In 2025, 31-year-old fencer Stephanie Turner took a knee to her opponent during the Cherry Blossom Open in Maryland. Turner was set to face off against Redmond Sullivan, a biological male who identified as female and was attending Wagner College at the time. Sullivan had competed on the men’s team during the 2023-2024 season as he had not finished a full year of hormone therapy, but had switched to the women’s team for the 2024-2025 season. Turner’s refusal to compete against Sullivan was an act of frustration, feeling that the pro-transgender policies of USA Fencing prevented her from voicing her concerns. “’I was like, I don’t even want to reach out because if I do, then I won’t ever have a fair bout in my life,” she told Daily Mail. “So what I was doing already was just avoiding tournaments where I knew there was a transgender fencer. But at this point, what else should I do? Should I just not sign up for any tournaments? I have no other options.” Turner described the moment she knelt to Fox News Digital.  “Redmond was under the impression that I was going to start fencing. So when I took the knee, I looked at the ref and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do this. I am a woman, and this is a man, and this is a women’s tournament. And I will not fence this individual.”

Now a profile written about the incident from Sullivan’s perspective on CT Mirror has revealed that not only was Sullivan competing against women, but he was also receiving a women’s scholarship of $5,000 per semester from Wagner. That changed on February 2, 2025 when President Trump signed the executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which banned transgender women athletes from sports competitions held by entities that receive federal funding. The new NCAA rules that were rolled out after the order meant that Sullivan was removed from Wagner’s fencing tournament roster and lost the scholarship.

Turner reacted to the news that Sullivan was receiving scholarship money that was designated for a woman. “It’s funny Redmond let it slip in this sob piece that he’s been earning women’s athletic scholarship money, as if women should feel sorry that he’s been stealing money and opportunities from them. It really highlights the obscenity of trans activist claims that ‘transwomen’ just want to be included when in fact they’re earning coveted positions on college sports teams, scholarship money, and awards off the backs of deserving women,” she told Outkick. Sullivan has since left Wagner to attend University of Connecticut (UConn), where his father works and he receives free tuition. He has stepped away some from fencing, choosing to compete in mixed-gender competitions. Turner voiced her appreciation for the recent 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed states have the right to limit sports participation to biological gender. But she says there is still more to do. “Totally ridding women’s sports of men requires states to pass their own bills, and we all know there are Democrat-run state legislatures so deeply wedded to transgender ideology that the idea of passing such bills seems daunting,” she said. “As long as we keep sounding the alarm, waking people up to common sense, and cataloging our grievance, these bills will get passed. It’s only a matter of time.”