupidly to attack me for stating a rather neutral opinion on a site that invites opinions.
I suggest you take a warm bath, drink some wine, pet your cat, and up your medication. Also take a couple of aspirin and go to bed. Maybe you will feel better in the morning although I expect not as you will still be you.
Are you forking nuts? Being successful in auto racing requires a huge amount of strength and stamina, as does sailboat racing, archery, and even some shooting events. Speed is an advantage in most sports–stronger muscles are faster muscles, as my old exercise physiology professor used to say seemingly daily.
As to sailing, it depends on the boat. My wife and I raced international 5- 0- 5s (5.05 Meters long) before children. We were competitive until the wind got above 15 knots. Those where the wife was on the helm and the husband on the trapeze were competitive up to about 20 knots. Above that, you wanted two 200-pound fit men.
The men who competed in the Finn, a single-handed boat, in the Olympics from 1952 to about 1984 usually looked like US football players.
This is a women’s event, not a mixed-sex event. This guy failed in fencing other men and decided to “Juwanna Mann” the thing
You left out arm length. Which on average men have longer arms. A man’s average arm span is around 2-3 inches greater than a women’s. Reach is important.
I fence, I’m a woman… and you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and you couldn’t be more wrong…..Per usual.
What part of fencing against men do you lose to?
Here’s a history montage of Yuja Wang, who would have been a great fencer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHOrkNwig7k
It seems that Black Cards can be issued for just about any reason – on or off court.
An event DNF card is more appropriate.
This punishment completes the USA Fencing’s 100% betrayal of female athletes. It wasn’t enough that she forfeited the match against the man. This longer probation was imposed because Miss Turner defied the Thought Police order to say the man was a woman. It’s good she is moving on to advocate for female athletes, because who would want to be a member of a lying and treacherous organization like USA Fencing?
Why is she alone in this? Why doesn’t her whole team take the knee? Why doesn’t her whole league take the knee?
It’s insanity. Women sports is dead.
This was a tournament put on by the fencing organization. No schools or teams involved, just individual competitors, sort of like a golf or tennis tournament. The appropriate statement would be for no one to sign up for the next female event. Probably won’t happen.
As my good friend Winston used to say.
This is not the end for this battle. It’s not even the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning of shutting this delusion off COMPLETELY.
Before this is over, Ms. Turner will own US Fencing. Keep the popcorn ready.
NGO or not. You tell the US Olympic committee that there money from the US government is cutoff if they allow US Fencing to choose female competitors for the Olympic Games until they recognize a woman only policy.
That would be consistent with the Trump Administration position. US Fencing has now really doubled down on ideology….and stupidity.
Kool-Aid Crowd: what was the point of Title IX?
“Instead, Turner will focus on her new mission in the movement to ban trans athletes from women’s sports.”
I predict a healthy surge in THAT GiveSendGo.
I taught martial arts at the advanced level through the 1980s. I can say that no matter the rules once a contest became physical there was no contest between an average man and an average woman.. the man would always win unless the woman was an exceptional unicorn. Speed seldomly overcomes physical stature, strength and reach…
Puberty is the difference. Up until puberty the sexes are pretty equal but afterwards… Testosterone rules,
If you want to see some good examples of this you can find a lot of boy vs girl wrestling or grappling videos on youtube. Not that this pertains to fencing but women are much more flexible and lower center of gravity. Sometimes that can balance out male strength but only sometimes.
true, in the ring–out on the street a woman with proper training (specifically where to strike and keep striking) can definitely defeat a man–he’s a bigger target, he typically won’t be wary of a “woman” , she presents a smaller target and, if she’s fast (or very fast) she can drop / blind / disable a much larger/stronger male opponent using a combination strike or two–have seen it several times with my own eyes and it’s impressive