‘We cannot continue seeing these kinds of stories in which girls are getting … put on a jujitsu mat with men,’ says former NCAA swimming champion Marshi Smith
Three national jujitsu associations have recently enacted policies prohibiting males from fighting in female brackets after several competitors went public with their experience in fighting a male opponent who identifies mentally as a female.
“It was a huge turnaround in a really short time,” Marshi Smith, a former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimming champion from the University of Arizona and co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), told The Epoch Times. “We’ve never seen a sport enact change as quickly as jujitsu has.”
Ms. Smith co-founded ICONS with Kim Jones—herself a former NCAA tennis champion and mother of an Ivy League swimmer who had to compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
ICONS was set up to give women like Ansleigh Wilk and Jayden Alexander, both of whom fought a man in his early 40s at a July competition in Marietta, Georgia, a platform, support, and a voice.
“I was launched into this after seeing Lia Thomas win the national title, standing on the same podium where I achieved my greatest swimming accomplishment,” Ms. Smith said.
Olympic gold medalists, American record holders, multiple world champions, and NCAA Women of the Year petitioned the NCAA for change but to no avail.
Despite no response, ICONS has become a resource for advocacy for women’s sports in a time when the trans ideology is challenging and encroaching on the domain of women, as seen in an adult male registering in a jujitsu tournament and being placed to compete with young women.
“It’s too shocking for the public to ignore at this point,” Ms. Smith said.
After Reduxx—a feminist media platform that spotlights the trans ideology’s corruption of women’s rights—began reporting on the issue, the jujitsu associations responded with their change in policies.
NAGA (North American Grappling Association), Submission Challenge, and ADCC Submission World Federation make public statements on their regulations for registering as one’s own sex, irrespective of gender identity.
On Oct. 28, NAGA stated, “We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions.”
