TWIBS: USA Fencing and USOPC Taken to Court by Trans Athlete
After being denied entry into a competition in a state with antidiscrimination laws that should protect her, a trans fencer is suing USA Fencing and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee
Humor by Aly Gibbs
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Well, well, well… if it isn’t my old friend turned enemy (not to be confused with frenemy or enemiend or frendiemenden), USA Fencing, being sued for their virtue signaling bigotry.
If you’ll recall, back in early April I reported on a cisgender fencer, Stephanie Turner, making a big show of refusing to compete against a transgender woman. Despite the fact that fencing is regularly a co-ed sport, and Turner herself regularly competes against and defeats cisgender male opponents, Miss Grandstander herself was showered in praise and money by other anti-trans activists, proving that you can always fail upwards as long as you’re happy to completely surrender any claim to moral fiber or backbone.
Shortly thereafter, USAF amended their participation rules for trans and non-binary competitors, stating that, “In the event that USA Fencing is guided to change its current stance in accordance with oversight bodies or federal legislation, the new policy states athletes competing in USA Fencing-sanctioned tournaments must compete according to their biological sex.”
Strictly speaking, despite what many people believe, there is no federal legislation compelling organizations like USAF or the NCAA to reject transgender athletes. Donald Trump’s Executive Order demanding as much is not legally binding legislation, since the Executive Branch does not legislate. Until congress generates new laws about trans athletes or enshrines into law the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX protections, nobody has to ban trans people from competing in sports.
Unfortunately, a governing body has compelled USAF to ban trans competitors: The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee “quietly changed its eligibility rules” in late July, supposedly to comply with the aforementioned completely meaningless and unenforceable Executive Order.
Now, a transgender athlete named Dinah Yukich is suing USAF (and others) in New Jersey Superior Court after being denied entry into the USAF Premier Challenge in New York state in September. Yukich says she began medical transition in 2021 and was preparing to compete this year, filing to have her gender marker changed to female when USAF still honored such requests. As a result of USOPC and USAF’s complete inability to stiffen their spine in the face of fascist authoritarianism, Yukich’s gender marker was changed back to male, and she was denied entry into the Premier Challenge.
“To apply the policy consistently, we updated the competition-gender field for all transgender members to match their sex assigned at birth,” USAF CEO Phil Andrews said in a statement. “Before doing so, our staff personally contacted each affected member to explain the change, answer questions, and offer support resources through Endure Athletic Mental Fitness.”
When Yukich was notified of the change in July, she rightly told USAF that she found it demeaning and offensive, and filed a complaint with USAF. Their attorney allegedly closed the complaint without a finding, simply citing their revised competition policy. Now, USAF’s attorneys can hash it out with Yukich’s attorneys in a court of law, since they’ve decided to engage in practices that blatantly violate anti-discrimination statutes in multiple states, such as New York where Yukich was denied the right to compete in direct contravention of state law.
These people are cowardly scumbags, and since Yukich is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, I hope she takes them to the cleaners.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
