BUFFALO, N.Y. — Jamilah McBryde loves wrestling. In recent years, she hasn’t felt that wrestling has loved her back.

"I started wrestling about 15, 16 years ago," she said. "If you show up in a singlet, we'll let you compete, but you're not allowed to compete in your religiously adhering uniform."

Jamilah and two of her sisters are Muslim wrestlers. They wear a modified classic uniform to cover their bodies.

"In Islam, the hijab is a require requirement," she said. "God told me to wear it, so I wear the hijab, and so the opportunity to wrestle or to try and make an Olympic team does not even weigh on the scale for me."

It’s a battle the family has fought since 2022.

"My younger sister Latifah got second in her division, so she qualified for the Pan-Am team, and after she qualified we were informed that […] she would have to forfeit her spot or wear a singlet," Jamilah explained.

Their uniform has multiple layers: a singlet covered by a spandex long-sleeved shirt with a hood that acts as a hijab, then a tapered and velcroed team competition shirt, and full-length pants taped at the ankles.

After 2022, the UWW, or United World Wrestling, said that uniform needed to be tested for potential safety concerns or advantages. Since then, the three have wrestled at Life University in Georgia.

"Being in 2024, because it's an Olympic year, there was a rule that if you won nationals, if you won your weight class, you automatically qualified to compete at the USA Olympic team trials," McBryde explained. "So I went to Nationals, competed, and, praise God, I won."

That’s when she found out, two years after her sister was barred from competing, she would be too.

"As an American citizen, I have the right to compete at USA Wrestling events in America and I should have that right to compete," she said.

In a statement, USA Wrestling said:

"We are proud of our longtime member Jamilah McBryde, but this is an issue that is out of our control. Our international governing body, United World Wrestling (UWW), sets the rules for international wrestling, including the uniform standards. USA Wrestling requires that anyone competing at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials held in April and other U.S. team trials events follow UWW rules to ensure our athletes are eligible to compete at UWW events."

"USA Wrestling believes that our sport should be open to everyone, and in past non-Olympic events under our jurisdiction, we have allowed Muslim wrestlers – including Jamilah McBryde – to wear full-body uniforms to conform with the requirements of their religion. Our diversity, equity and inclusion committee has appointed a subcommittee to evaluate how our sport can be even more inclusive to Muslim women and we look forward to sharing our findings with our members and the UWW."

"I have personally seen and talked with young Muslim girls who […] dream about making a U.S. team or an Olympic team, a world team," said McBryde. "They could put this work in for years to try and make that happen, and know that just that last step - that last door they need - is slammed in their face."

The McBryde sisters have competed in hundreds of matches since 2022. Jamilah says that could have been used to show the UWW their uniform works.

Instead, they were informed of a 2023 decision keeping the rules in place following a test of the two different uniforms, which stated:

"The findings of this study revealed that both wrestlers faced unequal opportunities to fully execute their techniques and tactics, whether in offensive or defensive maneuvers. Consequently, this created an unbalanced and unjust competitive environment. In line with UWW's commitment to ensuring fairness and equality for all wrestlers, the rules pertaining to wrestling singlets remain unaltered."

"It was a one time event with two wrestlers wrestling once," McBryde said in response to those results. "They never mentioned if it was women wrestling, the material or their clothes, how long did they wrestle, what measures were there that determined that there was an unfair advantage. How can it be comprehensive?"

While her chance at the 2024 Olympic team is gone, Jamilah and her sisters will keep fighting for the right to compete, especially since, after the collegiate level, pretty much the only competitions available are affiliated with UWW.

"If the rules aren't changed, this could potentially be the last two years we get to wrestle," she explained.

With wrestling growing in popularity for women and girls, she has one message for those who might stand in their way.

"Let women compete. Make it inclusive. Allow women to compete in uniforms that are religiously adhering," she said. "It doesn't change the sport, and it could only advance the sport."

This decision isn’t just costing them competitions. Not having the accolades of competing in, or possibly winning, these high-level matches could make coaching jobs harder to get.

McBryde is collecting signatures on a petition, and is looking into legal action.

Spectrum News 1 Buffalo did reach out to United World Wrestling, based in Switzerland, for a statement. They did not respond.