Several female competitors dropped out of a jiu-jitsu tournament last weekend out of fear for their safety. The women were being forced to fight against transgender women. The inclusion of men in the women’s competition made the women feel scared and unsafe during the matches.

The good news is that the world’s largest grappling association, the North American Grappling Association (NAGA), has been forced to change its transgender participant policy because of the backlash.

The women who were scheduled to compete last weekend say they were not warned that they would be fighting transgender women in recent matches. They were forced to fight transgender women in previous tournaments. The policy change came on October 28 after the women boycotted the competition last weekend.

This is how it is done. Women have to boycott competitions when transgender athletes are allowed to enter the competition. They have to refuse to cooperate and shut it down. Women have tried to reason with athletic organizations, speaking out about the unfairness of women competing against men in sports. Organizations and schools are slow in changing their socially woke policies which allowed men to compete as women, as though that is normal and fair to women.

NAGA should have been paying closer attention to what is happening in women’s sports when it comes to policies on transgender athletes. Men are physically stronger and faster than women. That is biology. I thought we are supposed to follow the science in arguments. Or, does that only count in climate change arguments? Science shows us that men and women are different, whether social activists want to accept that or not. Men do not magically become women when they chemically stifle puberty or mutilate their bodies surgically. Chromosomes remain the same.

When men are allowed to compete in women’s sports, the men take the spots of women who have trained for years to compete in that sport. It denies women access to sports, which is what Title IX was all about – opening up sports to women. The transgender movement is taking women backwards. The only way to demand that women have their own competitions is for them to refuse to compete against men. Some competitions are including more than one transgender athlete.

Professional martial artist Jayden Alexander said she was left ‘devastated’ after fighting a transgender woman in July and had self-excluded from future competitions to avoid fighting them again.

‘The experience was horrible and scary,’ Alexander said in a recent social media post about the experience. ‘I was absolutely in fight or flight mode and as a seasoned competitor, I can honestly say I’ve never been there mentally before in a match.

‘In the upcoming months, when I went to compete again, I had to self-exclude from a world series of Jiu Jitsu and from a women’s absolute bracket at a NAGA to avoid competing with not one but two trans-male athletes,’ Alexander explained.

It isn’t just an issue of fairness, either. It is a safety issue. Trans athletes are often much heavier than the women they are competing against. That puts women in physical danger.

The NAGA policy originally stated that women would not be forced to compete against transgender fighters. Several women have spoken out that this is not the case. So, they boycotted a tournament in October held in Georgia. Two trans athletes took home medals at that tournament – one received four gold medals and another placed second in the tournament.

At first Jayden Alexander hesitated to speak out. She was afraid to be labeled as transphobic.

‘The simple fact of the matter is that men, signing up in a combat sport to fight women is absolutely unacceptable. We don’t deserve to have to self-exclude from competitions to avoid fighting men,’ she added.

‘We deserve for there to be rules and regulations put into place that keep us safe and that protect us from these situations happening in the first place.’

The women who boycotted said that sometimes they are not told about athletes who are transgender and only realize it when the competition begins. It forces them into panic mode. The issue came into the spotlight in September. A video went viral of Taelor Moore, a 135lb woman fighting a 200lb trans athlete. Moore won that match. At the time, the NAGA policy was that women were given the choice to fight transgender women. But women soon came forward, like Alexander, who said they were not informed or consulted before fights about trans competitors. So, NAGA was forced to change its policy.

Sharing their update last week, NAGA said: ‘We, as an organization, strive to ensure fairness, inclusivity, and respect for all competitors within our events.

‘We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions.

‘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.’

That is how it should be – how it must be. Men compete in men’s competitions. Stay out of the women’s competitions. The more women speak out and say enough is enough, the sooner the rules will go back to how they should be. Anything else is unacceptable.