Mahatma Gandhi once suggested that people should be the change they want to see in the world. A group of women martial arts experts recently did just that.
According to a recent Blaze Media report, several women dropped out of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Georgia sponsored by the North American Grappling Association, or NAGA, after they would have been forced to compete against transgender women, meaning biological men.
Accordingly, NAGA, the largest submission grappling association in the world, changed its rules and barred trans women from competing against biological women.
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Jiu-jitsu champions Jayden Alexander and Ansleigh Wilk told the feminist website Reduxx that they were supposed to take on trans women without any warning from NAGA or tournament officials.
“I honestly never thought this would actually happen in a contact sport, especially not my contact sport,” Alexander told Reduxx.
Reduxx reported that both Alexander and Wilk batted a trans woman named Cordelia Gregory, who was “one of many trans-identified males currently participating in NAGA women’s tournaments.”
“I hadn’t been notified. The only thing that brought it to my attention was my teammates. They kept asking me ‘are you fighting a man’ and I was honestly too focused on coaching the rest of the crew to really pay attention to my opponent,” Wilk told Reduxx.
“I realized very quickly I couldn’t muscle them like most girls,” Wilk added. “Well obviously, because it wasn’t a girl! … I was sincerely scared [he] was going to punch me when I stuck my hand out to shake [his].”
The exodus of biological women from the tournament was so profound that in one supposedly women’s division, “the only participants left competing were men,” Blaze Media reported.
Blaze Media further noted that NAGA appeared to change its official policy in this realm as of Oct. 28.
“We, as an organization, strive to ensure fairness, inclusivity, and respect for all competitors within our events,” the revised policy states. “We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions.”
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“Transgender females must compete in the men’s division. We hope that the simplicity of this revised policy will help to avoid any future occurrences where transgender females enter women divisions. If NAGA staff is informed that a transgender female is in a women’s division, they will be given the choice to go to the men’s division or given a refund.”
According to ESPN, at least 23 conservative states have passed laws that prohibit transgender athletes from participating in school sports according to the gender they claim.
House Republicans passed a similar measure, introduced by Florida GOP Rep. Greg Steube of Sarasota, along a party-line vote in April.
The bill has yet to be considered by the Senate. President Joe Biden has vowed to veto it if it passes Congress.
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