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Margherita Guzzi Vincenti became the first known Team USA Olympic athlete to sue a US sports governing body in opposition to its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports when she filed a class-action lawsuit against USA Fencing on Wednesday.
Vincenti’s trial took place the same month that a trans athlete, Dina Yukich, sued USA Fencing for being excluded from a women’s competition.
The organization is facing legal battles on both fronts in what has been a transformative year for gender policies in American sports after President Donald Trump signed the “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order in February, prompting the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to change its own athlete safety policy to comply with the executive order in July.
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Alicja Klasik of Team Poland and Margherita Guzzi Vincenti of Team USA compete during the Epee Women’s Team 8 Table match between Team Poland and Team USA on the fourth day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Grand Palais on July 30, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But Vincenti is taking legal action based on a situation that arose in January during the North American Cup in Missouri. She alleges that USA Fencing knowingly permitted biological males to compete in women’s divisions while advertising events as women-only, including in competitions involving athletes under the age of 18, while hiding this information from competitors.
“We found out that transgender people were at our events, and that doesn’t put women on an equal footing,” she told PK Press Club Digital. “USA Fencing doesn’t disclose the exact number of transgender people in our sports. So we’re really left in the dark. We don’t know when we walk onto the field who we’re going to face. So it could be a fencer named Mary Wilson, and then we find out right at the moment, when you walk onto the field and you’re about to start your match, that Mary Wilson is not a woman.”
Vincenti said she herself did not face a trans fencer at the event in January, but had to face one at a previous North American Cup.
“I just had to move forward, but it’s not about me, how I feel about a match or matches I might have had with transgender people. My voice is here to take a stand to protect the next generation,” she said.
In April, fencer Stephanie Turner went viral for kneeling to protest a trans opponent at an event in Maryland. She received a black card and disqualification as punishment. Vincenti says other female fencers regularly face the same dilemma when facing a trans athlete.
WHO IS STEPHANIE TURNER? A female fencer who knelt to protest a trans opponent and sparked global awareness
“Do I withdraw from the competition, do I refuse to shoot, and therefore find myself facing a black card, elimination from the competition? So, as you can see, USA Fencing puts us in an impossible no-win position,” Vincenti said. “It’s an ongoing phenomenon, so we know that the competitions are always open to transgender people. The problem is that we don’t really know how many or when they show up, and it only takes one match for it to be unfair.”
The 35-year-old Olympian has been fencing since the age of 7 and represented the Italian junior national team from 2005 to 2009, before becoming an American 15 years ago.
And during her decades of competition, she has faced men on several occasions. She has no problem competing in mixed matches against male competitors, but for her, it’s a completely different game that she needs to prepare for.
“As long as you don’t go into a competition without knowing that you might be shooting with a buck…that’s totally fine…but what I don’t think is right is to be forced to do that without knowing that you’re doing it,” she said.
“When I’m competing against a woman versus a man, there’s obviously a difference in strategy and a difference in physique. With a stronger man, the match has to be a lot stronger. [more] physical. Whereas when fencing a female, the match is more technical, more tactical, it is above all about trying to deceive your opponent. It’s a completely different game.”
Data shows that most Americans oppose trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports, and this trend appears to be global as well.
At the USOPC Media Summit this week, USOPC Board Chairman Gene Sykes called Trump’s executive order to bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports “consistent with the international trend.”
“And fortunately, the executive order to protect women’s sports in the United States is very much in line with the international trend,” Sykes said. “There is an expectation that this is where world sport, international sport is going.”
Yet Vincenti knows the opposition to this position and she respects the other side. She nevertheless believes that their argument is too rooted in “emotion”.
“People are very emotional about this topic. Although, in my opinion, we should take a step back and look at it more from a scientific point of view and really see what the main problem here is. We’re not trying to exclude transgender people… it’s something that people really take to heart and I think a lot of times they forget to look at the bigger picture,” she said.
Vincenti even has his own message for trans athletes who want to compete with women.
“My message is: we have to work together. We don’t want to be a troubled family. We are all in this together, male, female, transgender, there is no labeling here, there is just fairness, this is our game, we want honesty and we want fairness,” she said.
“If we all decide to put aside our political opinions, our emotions, and we all work together, we can all find the right space for everyone to thrive.”
Margherita Guzzi Vincenti poses for a portrait during the USA Fencing Team media day at the New York Athletic Club on May 21, 2024, in New York. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
USA Fencing provided a statement to PK Press Club Digital in response to the lawsuit.
“USA Fencing is aware of the class action complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on October 29, and we strongly dispute its allegations. We will address this matter through the legal process and have no further comment at this time,” the statement said.
