Women+ Category

The Women’s category in HEMA tournaments was created, among other reasons, to provide meaningful challenges for women. The overarching goal was to:

  • Allow female fencers to test their skills in a setting without routine physical disadvantages.
  • Understand their progress year by year in comparison to their peers.
  • Provide better access to tournaments for an underrepresented gender in our sport.
  • Ensure people recognize that their gender does not prevent them from participating in historical fencing.

While the primary intention has been to support women, we acknowledge that many of the considerations above equally apply to many non-binary fencers. Therefore, this tournament is open to:
a) Women
b) Any non-binary fencers who feel the issues described above also apply to them and that their participation would not detract from the tournament’s goals regarding women.

We recognize the diversity of non-binary genders, and not all non-binary individuals may feel comfortable participating in the Women’s+ tournament. It is entirely up to the individual fencers to decide if they feel the Women’s+ tournament is suitable for them. The Open tournaments are open to all genders.