TWIBS: Annoying Failure Profits From Forfeiting Fencing Fight
A cisgender fencer who regularly competes and wins against cisgender men refused to compete against a trans woman and was immediately showered in money and glory for it.
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek 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.
“Fairness in sports” as an argument defending naked transphobia seems to be getting thinner and thinner by the day. They’ve never been terribly subtle about it, but what are we supposed to do when they aren’t even pretending anymore?
On March 30, cisgender fencer Stephanie Turner refused to compete against her allegedly transgender opponent at the annual Cherry Blossom tournament in Maryland, taking a knee and receiving a black card (disqualification from the event) as a result.
“I told them that I was refusing to fence because this person is a man, and I’m a woman, and this is a women’s tournament and I refuse to fence on principle,” Turner said in a Fox News interview after the fact. “I knew what I had to do because USA Fencing had not been listening to women’s objections. I am a woman, and I have an athletic disadvantage to men.”
In another interview with NewsNation, Turner claimed that her refusal to fight wasn’t a personal attack against the transgender fencer, though she went on to say that merely seeing the other woman’s name on the participants list made her cry. Because, according to her, she had trained for months to compete, and now simply had to stand on her principles and refuse to fight.
To be clear, Turner has competed and won against multiple cisgender men in her history as a fencer, calling into question her claims that she has an “athletic disadvantage to men.” Was this transgender fencer simply some sort of behemoth? An unstoppable meat machine capable of exploding Turner’s entire fragile body with a single prod from her foil? Yeah, no, of course not. You can see the header image. Swaddled in their protective gear, these women are basically indistinguishable from one another.
This is, as usual, a series of calculated lies being told to paint a transgender woman as some sort of apex predator out to harm cisgender women in athletic competitions. For her part, the transgender fencer adheres to USA Fencing’s 12-month testosterone suppression requirements, and came in 25th place at the Cherry Blossom. Which is, at any rate, a lot better than I would have done.
USA Fencing was quick to declare that Turner’s DQ was a result of her refusal to compete and not because of her rank transphobic bullshit, saying, “[We] will always err on the side of inclusion, and we’re committed to amending the policy as more relevant evidence-based research emerges, or as policy changes take effect in the wider Olympic & Paralympic movement.”
In the wake of this meaningless controversy, the transgender fencer is no longer a member of the collegiate fencing team she's been on for years, but as it stands she wasn’t allowed to compete with them anyway thanks to the NCAA’s cowardly capitulation to the Trump administration.
What reward, then, has Stephanie Turner come to for her brazen display of cowardice and grift? A “courage” award from some fuckass transphobic sports apparel company and $5,000. Isn’t that just precious? As seems to be the case in this day and age, quitters always win… and get a bunch of money and maybe a book deal on top of it.
Eugh. That sounded Boomery. Sorry.
To boot, aspiring concentration camp commander and cock-eyed dipshit Texas AG Ken Paxton has now declared his intent to “investigate” and punish USA Fencing for allowing transgender competitors. Government small enough to fit into your pocket, huh?
Since fencing as a sport is frequently co-ed both in practice and in competition (again, Turner regularly competes and wins against cisgender men), it seems like any widespread change against trans athletes would necessarily require altering the way the sport is played on a fundamental level.
Anything is justifiable in pursuit of a sponsorship deal from Riley Gaines, I suppose.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
