Thread by @hecheateddotorg

🧵Although I hadn't seen the results at the time, when I saw the Ice Breaker HEMA group post calling out "bigots" I knew that meant there were men participating in what is supposed to be the women's division.

I wasn't expecting it to be this bad though…

It turns out, all three medals in the "Women's and Underrepresented Longsword" event at the Icebreaker Open 2025, Gold, Silver, and Bronze, went to male fencers.

1st - Roman "Romana" Shemayev
2nd - John "Joan" Keizer
3rd - Andrew "Claire" Sell

The only woman who seems to have won anything in the entire Icebreaker Open 2025 tournament was Ania Chaney, who won "Honorable Conduct" award.

The Icebreaker organizers have succeeded in almost completely excluding women.

HeCheated has uncovered even more men competing in what are supposed to be "women's" HEMA events.

At the Spring Steel 2025 tournament, male athlete "Iris" Garcia (Monson) took 1st place in both the "Underrepresented Genders (URG)" (women's) longsword and messer events.

At the Messer Mayhem 2025, male athlete Jackson "Natalie" Johanek finished 1st in the "URG" messer, finishing ahead of fellow male athlete Brice "Beatrice" Lostracco.

Lostracco might be a familiar name. I've posted previously about his win in the "Women's+" Longsword at the Spring Fechten 2025 where he beat two other men, Michael "Fox" Graves (who came in third), and Drew "Mikela" Bonner.

At the 2025 SoCal Swordfight, possibly the largest HEMA event in the world, male athlete Connor "Maeve" Walls took 3rd in the A tier of the "URG" longsword while fellow male "Iris" Garcia finished in 5th.

In Tier B at that same event, male athlete Dawson "Drew" Lott took 4th.

It's truly sad to see how far HEMA organizers have fallen when it comes to including women.

Despite the claim that HEMA events have always been "inclusive" of men in the women's category, that is actually a more recent development.

In 2015, when Andrew "Haley" Horton-Loup attempted to join the women's division of the longsword event at the Pacific Northwest HEMA gathering, he was denied entry.

Despite outcry from the Lonin League, the organization Horton-Loup belonged to, the event organizers didn't budge and Horton-Loup ultimately competed in the mixed division (without issue) where he belonged.

That's right. In 2015, an organization in the Pacific Northwest was denying entry to a man who wished to participate in the women's category of HEMA fencing…

Another myth that just won't seem to die is that there is no male advantage in fencing, which includes HEMA events.

All fencers benefit from a longer reach, speed, and faster reaction times. Males have advantage in all of these.

The fact that women participate in mixed events does not mean they are not at a disadvantage to male competitors, it usually means there simply aren't enough female competitors to have a women's division.

Take the 2021 Wessex League event, for example, where male athlete "Alexandra (Alyx)" Austin placed 1st in the women's longsword event.

Austin also participated in the open longsword along with several of the female competitors. See where they ended up placing against males compared to female-only competition (with the exception of Austin).

Austin has only finished lower than 2nd in 1 event out of the 12 on record. At one point, he was reportedly ranked #1 "female" longsword fencer in the UK.

As a heterosexual man who works in "diversity and inclusion," he claims that male arousal when wearing women's clothing is no different than women "feeling sexy."

While HEMA has always had mixed events that women participate in (due to the lack of female participants, this is sometimes the only option available to them), somewhere along the line, activists infiltrated the organization and turned the formerly "women only" events into mixed events as well.

Despite the fact that HEMA labels some events as "women's+" or "underrepresented genders," all of these events are still often marketed towards women and are included in the "womens'" rankings.

Take this 2021 competition. What do you notice about the ratings of the "Women's Steel Longsword" event and the "Underrepresented Genders & Women's Steel Longsword" event?

Here's another from 2025. Huh…

While the HEMA ratings website seems to have labeled this a "Women's" event, HEMA scorecard calls it Women's+".

The renaming of the "Women's" division of HEMA events as "Women's+" or "Underrepresented Genders" is an attempt to disguise the fact that there are no longer any women's events in HEMA competitions, and all events are open to men.

This strategy has been employed in many athletic organizations where they call teams "gender diverse" or "inclusive" but continue to play in the "women's" league.

Some "women's" leagues rename themselves as "inclusive leagues" so that they can avoid criticism for allowing men in.

But in doing so, these leagues are doing something much worse. To avoid being accused of allowing men into women's leagues, they're simply openly eliminating women's sport entirely.