Women's fencer who knelt in protest of trans athlete reacts to USA Fencing reversal of controversial policies

EXCLUSIVE: More than 2 months person passed since women's fencer Stephanie Turner went viral aft being punished by USA Fencing for kneeling successful protestation of a trans opponent. 

And aft 9 weeks of immense nationalist and national scrutiny against USA Fencing successful the aftermath of the incident, the organization amended 2 of its astir arguable policies past weekend. 

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The organization's committee of directors changed its regularisation to de-prioritized states with laws deemed "harmful" to the LGBTQ colonisation and a regularisation that did not warrant the nationalist anthem beryllium played earlier each event. 

Turner reacted to USA Fencing's caller argumentation changes successful an exclusive connection to Fox News Digital. 

"USA Fencing has fallen into the hands of unpatriotic tyrants who enactment obscure authorities up of promoting the athletics crossed the country. Whether to play the nationalist anthem oregon not should person ne'er been successful question. And excluding states from the nationalist tourney enactment process due to the fact that of their termination and LGBT policies is ludicrous and has thing to bash with fencing," Turner said. 

"It makes maine wonderment if these policies were enactment into spot to punish conservatives and reddish states. There needs to beryllium a shakeup successful USA Fencing’s enactment and an audit of their societal media and online platforms."

WHO IS STEPHANIE TURNER? WOMEN'S FENCER WHO KNELT TO PROTEST TRANS OPPONENT AND IGNITED GLOBAL AWARENESS

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) (C) speaks to Stephanie Turner (L), a fencer who refused to vie against a transgender athlete, and Payton McNabb (R), a erstwhile North Carolina precocious schoolhouse volleyball subordinate who was injured by a transgender hostile during the proceeding connected "Unfair Play: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports" held by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee astatine the U.S. Capitol connected May 7, 2025, successful Washington, D.C.  (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Turner stepped distant from competing successful USA Fencing aft receiving a 12-month probation for refusing to look trans jock Redmond Sullivan astatine the Cherry Blossom Open successful Maryland successful precocious March. 

But the fallout of the contention had an impact connected the organization and its policies close away.

USA Fencing announced successful precocious April that it is preparing to alteration its gender-eligibility policy. The projected updated argumentation ensures that the women's class "will beryllium unfastened exclusively to athletes of the pistillate sex." The men's class "will beryllium unfastened to each different athletes who are different eligible for competition."

However, that caller argumentation has not been officially enactment successful place. 

The incidental involving Turner besides prompted a Title IX probe by President Donald Trump's medication and a legislature proceeding successful May. 

USA Fencing Chair Damien Lehfeldt was grilled by Republican lawmakers astatine the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee's "Unfair Play: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports" proceeding connected May 7. 

After the hearing, Turner told Fox News Digital that she would give herself and her level to pushing for resignations among cardinal enactment figures successful USA Fencing. 

"I'm going to beryllium pushing for radical to resign, to beryllium honest. I'd similar to spot immoderate radical resign for the comments that they've made, particularly publicly, ones that are harassing and meant to humiliate acrophobic women, mothers and daughters," Turner said. 

The organization's argumentation of prioritizing states with pro-LGBTQ laws was a peculiar constituent of scrutiny during the proceeding by DOGE Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

"In selecting sites for its nationalist fencing events, for instance, the committee argumentation is to debar states whose laws and policies connected LGBTQ rights and termination it opposes. It uses ‘Equality Maps’ to find which states to blacklist from its competitions, and which to favor," Greene said. "This ends up favoring a batch of bluish states and harming a batch of reddish ones. So, it creates politically determined winners and losers — but it has perfectly thing to bash with fencing." 

The erstwhile big tract argumentation placed a fig of states connected the "do not allow" database were Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. 

The states connected its "avoid wherever possible" database included Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

The enactment present claims it volition person events successful respective of those states implicit the adjacent year. 

"We merged respective overlapping documents into 1 argumentation that scores each bid — careless of authorities — connected cost, safety, and question convenience. Using this rubric, adjacent season’s nationalist events volition span 9 states including Texas, Missouri, Florida, Utah, Ohio, Virginia, Oregon, Tennessee and Nevada," work a connection to Fox News Digital.

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USA Fencing has besides provided a connection to Fox News Digital addressing the caller anthem policy. 

"The anthem has always been played astatine the commencement of each nationalist tournament. The Board simply wrote that long‑standing signifier into argumentation and added that it volition besides beryllium played connected immoderate U.S. vacation that occurs during an event, specified arsenic Independence Day, which falls during our upcoming Summer Nationals," the connection read. 

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