Pro jiu-jitsu league bans trans athletes from competing against women after complaints from female fighters

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Following complaints from biological female competitors having to face trans women in matches, a prominent American Brazilian jiu-jitsu league banned "male-to-female" gender transitioners from competing against women in all its matches going forward.

In a social media post this week, North American Grappling Association (NAGA) President Kip Kollar announced that his league for the popular martial art will now exclude "male-to-female transgender athletes" from competing in the female divisions to maintain "fairness for female athletes."

Kollar declared that protecting fairness for female competitors is the league’s "paramount priority."

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A major American jiu-jitsu league recently banned trans women fighters from competing against biological female competitors. (V7 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

In the post that was shared to Instagram on Monday, Kollar announced, "Due to the legacy effects of being born male through puberty, in parallel with the policy of FINA (the world governing body for swimming), World Rugby, and numerous other global sports organizations, male-to-female transgender athletes who have gone through male puberty are excluded from competing in the female division at NAGA events."

He added, "This is position is of course even more important given the heightened potential for injury in grappling."

The decision comes after multiple female competitors complained about having to face biological male athletes in several of NAGA’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu female competitions.

Competitor Jayden Alexander recently took to social media to rail against having to fight males at various jiu-jitsu meets, including a NAGA one. She claimed she was "devastated" upon seeing her trans woman competition at an event during the summer, adding that the "The experience was horrible and scary" and that she was "absolutely in fight or flight mode."

Alexander told Fox News Digital Tuesday that she is "absolutely pleased with NAGA for not allowing biological men into our women's brackets any longer." She added, "I don't think trans-identified males should be banned from competing all together, I just don't believe they should be allowed in the biological females division."

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The North American Grappling Association recently announced its decision to keep trans women and biological female competitors from matching up with each other in future matches. (V7 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

135-pound female competitor Taelor Moore, shared a video of a fight she had with a 200-pound transgender athlete in September. She captioned the video, stating, "My biggest opponent yet."

Fellow female fighter Ansleigh Wilk claimed she went into "panic mode" upon seeing her transgender competitor in a July 8 match. Though she won the match, Wilk claimed, "They felt so strong, I was like, ‘Oh my God’ … I thought I couldn’t take them down."

In his statement about the rule-change announcement, Kollar admitted there was a loophole in NAGA rules that seemed to be allowing biological male athletes to sign up for all-female competitions. 

He stated, "The registration system used by most grappling events including NAGA, Smoothcomp, unfortunately only allows users to choose between male and female genders when registering. It does not provide an option to register as a transgender. Ideally, there should be an option in the registration to declare yourself as transgender. We have requested that this change be made in short order."

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The NAGA president concluded that rules governing the league will take into account "the science around male advantage and physical performance, which will inevitably develop over the coming years." 

He added, "As further evidence becomes available, we will review our position, but we believe the integrity of the female category in athletics is of the most profound importance."

Reps from NAGA pointed Fox News Digital to the league's updated transgender policy on Wednesday. The new policy stated, "We, as an organization, strive to ensure fairness, inclusivity, and respect for all competitors within our events. With regards to transgender females competing in NAGA, the following policy shall be implemented: Division for Biological Females: We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions."

The policy continued, stating, "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."

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