Transgender people competing in the sports of mixed martial arts is an extremely controversial topic in the modern day.
There have only ever been a couple of transgender MMA fighters who have competed in the major leagues & both of them had their fair share of controversy on social media and in the press.
The debate has 2 clear and distinct sides. One side believe that it is completely unfair for biological men to compete in a brute force sport against biological women. These people say that biological men are simply built differently. They are bigger, have thicker bone density & larger muscles and therefore, they should not be allowed to compete against women.
The argument has also been made that this limits the ability of biological women to achieve championship status in sports.
Take the recent outrage around Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who has broken multiple records in women’s swim races. People took to their social media to share outrage about what this would mean for women’s sports!
Then, there are others who claimed that as these transgender athletes identify as women & they live as women, then they should be allowed to compete with women, regardless of their biology.
In the sport of mixed martial arts, there have been 2 transgender athletes who have fought professionally with women’s MMA fighters.
Table of Contents
1. Fallon Fox
Fallon Fox was the first transgender MMA fighter to compete in professional fights against women competition.
Fox was born a biological man in Ohio in 1975. She is said to have struggled with gender identity since she was a child. At 17, she found out that ‘transgender’ people existed and from then on in, she knew that she wanted to become a woman.
“I was fighting a lot with my gender and my sexuality. Since I was a teenage boy I knew something was wrong with me, but I never wanted to admit it to myself. Everything I did, and the girls I was dating with, was just me trying to feel normal and accepted.”
Fallon Fox
Here is a picture of Fallon Fox, while she was a male:
She knew that she wanted to become a woman, but the surgeries were expensive and she had to save up, while continuing to live as a male.
Eventually, in 2006, she travelled to Bangkok with her daughter, where she went through her gender reassignment surgery at the Bangkok National Hospital.
She then decided to start training in mixed martial arts, eventually gaining her fighting license in the women’s divisions of Coral Gables.
It was at this time, March 5th, 2013, that she came out as a transgender individual. She later made her professional MMA debut in the same year. She competed against Allanna Jones at Championship Fighting Alliance 10 in Florida.
Fallon Fox won the bout only 39 seconds into the fight, via TKO. She broke her opponent’s nose with a high kick.
Fallon went on to win 3 consecutive fights against Allanna Jones, Ericka Newsome & Elisha Helsper before suffering her first loss against Ashlee Evans-Smith, in 2015.
Fox was stopped in the 3rd round by TKO, while fighting for the Featherweight belt at Championship Fighting Alliance 12.
Fight against Tamikka Brents
Fallon Fox’s whole MMA career was rife with controversy and a fair amount of outrage. However, this reached a whole new level when she fought against Tamikka Brents.
The fight lasted less than a round and Brents suffered from a fractured skull
Looking back on the fight, Tamikka Brents had a lot to say about the physical aspects of her opponent:
I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did today. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. What I can is that I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female. I still disagree with Fox fighting. She can pursue any career but when it comes to a combat sport I think it just isn’t fair.
Tamikka Brents
The news about this fight blew up in tabloids all over the world. Joe Rogan had thoughts of his own to share on the situation, and he was heavily critical.
She’s a f****** man
Joe Rogan
“First of all, she’s not really a she. She’s a transgender, post-op person,” Rogan said
“The operation doesn’t shave down your bone density… You look at a man’s hands and you look at a woman’s hands and they’re built different. They’re just thicker, they’re stronger, your wrists are thicker, your elbows are thicker, your joints are thicker.
Just the mechanical function of punching, a man can do it much harder than a woman can, period.”
Rogan later backtracked on his earlier comments, saying that he was overly critical and unfair on Fallon Fox:
It was people that don’t want any criticism whatsoever about trans people. And I was like, ‘Look, I don’t have a problem with trans people, right, I have a problem with someone pretending that they’re a biological woman and fighting women’… Once you say you’re trans and everybody says, ‘Okay, I’ll fight her’ — fine. I’m fine with that.
Joe Rogan
The negative press that Fox received from the fight became too much for her and she retired in 2014.
2. Alana MCLaughlin
Alana McLaughlin was the 2nd transgender individual to compete in MMA, after Fallon Fox.
Alana was born in 1983 a woman. As a youngster, she had asked her mother for permission to undergo gender reassignment surgery. However, her family was highly religious and her cries went unanswered.
Alana is a former member of the US Army Special Forces. She was a special forces medical sergeant who was part of a 12 man (or woman) team sent to Afghanistan in 2007. Her team’s speciality was treating IED casualties.
Eventually, in 2016, she underwent her gender reassignment surgery and became a woman. Due to how religious her family are, her and her mother no longer speak.
in 2021, McLaughlin made her professional MMA debut at Combate Global, fighting under the name “Lady Feral”. She wore a shirt to the fight which read “End Trans Genocide”.
She passed all medical tests required by the Florida State Boxing Commission before the fight, which proved that she had suitable hormone levels in her body to fight in women’s MMA competition.
She was matched up with Celine Provost and this fight made her only the 2nd transgender MMA history in history. She won via submission (rear-naked choke) in the 2nd round.
Funnily enough Fallon Fox was in the audience for McLaughlin’s fight. She said:
That was a pretty amazing thing to see… I was sitting there watching history
Fallon Fox
McLaughlin was well aware of who Fallon Fox was at the time and had high praise for her
Right now I’m following in Fallon’s footsteps. I’m just another step along the way, and it’s my great hope that there are more to follow behind me
Alana McLaughlin on “The Trans Sporter Room” podcast
However, just like with Fallon Fox’s fights, McLaughlin’s own fight sparked outrage in the MMA & global community.
Alana did not take the verbal beating lying down, however, as she took to her Instagram page to respond to her global criticism.
She has not fought since making her professional debut.
The article says, and I quote: “Alana was born in 1983 a woman.”
Then, later: “Eventually, in 2016, she underwent her gender reassignment surgery and became a woman.”
By deductive logic, at least one of these must be wrong.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw that. Somebody seriously needs to hire some better proofreaders. That killed the whole article.
I read that and had to reread those parts several times to try to make sense, which it never did, other than to show the authors bias and pro-trans positron. The author has to note how Fallon Fox fractured his opponents skull! But then fails to point out how he, Alana, left his opponent on the ring floor with blood pouring onto the matt.
She was matched up with Celine Provost and this fight made her only the 2nd transgender MMA history in history.
Aside from the mistakes pointed out already, heres another one.
These people are mentally ill! They desperately need psychiatric help.
MEN competing in combat sports with women is WRONG!!!!!
You’re technically and medically correct, their condition is called Sexual Dysphoria. When medical experts are courageous enough to offer truthful medical insight into those with this condition, they commonly state that mental treatment must start before any surgeries. Renowned John Hopkins hospital actually stopped preforming trans surgeries when statistics showed they didn’t lower the suicide rate of those patients.
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