91 Comments
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Senko's avatar

This grifter has been D ranked for the better part of 8 years, but sure a 20 year old ALSO WITH A D RANKING is the reason she can’t win. Turner consistently places between 40th and 80th at national events so maybe she should spend less time making herself a victim and more time actually training.

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Sharon's avatar

Guess this anti-trans fencer doesn't have much confidence in her ability to win. You'd think she'd rise to any challenge if she were a true athlete.

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Senko's avatar

Right? Stomping your feet and going “but it’s not FAIR” is not the slam dunk of an argument terfs seem to think it is

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Joan the Dork's avatar

Ah, but she trained for the most important competition of all: the race to become the right wing's next talking head!

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Neptunium DMSO's avatar

lmafo, she literally should just get good. shes a grown woman picking on a girl, Turner should be ashamed of herself

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Brittany Southworth's avatar

I love when people preface their ignorance and hate with the fact that they have lots of friends in the community. Well at least she is godly in the eyes of fox news.

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Jaimie Hileman's avatar

She should have used the past tense. I cannot imagine she has any friends left in the LGBTQ community after this stunt.

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Anne's avatar

I doubt that she has many friends in the USA Fencing community at this point. I can not imagine her showing up at another competition. In general, USA Fencing is very accepting of everyone. There is a group of hate-filled bigots that is worried that a transfencer is going to take a spot at Harvard away from their daughter. Otherwise, we are friendly people.

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Talia Perkins's avatar

"Turner, a Montgomery County resident who described herself as a lifelong Democrat until the 2024 election, said she routinely vets her opponents ahead of competitions to try to make sure none of them are transgender."

That's unhinged.

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Anne's avatar

And yet she fenced in a mixed gender event recently. the hypocrisy is beyond imaginable.

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Chris Whissen's avatar

Yes! I remembered fencing being coed (when I did intramural back in college) and had to look it up. It seems she faced 6 men the previous week.

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Neptunium DMSO's avatar

i literally cannot even. i cannot log back into my old usa fencing account to check, but can you see if she beat them lol, my wife asked.

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Chris Whissen's avatar

Sorry, I just realized my notifications for this are off! I am not 100% confident I read it right, but it looks like she defeated 4 of the 6 male opponents she faced. (I should also note, I am taking her opponents' past participation in all male events to mean they identify male. They could be non-binary though.)

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Neptunium DMSO's avatar

Gotcha thank you, but regardless she’s a shameful transphobe who has no right fencing when she’s going to be such a douche bag

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Chris Whissen's avatar

I completely agree.

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Talia Perkins's avatar

Really?! What an a$$hat!

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Alethia St. Joan's avatar

Transphobia rots the mind and soul.

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Jess's avatar

I thought that too. Who does this? (Obviously all these transphobes) Who spends this much time thinking about it at all? These people are obsessed.

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Jaimie Hileman's avatar

I think many transphobes are self- loathing skoliosexuals. They're compelled to sexually fantasize and obsess about wanting to have sex with us but can't forgive themselves for having sexual attraction towards we Trans folks...so they want to murder us. They DEEPLY need therapy but conservatives are statistically 60% less likely to seek out qualified and efficacious mental health professionals.

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Senko's avatar

Like what an embarrassingly public way to admit you suck at your sport.

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Anne's avatar

Right? Lousy recreational fencer sucks and gets fame and fortune in despicable way. Could be an O. Henry short story.

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Asha's avatar

As a Christian, I really believe these people are going to have the shock of their lives when they stand before God and He asks them why they spewed vitriol and hatred in His Name, after He gave us Jesus as an example of how to spread love and grace.

They are redefining what Christianity is in the minds of EVERYONE, and doing the opposite of God's commandments to us. As much as it breaks my heart, I can't imagine how much it breaks His, and they refuse to see it.

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Iris Bleu's avatar

wow, every sentence of this just got worse and worse. the fact that an organisation awarding transphobic athletes even exists, and apparently there’s an anti trans sports brand as well?? and then the actual government getting involved in this too?? jesus christ. i wish i could laugh at how ridiculous this is, if i wasn’t so heartbroken at how awful these people are to us for no f*cking reason. it’s unbelievable

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Jaimie Hileman's avatar

I console myself with the fact that they really want us all dead, because they think if they kill us all, they win. But the joke's on them. We are an integral part of the human experience and if they murder us all, in three generations, we're BACK, Trans elders, eggs, and all. The only way they can kill US, is by killing ALL humans.

Which of course, they're working on as well...

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Tanya Laird's avatar

I love how it's just assumed that trans people don't have their own religious rights. What's wrong with believing that God simply makes all sorts of people, and some he makes with a mind and body mismatch? Why can't correcting that simply be God's will, a trans person's cross to bear, etc? Why is it just assumed that trans people can't themselves be religious? Maybe me transitioning IS God's will, and anyone who opposes that is opposing the will of God? Sure you can stretch some biblical citations to argue against that, but you can make the opposite case quite easily. Hell, I could argue that anyone who opposes trans people is directly opposing God's will and is themselves committing a mortal sin. God made all sorts because God wants all sorts. It is not the place of mortals to question how he made the world. Got a problem with trans people existing? Take it up with God.

Frankly, I think that anyone who opposes LGBT rights isn't even really worshiping God. God is love, peace, compassion, and benevolence. If your religion leads you to hate, you're not worshiping God, you're worshiping the Devil.

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Sharon's avatar

I wish I could like this comment more than once!

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Emily F Rosenmeier's avatar

Me too! 😍😍

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Marthe's avatar

Outstanding commentary! Rational and without invective. I especially appreciated, “Got a problem with trans people? Take it up with God.”

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JjMc's avatar

Hey, there’s a great episode of John Oliver’s show she should watch to the end. She might even recognize some of the transphobic behavior. Like really identify with it I mean, it will feel like she was there.

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

That was really well done, as one expects from John, but especially so in that episode - worth the 45 minutes (and I don't usually allow such times!).

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Nikki Nightshade's avatar

This is the very definition of a "crisis actor." She was paid by a partisan sponsor to manufacture outrage for their base. Period.

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Gwenifer Cooper's avatar

She's most definitely been waiting on this opportunity to launch her grifting career. There's not a chance she wasn't elated at the chance to play the victim and gain national fame.

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Rachel Walker's avatar

Agreed, this was a setup from another mediocre athlete who realized they aren’t going anywhere in the sport so are going to segue into the almighty rich wing grift machine and make money. And given the nature of fencing, I guarantee that she has fenced against cis men more than once. Absolute trash person.

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Anne's avatar

She fenced in a mixed event recently. And I guarantee that she fences against men at practice.

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Aby's avatar

The article really needs to be updated with that information (barring confirmation, which I'm sure is available). The media not reporting obviously relevant information like "she normally fences literal men with no issue" is quite simply playing into the right's narrative. And it seems like attacking such mixed gender sporting events (or ultimately *any* mixed gender activity, including things like chess or schools themselves) is precisely what the intended long-term goal of the Christian right is. Trans women are the first victims who then act as an excuse for them to force through total sex segregation.

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sophie amity's avatar

The NBC article expressly refuses to use any pronouns or refer to Sullivan as a trans woman. Just "a transgender opponent" and weasel-wording sentences to avoid any pronoun usage. Insanity.

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May's avatar

This is completely ridiculous. 30 yrs ago college tournaments had no segregation of the sexes in fencing. I fenced biological males as 14 yr old and the guys I was fencing were in college. I ran fencing tournaments when I was at university.

Fencing is a sport of reflexes, speed and brain not strength so someone taller, bigger and stronger regardless of gender does not necessarily have an advantage just a larger target area. At our university in Texas the most feared fencer in the mid-90s was a 5’4 stocky Asian women who routinely crushed men over 6ft who had at least 50lbs on her.

I actually trained and fenced with Abdel Salem OLY–EGY before he was an at large Director of U.S. Fencing when I was a teenager and his classes were not segregated by gender actually no training facilities in Texas segregated by gender unless it is at a single gender high school. Only for junior Olympics was I ever grouped with the same gender and relative age.

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Robin Elise's avatar

So, yet again, it is the trans woman who is the lady in the situation. What a concept!

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Anne's avatar

The very essence of fencing is civility (while trying hard to stab your opponent). This goes against every aspect of that.

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Monique Little's avatar

$5000 against her LGBTQ friends. Congratulations, you are the one taking it up the backside from the right.

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Yasha's avatar

I will choose do a bigoted thing, promote it, profit from it, and then call it "God's will." Convenient.

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Joanne's avatar

For me, Turner's decision to forfeit the match was politically stupid! She was in a win-win situation and threw it away. Had she fenced the match, she would have been a winner regardless. Had she won, she could have crowed about her superiority to a transgender athlete and would have garnered the support of all the TERF's. Had she fenced, and lost, she would have garnered the wholehearted support of the entire MAGA crowd for having lost an "unfair" match. By placing her fate "in god's hands" she proved nothing and stood for stood for nothing. $5000 is probably more than her tantrum was worth.

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

But these people are deliberately starting careers in the wake of Riley Gaines. "routinely vets her opponents ahead of competitions to try to make sure none of them are transgender" and " had spent a lot of time in years past imagining what she might do if she ever faced a trans opponent" ?! This was carefully calculated.

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Joanne's avatar

Absolutely! Ms. Sheats. That's one reason why I'm at a loss to figure out why she chose to take a knee rather than make a statement to back up these supposedly long-held concerns. I suspect that Ms. Turner isn't a very deep thinker.

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Anne's avatar

You mean she isn't very bright. Say it that way. Being polite is not necessary at this point. I would point out that the fencing community, for the most part, is very intelligent. She is the exception to that rule, as well.

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

I will say that this story caught my attention in more ways than one. I'm halfway (??) through a book on trans woman athletes (more in-depth physiology than others like Joanna Harper's). But recently, for my second novel (after "Hanna's Ascent"), I was going to do a MG fantasy involving swordfighting battles, which morphed into something definitely not MG, and I'm now obsessed with the story. It's called "Yuenü's Sword And The Ruby Con." It turns out that a woman named Yuenü wrote the first book on swordfighting technique - in 500 BCE! (She had no problem fighting men - in fact the king of Yue hired her to teach them...)

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