This an attempt to nail my colours to the mast and have fuckwits self-eject.

tl;dr trans men are men, trans women are women, women belong in the sport and the training environment is greatly improved by having a certain critical mass of diversity.

99+% of the time there's no good reason to exclude women from training with men, and there are few reasons to prevent open competition. In my experience, the biggest hurdle to women's ability in fencing is getting past that "you're allowed to hit people?" stage. After the first goblin giggle, they tend to be hooked and become good fencers. I will not entertain "women don't belong in the sport" and firmly believe that women's only competitions are only needed due to the inadequacy of men than any lack from women.

But it's not historically accurate.

Walpurgis in i.33 Earliest known manuscript has a woman, the petticoat duel, there's lots of examples of women fencing throughout the centuries. There is a historical precedent. Suffragettes used Bartitsu theres manuscripts on ladies self defence.

Leaving Politics out of the Salle.

Yes. I agree. But not in a way that people say this would accept

Being trans is no more inherently political than the value of pi. Trans men are men, trans women are women. Being gay is just a fact. There would be no political aspect if others were not attacking their right to live a peaceful and genuine life.

If you do not see them as real and genuine people, then you are not safe to spar.
If you need to defeat them, you are not safe to spar.
If you're learning so you can more efficiently assault non-consenting people, you can fuck right off until you've traversed the globe. Then when you get back here, you can continue fucking off

As an instructor, the best questions have come from people who are not like me in stature or mindset. They ask things I have not considered. They make me think about my interpretation and assumptions. I can learn more from one question than I can from a week of staring at a play.