A transgender fencer competed on a women's college team and held a women's scholarship at Cleveland State University before President Trump's executive order and a subsequent NCAA policy change barred male-bodied athletes from women's competitions, Fox News reported. The case has become a flashpoint in the national fight over who belongs in women's sports and what protections female athletes can expect from the institutions that govern competition.
The fencer, Redmond Sullivan, who identifies as transgender, competed in women's fencing at Cleveland State before the university's program was dissolved. Sullivan's participation on a women's roster while holding a women's scholarship illustrates the policy gap that existed before the Trump administration and the NCAA moved to tighten eligibility rules tied to biological sex.
On February 5, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." The order directed federal policy toward preserving women's athletic categories for biological females. The NCAA followed with its own policy update restricting transgender participation in women's divisions.
Those two moves effectively closed the door that had allowed athletes like Sullivan to compete on women's teams and receive women's scholarships. Before the policy changes, governing bodies at both the collegiate and club levels permitted athletes to compete in the category matching their stated gender identity, regardless of biological sex.
The legal and cultural battles over federal enforcement of sex-based distinctions under the Trump administration extend well beyond the playing field, but few arenas have generated the same grassroots intensity as women's sports.
Sullivan's name resurfaced in national headlines on March 30, when female fencer Stephanie Turner was disqualified from a USA Fencing regional tournament at the University of Maryland for refusing to compete against Sullivan. Turner took a knee before the match and told officials she would not fence.
Turner explained her decision bluntly. She told Fox News Digital:
"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."
USA Fencing issued Turner a black card, the sport's most severe penalty, and expelled her from the tournament. The organization cited its rules prohibiting any fencer from refusing to compete against a properly entered opponent. AP News reported that USA Fencing's transgender and non-binary athlete policy, enacted in 2023, allows athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity regardless of biological sex.
USA Fencing released a statement defending its stance, saying it "will always err on the side of inclusion" while acknowledging that the conversation around equity and inclusion for transgender athletes is "evolving."
The consequences for Turner did not end with the black card. She was placed on 12 months of probation by USA Fencing for her refusal to compete, the New York Post reported. Turner later testified before Congress at a hearing held by the House DOGE subcommittee, where she described feeling betrayed by the organization she had trusted.
"I had been defrauded of a women's tournament and sold a lie by USA Fencing."
Turner accused USA Fencing of fostering a "culture of intimidation" toward women who object to competing against biological males. USA Fencing Chair Damien Lehfeldt, who also appeared at the hearing, declined to apologize to Turner and maintained that "transgender women are women."
Turner was not the only athlete to testify. Volleyball player Payton McNabb told lawmakers she suffered a concussion, vision problems, and partial paralysis after being struck by a ball spiked by a transgender opponent during a high school game. McNabb did not hold back:
"It is completely aggravating because the injury I suffered was 100% avoidable if only my rights as a female athlete had been more important than a man's feelings."
Cases like McNabb's underscore the physical safety dimension that often gets lost in abstract policy debates. A recent lawsuit by a teen wrestler in Washington state has raised similar concerns about what happens when governing bodies prioritize identity-based inclusion over the bodily safety of female competitors.
Turner's protest drew more than congressional attention. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a formal investigation into USA Fencing, issuing a Civil Investigative Demand over potential violations of Texas consumer protection laws. National Review reported that Paxton's probe targets the organization's treatment of female athletes under its transgender inclusion policy.
Paxton framed the investigation in stark terms:
"USA Fencing is on the wrong side of history and potentially the wrong side of the law due to violations of Texas consumer protection laws."
The consumer protection angle is notable. Paxton's theory appears to rest on the idea that USA Fencing marketed its women's competitions as women's events while allowing biological males to enter, potentially misleading athletes and families who paid entry fees expecting sex-separated competition.
USA Fencing's 2023 transgender policy sits in direct tension with the Trump administration's February executive order. The organization's rules state that athletes may compete "consistent with their gender identity/expression, regardless of the gender associated with the sex they were assigned at birth." Trump's order takes the opposite position, directing federal agencies to enforce biological sex as the dividing line in women's athletics.
That collision has left athletes like Turner caught between a governing body that punishes them for objecting and a federal government that says their objections are correct. Newsmax reported Turner calling the policy "ridiculous" in a separate interview, adding that it "forced me to refuse by taking a knee."
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova weighed in publicly, directing her anger at the governing body: "This is what happens when female athletes protest! Anyone here still thinks this is fair??? I am fuming... and shame on @USAFencing, shame on you for doing this."
The disclosure that Sullivan held a women's scholarship at Cleveland State before the policy changes adds a concrete financial dimension to the debate. Women's athletic scholarships exist because of Title IX, the federal law that requires equal opportunity for female athletes. Every scholarship awarded to a biological male competing as a woman is, by definition, one fewer scholarship available to a biological female.
That math is not abstract. For the female fencer who did not receive that scholarship, the cost was real. The Trump executive order and the NCAA's subsequent policy change were designed to close exactly this kind of gap.
Turner's protest, her punishment, Paxton's investigation, and the congressional hearing all flow from the same underlying question: whether sports governing bodies will honor the biological reality that separates men's and women's competition, or whether they will continue to treat gender identity as the controlling standard.
USA Fencing has not indicated any plans to revise its 2023 policy in response to the Trump executive order, Paxton's investigation, or the congressional scrutiny. The organization's public statements continue to emphasize inclusion. Turner remains on probation.
Paxton's investigation could force a legal reckoning if it produces findings of consumer protection violations under Texas law. Congressional hearings, while they carry no direct enforcement power, have put the testimony of Turner and McNabb into the public record and onto the desks of lawmakers weighing federal legislation on the issue.
The fact that Sullivan competed on a women's team and drew a women's scholarship before any of these policy shifts occurred is the clearest illustration of what was at stake all along. The rules changed because the old rules failed the women they were supposed to protect.
When a governing body punishes a woman for refusing to compete against a man in a women's tournament, the problem is not the woman. It is the governing body.
