Olympic fencer sues USA Fencing over alleged trans athlete incident

FIRST ON FOX: U.S. Olympic fencer Margherita Guzzi Vincenti, together with fellow aggressive ladies’s fencers Emma Griffin and Patricia Hughes, have filed a category motion lawsuit towards USA Fencing over an alleged incident on the 2025 North American Cup (NAC) in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, in January.

Vincenti, Griffin and Hughes alleged that USA Fencing knowingly allowed organic males to compete in ladies’s divisions whereas promoting occasions as solely for ladies, together with in competitions involving athletes beneath the age of 18.

“As a result of Defendant USFA’s youth and cadet coverage allowed self-identification ‘with out restriction’ and lacked any verification mechanism, organic males beneath the age of 16 had been allowed to compete within the ladies’s occasion, and may very well be anticipated to take action,” the lawsuit mentioned.

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Margherita Guzzi Vincenti poses for a portrait throughout staff USA Fencing’s media day on the New York Athletic Membership on Might 21, 2024 in New York Metropolis. (Al Bello/Getty Photographs)

“Defendant USFA additionally doesn’t confide in members or contributors whether or not transgender or non-binary athletes are taking part in a selected occasion, leaving feminine athletes and oldsters unable to make knowledgeable participation selections.”

The lawsuit additionally alleged that the group had not enforced its personal earlier coverage of permitting solely males to compete within the ladies’s class after finishing a 12 months of testosterone suppression therapy.

“As to data and perception, Defendant USFA by no means carried out a system to watch or confirm compliance with this requirement. In observe, this lack of oversight allowed organic males to register for and compete in ladies’s occasions no matter whether or not they had undergone hormone suppressive therapy,” the lawsuit alleges.

USA Fencing issued an announcement to Fox Information Digital in response to the lawsuit.

“USA Fencing is conscious of the category motion criticism filed on October 29 within the US District Court docket for the Western District of Missouri, and we strongly dispute the allegations. We’ll handle this matter via the authorized course of and don’t have any additional remark presently,” the assertion mentioned.

Guzzi, who competed for Group USA within the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris, mentioned she joined the lawsuit to guard the integrity of her sport.

“Fencing has been my life since I used to be a child,” she mentioned. “I skilled and competed with the expectation that ladies’s competitions are for ladies. It is about equity and preserving alternatives for women and girls who dedicate their lives to competing on equal phrases.”

Hughes, a 20-year veteran, expressed related issues.

“I’ve seen ladies’s fencing develop from a distinct segment sport to at least one the place feminine athletes can flourish internationally,” mentioned Hughes. “That progress will solely proceed if equity is enforced. The subsequent era of ladies deserves the identical degree taking part in subject that impressed us a long time in the past.”

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Griffin, a standout NCAA competitor, mentioned younger athletes deserve honesty and readability from nationwide governing our bodies.

“We pay entrance charges, journey across the nation and spend years coaching,” Griffin mentioned. “We need to know the foundations and belief that ladies’s occasions are actually ladies’s occasions. It is about respect for athletes and transparency from the organizations that govern our sport.”

The lawsuit alleges that USA Fencing is an academic establishment ruled by Title IX and due to this fact violated it by permitting males to compete within the ladies’ and girls’s classes.

The lawsuit makes an attempt to make this case by alleging that the group listed itself as an schooling service group twice in 2020 and 2021 on its functions for a Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) mortgage throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and since the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) receives direct federal funding, together with taxpayer-sourced credit, PPP forgivable loans, and Division of Veterans Affairs funding.

The plaintiffs are represented by Mahdavi, Bacon, Halfhill & Younger PLLC and The Dhillon Legislation Group.

“Title IX was enacted to make sure equal athletic alternative for ladies,” mentioned lawyer Karin Sweigart of The Dhillon Legislation Group. “Our shoppers will not be asking for particular therapy, simply the honesty and integrity that ladies’s sports activities have lengthy promised.”

Legal professional Charles Wang of Mahdavi Bacon and professional bono basic counsel of Honest Fencing Group mentioned, “By permitting organic males to compete in a ladies’s occasion, USA Fencing violated Title IX by depriving ladies of their very own sport that ladies had fought for for greater than 100 years.

Legal professional James Bacon added, “This case is about restoring belief, transparency and compliance with federal regulation.”

Damien Lehfeldt, former chairman of the American Fencing Council, can be listed as a defendant. Fox Information Digital has contacted Lehfeldt for remark.

Lehfeldt was changed as chairman final weekend after selecting to not stand for re-election.

In Lehfeldt’s announcement that he wouldn’t search re-election, he cited “lawsuits” and “loss of life threats” as causes for his determination. Lehfeldt has been on the heart of controversy for USA Fencing relationship again to April, when ladies’s fencer Stephanie Turner went viral for kneeling in protest of a transgender fencer and was disqualified.

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The incident prompted a federal subpoena of Lehfeldt for a congressional listening to to elucidate the group’s insurance policies towards transgender athletes. Subsequently, former Olympic coach and board member Andrey Geva and former Olympic fencer Abdel Salem sued Lehfeldt for allegedly making “false statements” throughout the listening to.

USA Fencing then modified its transgender participation coverage in July to permit solely feminine rivals to compete within the ladies’s class. The change was made to make sure compliance with the USOPC’s new athlete security coverage, which now calls President Donald Trump’s govt order “Maintaining Males Out of Girls’s Sports activities.”

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