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FIRST ON FOX: U.S. Olympic fencer Margherita Guzzi Vincenti, along with fellow competitive fencers Emma Griffin and Patricia Hughes, have filed a class-action lawsuit against USA Fencing over an alleged incident at the 2025 North American Cup (NAC) in Kansas City, Missouri, in January.
Vincenti, Griffin and Hughes alleged that USA Fencing knowingly allowed biological males to compete in women’s divisions while advertising women-only events, including competitions involving athletes under the age of 18.
“Because Defendant USFA’s youth and cadet policy authorized ‘unrestricted’ self-identification and lacked any verification mechanism, biological males under the age of 16 were permitted, and could have been expected, to compete in the women’s event,” the lawsuit alleges.
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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)
“Defendant USFA also fails to disclose to members or participants whether transgender or non-binary athletes are entered in a given event, leaving female athletes and parents unable to make informed decisions about their participation.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the organization failed to enforce its own previous policy of allowing only men to compete in the women’s division after completing one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
“Upon information and belief, Defendant USFA never implemented any system to monitor or verify compliance with this requirement. In practice, this lack of oversight allowed biological males to register and compete in women’s events regardless of whether they had completed any hormone suppression treatment,” the lawsuit alleges.
USA Fencing 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.
Guzzi, who competed for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics, said he joined the lawsuit to protect the integrity of his sport.
“Fencing has been my life since I was a little girl,” she said. “I have trained and competed with the expectation that women’s competitions are for women. It’s about fairness and preserving opportunities for girls and women who dedicate their lives to competing on equal terms.”
Hughes, a 20-year veteran, expressed similar concern.
“I have seen women’s fencing grow from a niche sport to one where female athletes can thrive at an international level,” Hughes said. “That progress only continues if justice is applied. The next generation of girls deserves the same level playing field that inspired us decades ago.”
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Griffin, a prominent NCAA competitor, said young athletes deserve honesty and clarity from national governing bodies.
“We pay registration fees, travel all over the country and spend years training,” Griffin said. “We deserve to know the rules and trust that women’s events are truly women’s events. It’s about respect for the athletes and transparency from the organizations that govern our sport.”
The lawsuit contends that USA Fencing is an educational institution subject to Title IX and therefore violated it by allowing men to compete in the girls’ and women’s categories.
The lawsuit seeks to argue this by alleging that the organization was listed as an educational services organization twice in 2020 and 2021 in its applications for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan during the COVID-19 pandemic, and because the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) receives direct federal funding, including taxpayer-derived allocations, forgivable PPP loans, and funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The plaintiffs are represented by Mahdavi, Bacon, Halfhill & Young PLLC and The Dhillon Law Group.
“Title IX was enacted to ensure equal sports opportunities for women,” said attorney Karin Sweigart of The Dhillon Law Group, “Our clients are not asking for special treatment, just the fairness and integrity that women’s sports have long promised.
Attorney Charles Wang of Mahdavi Bacon and pro bono general counsel for the Fair Fencing Organization said, “By allowing biological males to compete in a women’s event, USA Fencing violated Title IX by depriving women of their own sport that they had fought for for over a hundred years.”
Attorney James Bacon added that “this case is about restoring trust, transparency and compliance with federal law.”
Former USA Fencing board chairman Damien Lehfeldt is also named as a defendant. Pak Gazette Digital has reached out to Lehfeldt for comment.
Lehfeldt was replaced as president last weekend after he decided not to seek re-election.
In Lehfeldt’s announcement that he would not seek re-election, he cited “lawsuits” and “death threats” as reasons for his decision. Lehfeldt has been at the center of the USA Fencing controversy dating back to April, when fencer Stephanie Turner went viral for kneeling in protest of a transgender fencer and was disqualified.
The incident prompted a federal subpoena of Lehfeldt to a congressional hearing to explain the organization’s policy on transgender athletes. Then, former Olympic coach and board member Andrey Geva and former Olympic fencer Abdel Salem sued Lehfeldt for allegedly making “false statements” at the hearing.
USA Fencing then changed its transgender participation policy in July to allow only female competitors to participate in the women’s category. The change was made to ensure compliance with the USOPC’s new athlete safety policy, which now cites President Donald Trump’s executive order “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
