Stephanie Turner, 31, was disqualified from a fencing match after taking a knee, refusing to compete against Redmond Sullivan, who was born male.

Turner is now being invited to testify before Congress, along with the Chairman of USA Fencing, Damien Lehfeldt.

The match between Sullivan and Turner, which has since gone viral online, took place at USA Fencing’s Cherry Blossom Open in Maryland on March 30. Transgender women were allowed to compete in the event, along with all USA fencing events.

“Transgender women are women and gender is not a sex,” Lehfeldt said in an Instagram post in August 2023.

Now, Lehfeldt and Turner are being invited before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

Transgender women competing in women’s sports has been a hot-button topic for years. Many believe that it is an unfair advantage for transgender women to compete against cisgender women. However, Lehfeldt doesn’t view it that way.

“There is a possibility that transgender women have a physical advantage over their cisgender opponents after transitioning. There is also a possibility they do not.” Lehfeldt said. “In fencing, there is no data to support either viewpoint.”

USA Fencing, in a statement, said that Turner was disqualified for refusing to compete, not for her protest.

Turner has been called a hero by some. She told the New York Post that she conceded the match for “her own safety.”

“Men fence a lot harder than women, and I don’t want to get hurt,” Turner said.

U.S. Olympic fencer Eli Dershwitz shed light on the critical skills necessary in fencing in an exclusive interview with uSports.

Dershwitz, who has represented the United States at the Paris Olympics in June, highlighted the importance of a unique blend of physical agility and mental acuity.

“I would say the combination of quick and explosive feet similar to how tennis players need very fast one-two steps from their stance, and in fencing, it’s no different,” he told uSports in April. “The strip isn’t that wide or long, so those first one, two, three steps need to be really explosive.”

The Olympian emphasized that the ability to change direction rapidly is vital for staying competitive in fencing. This quickness, he noted, allows fencers to react and adapt in real-time to their opponents’ movements, a necessity in a sport where fractions of a second can determine the outcome of a match.

Physical speed alone isn’t enough in fencing. “You need to be able to change directions quickly,” Dershwitz observed. “You need to be explosive in that regard; it’s a game of physical chess,”

Lee Keifer bested former world champion Inna Deriglazova in Tokyo this past weekend, 15-13, to secure a gold medal for the United States in fencing.

Keifer is 27 years old. She is a four-time NCAA champion and a three-time Olympian. Keifer is currently a medical student at the University of Kentucky. The unimposing 5’4″ fencer has developed a reputation for being an incredible competitor in the sport.

This is Keifer’s best finish in the foil, where she placed fifth and 10th in 2012 and 2016, respectively.

“It’s such an incredible feeling that I share with my coach, I share with my husband, with my family, just everyone that’s been a part of this. I wish I could chop it up in little pieces and distributed it to everyone I love,” Keifer said of winning and receiving her gold medal.

Keifer attributes her win to her family, who has a history of competing in fencing and who pushes her to perform at her very best. “I just feel so much love and I have so much to give back to everyone. My dad pushed me from the beginning. We used to bump heads all the time because we are both so competitive and demand excellence, but here we are. Thank you, dad,” Keifer said after her win.

Keifer was undefeated en route to her gold medal, going 5-0. Whether or not she competes in the next Olympic Games remains to be seen.

Dagmara Wozniak, Team USA 2016 Olympic Fencer… by uSports

Dagmara Wozniak, a saber on the 2016 US Fencing Team who will be competing in the Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil this August, discussed her typical day of training, the biggest challenges she’s faced in competition, and her career goals with uSports.

Dagmara Wozniak, Team USA 2016 Olympic Fencer, On Her Training Routine, Goals

Wozniak, 28, was one of the more than 75 Team USA Olympians to attend the 100-Day Countdown celebration in New York’s Times Square on April 27.

“I wake up around 7 or 8 am and then go to the gym for about an hour and a half to do some specific strengthening exercises for fencing, to get faster, more explosive,” Wozniak told uSports exclusively. “Then I go off to practice around 5 or 6 o’clock–I practice around three blocks away from here, so it’s really close–and then practice for about four hours, one-on-one with the coach, footwork with the group, and then sparring with other athletes that are part of the club.”

Wozniak was born in Wroclaw, Poland of Polish parents but she and her family move to the US when she was one year old. She was raised in New Jersey, where she attended Colonia High School in Woodbridge Township. She began fencing at the age of 9 at the Polish-American Fencing School. After graduating high school in 2006, she attended St. John’s University, where she graduated in 2013 with a degree in Biology.

She won a team gold medal at the 2011 Pan American Games, and then both individual and team gold medals at the 2015 Pan American Games. Wozniak also helped Team USA win a bronze medal at the 2011 World Fencing Championships in Catania, Italy, as well as a gold medal at the 2014 World Championships in Kazan, Russia. The gold medal win marked the team’s first title at the event since 2005.

“One of the things that attracts me to [fencing] is that it’s a combat sport, so it’s not, you know, running against the ground,” Wozniak said of the challenge of her sport. “The ground’s never going to change on you, so you might know your opponent, but they might do something completely different, or maybe they’re having a really good day and they’re doing things they normally don’t do fencing really well, so it’s always really important to try to adjust to that.

“We watch each other fence and we’re pretty much the same competitive pool as all the competition, but like I said, anything can change.”

After traveling to Beijing as a replacement athlete for the 2008 Olympic Games, Wozniak qualified for her first team as an individual in London in 2012 and placed eighth in her Olympic debut.

Regardintg the main difference between an epee, a saber and a foil, she said: “I believe that we [sabers] are like the sprinters of the group. We’re really fast and we’re trying to establish right of way, so we really need to be quick on our feet. We don’t have time involved, we’re pretty much just moving back and forth, you know, making decisions in a split second. It’s a really fast reaction time, and at the same time trying to move as fast as you can.”

Wozniak is ranked as one of the top 10 saber fencers in the world. Her hobbies include watching movies, snowboarding, reading and dancing.

“I definitely think my ultimate goal as an Olympian really resonates with what Michelle Obama said in terms of hoping that I can inspire other girls to pick up a sport,” Wozniak finally said. “It doesn’t have to be fencing, even though it’s definitely fun to try; it’s not popular, so a lot of people don’t know about it, but we have great ambassadors that are really bringing the sport to the light, and showing what’s great about it. I just want to be a role model.”

“I can only hope that I do that for someone else,” she said with a smile.

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 26: U.S. Olympian Dagmara Wozniak attends the U.S. Olympic Committee Benefit Gala at USA House at the Royal College of Art on July 26, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Joe Scarnici/Getty Images)

Olympic Team Nominee Ibtihaj Muhammad on Why… by uSports

Ibtihaj Muhammad, a saber who will be competing in this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil, discussed what led her to get into the sport of fencing at the Team USA 100-Day Countdown celebration in New York’s Times Square.

Ibtihaj Muhammad, 2016 Olympic Team Nominee, Says Why She Chose Fencing

“I started fencing when I was 13 in high school,” Muhammad. told uSports exclusively. “My parents were looking for a sport for me to play where I didn’t have to alternate uniforms as a Muslim youth. We saw that the athletes were fully covered, they wore long jackets and long pants, and it just uniquely fit into my lifestyle as a Muslim youth.”

A native of Maplewood, New Jersey, Muhammad, 30, is the first Muslim woman who wears a hijab— the traditional head veil donned by Muslim women — for the United States Olympic Team.

Muhammad attended Duke University, where she received an academic scholarship. There, she was a three-time All-American and 2005 Junior Olympic Champion. She graduated in 2007 with a double major in International Relations and African Studies.

On March 12, Muhammad was forced to remove her hijab by security at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Security asked her to remove her headscarf for an ID photo, and even after she explained she wore it for religious reasons, they asked her to take it off. She also said she was then handed an ID badge with an incorrect name: the badge read “Tamir Muhammad” and said she worked for Time Warner Inc. Muhammad took to Twitter that same day to recount all of this.

South by Southwest, which is an annual music, film, and technology festival, later issued a statement to apologize for the incident:

“It is not our policy that a hijab or any religious head covering be removed in order to pick up a SXSW badge,” the statement reads. “This was one volunteer who made an insensitive request and that person has been removed for the duration of the event. We are embarrassed by this and have apologized to Ibtihaj in person, and sincerely regret this incident.”

Later on, Muhammad seemed to suggest this wasn’t the first time she had been involved in this type of incident.

“I had a crappy experience checking in,” she said. “Someone asking me to remove my hijab isn’t out of the norm for me… Do I hope it changes soon? Yes, every day.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, Muhammad participated in a panel called “The New Church: Sport as Currency of American Life” following the incident.

She is ranked seventh in the world in fencing, and second in the U.S. in saber.

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 26: Ibtihaj Muhammad attends 2016 Time 100 Gala, Time’s Most Influential People In The World red carpet at Jazz At Lincoln Center at the Times Warner Center on April 26, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Time)