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Margherita Guzzi Vincenti became the first known Olympic athlete from Team USA to sue an American sports governing body in opposition to its policies allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports when she filed a class-action lawsuit against USA Fencing on Wednesday.
Vincenti’s lawsuit came the same month that a trans athlete, Dina Yukich, sued USA Fencing for being excluded from a women’s competition.
The organization faces 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 order in July.
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Alicja Klasik of Team Poland and Margherita Guzzi Vincenti of Team USA compete during the Women’s Epee Team Table 8 match between Team Poland and Team USA on day four of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Grand Palaison on July 30, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But Vincenti advances his lawsuit based on a situation that occurred in January at the North America Cup in Missouri. She alleges that USA Fencing knowingly allowed biological males competing in women’s divisions while advertising events as women-only, including competitions involving athletes under the age of 18, while withholding that information from female competitors.
“We find that there are transgender people present at our events, and this does not put women on a level playing field,” she told Pak Gazette Digital. “USA Fencing doesn’t reveal the exact number of transgender people in our sports. So we’re really left in the dark. We don’t know, when we step on the court, who we’re going to fence. So it could be a fencer named Mary Wilson, and then we find out at the same moment, when you step on the court and you’re about to start your match, that Mary Wilson is not a woman.”
Vincenti said she herself did not compete against a trans fencer at the January event, but she did have to face one at a previous North America Cup.
“I just had to move on, but this is not about me, how I feel about one or several matches that I might have played as transgender. My voice is here to take a stand to protect the next generation,” he said.
In April, fencer Stephanie Turner went viral for kneeling to protest a trans opponent at an event in Maryland. He received a black card and disqualification as punishment. Vincenti says other female fencers regularly face this same dilemma when facing a trans athlete.
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“Do I withdraw from the competition, refuse to fence, and therefore face a black card, elimination from the competition? So, as you can see, USA Fencing puts us women in an impossible position of not winning,” Vincenti said. “It’s been an ongoing thing, so we know it’s been an ongoing pattern of always having open transgender competitions. The problem is we don’t really know how many or when they will show up, and it only takes one match for it to be unfair.”
The 35-year-old Olympian has been fencing since he was 7 and represented the Italian youth national team from 2005 to 2009, before becoming an American 15 years ago.
And throughout her decades of competition, she has competed against men several times. She has no problem competing in mixed matches against male competitors, but for her it’s a completely different game that she needs to be prepared for.
“As long as you don’t enter a competition without knowing you could fence with a male… that’s totally fine… but what I don’t think is right is being forced to do it without knowing you’re doing it,” he said.
“When I compete against a woman and a man, there is a difference in strategy and there is a difference in the physical aspect, obviously. As a man is stronger, the match has to be much stronger.” [more] physical. Whereas when you fight a woman, the combat is more technical, more tactical, it’s about trying to deceive your opponent. “It’s a completely different game.”
Data shows that a majority of Americans oppose trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports, and that trend appears to be global as well.
At this week’s USOPC media summit, USOPC Board of Directors Chairman Gene Sykes called Trump’s executive order to prevent transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports “consistent with the international trend.”
“And fortunately, the executive order designed to protect women’s sports in the United States is very consistent with the international trend,” Sykes said. “The expectation is that this is where world sport, international sport, will go.”
Still, Vincenti is familiar with the opposition to this position and respects the other side. Still, she believes her argument is too rooted in “emotion.”
“People get very emotional about this topic. While, in my opinion, we should take a step back and really look at it from a more scientific perspective and really see what the core issue is here. We’re not trying to exclude transgender people… it’s something that people really take seriously and I think a lot of times people forget to look at the bigger picture,” she said.
Vincenti even has her own message for trans athletes who want to compete with women.
“My message is that we need to work together. We don’t want to be a disturbed family. We are all in this, men, women, transgender, there are no labels here, there is only justice, that is our game, we want honesty and we want justice,” he said.
“If we all decide to put aside our political opinions, our emotions and just work together, we can all find the right space for all of us to thrive.”
Margherita Guzzi Vincenti poses for a portrait during Team USA Fencing Media Day at the New York Athletic Club on May 21, 2024, in New York City. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
USA Fencing has provided a statement to Pak Gazette Digital in response to the lawsuit.
“USA Fencing is aware of the class action lawsuit 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 will have no further comment at this time,” the statement read.
