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Fallon Fox: Transgenders shouldn’t have to disclose medical history to fight in women’s MMA

By Zach Arnold | March 17, 2013

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Jonathan Solomon: Fallon Fox debate divides women’s MMA community

“I don’t believe that a transgender fighter should have to disclose her personal medical history to other female fighters before they fight. Simply for the reason that the medical community and the scientific community has come to the consensus that post-operative transsexual fighters who have been on hormone replacement therapy and testosterone suppression, when they’re going from male to female, don’t have or haven’t been found to have any physiological advantages over other women. So, why should we have to disclose our personal medical history? There’s a lot of pain involved in having to disclose your post-transgender history, a lot of things that you might not want to disclose… so, I say no, I don’t think that we should have to disclose our information.”

Related: The real questions not being asked in Fallon Fox/Florida debacle

“I do believe that it may deter some fighters from fighting me in the future. Some fighters have already said that they would not want to fight me. I think that’s because they’re scared, number one because I’m pretty good and, um, or they might just have a bias or they just might be a hate-filled person who doesn’t want to touch me or whatever but, um, I don’t want to fight those people anyways because they’re scared and what kind of fight would that be? I want to fight someone who’s going to come after me aggressively and who wants to fight me and I want a good fight. That’s what I’m looking for in the future.”

Fight Medicine: A medical and scientific analysis of transgender MMA fighters — do they have an advantage?

“You know, I am using still, you know, I’m prescribed it but at the same time I’m going to take more precautions. I’m going to quit five weeks out. I guess three weeks wasn’t enough and I’m pretty confident that should be enough to keep it out of my system.”

“I think it effects everybody a little differently and it doesn’t really slow me down, it just makes things normal, you know? I’m really hyper, I’m high-paced and, you know, just slows thing down and it also helps me with a bunch of other ailments, so… You know, to me, it’s a miracle plant, you know. To the Government, I guess it’s against the law in some states or whatever but where I’m from in Nevada, here, it’s legal. I’m a legal patient.”

JOE ROGAN: “I think it might actually enhance you. There’s a lot of guys who like to do marijuana and do jiu-jitsu because they say it enhances their feel and you could also argue that marijuana helps you absorb pain, it helps you deal with pain. It’s a pain reliever. So, you wouldn’t want anybody to be fight on something that allows them to take more pain.”

MATT RIDDLE: “It doesn’t (help numb the pain) and I also want to say that I don’t want to fight high, you know, I’m not trying to smoke before I get into the cage, take a bong ringside, you know I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to be able to use my medicine maybe two weeks prior to a fight…”

Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

26 Responses to “Fallon Fox: Transgenders shouldn’t have to disclose medical history to fight in women’s MMA”

  1. Jonathan says:

    that is pretty low of her to say that people who do not want to fight her are either homophobic or are somehow opposed to touching her. no. it is for the same reason that a lightweight does not want to fight a heavyweight. the playing field is uneven and unfair

    • The operative word here is OR. She’s saying they OR they don’t want to touch her, etc. She is discussing that there is a likelihood that they are uncomfortable or biased against her for being transgender. Which, quite frankly, is a very likely proposition.

      Your argument here is predicated on any and all fighters who turn down her fight doing so universally for one very specific reason. In your desire to dismiss her accusation that some fighters may be transphobic, you’ve prescribed them all with a rational, open mind. But that simply isn’t and, frankly, can’t be the case. It is like saying that because you have a boss that is not racist, than any black man who is fired simply could not have been for racist reasons. But it IS a possibility. Of course it is. We are not living in this perfect, utopian post-racial post-homophobic society where any suggestion of discrimination is “arrogant” or wrong-headed. I mean Christ, we can just flip through a newspaper and you’ll see it.

      As for there specifically being an unfair advantage, there really isn’t much to that. At all. She’s biologically a woman and has been for many, many years. She is fighting other women in her same weight class. The comment about her developing through puberty as a man giving her an unfair advantage does not come from a doctor or scientist, but rather the guy who trained a girl who lost to her. Hardly a medical professional or expert, and that people are taking him as such astounds me.

      Besides, different people have different bodies that form differently and grow differently. So are we to say that if a male had a smoother transition into adulthood and better muscle growth development than another male, and/or that they are a more natural athlete, then it is an unfair fight even if they are in the same weight class?

      • 45 Huddle says:

        I would say if you are born with a penis you compete with me. If you are born with a vagina you compete with women. That isn’t that tough.

        She made a CHOICE to chop off her penis. Her mind might have told her she is trapped in a woman’s body. And that is fine. But she made the CHOICE to actually go through with the surgery. And when you chop off your penis, it does sadly close a few doors in life. This is one of the few occasions where it should.

        Should she be protected if she were fired from a desk job for being transgender? Absolutely. Should she be able to marry a man or a woman? Absolutely. Should she be able to punch a female in the face in MMA? NOPE!!

        The MMA Community has now made it clear they no longer want TRT. Basically if you cannot naturally produce the hormones necessary to compete at a high level, you are out of luck. (The commissions will hopefully soon follow).

        Why should there be any difference for transgender individuals? Should a woman becoming a man be able to take testosterone in order to compete as a man? Well if Chael Sonnen shouldn’t be able to do it…. Then why should the transgender person?

        And the other way around…. If Fox can’t naturally produce the correct hormones to be a woman…. Why should she be able to compete in MMA?

        • Jay B. says:

          What you said Huddle was spot on at the end of it. If you are not producing your hormones naturally and need someting to supplement your body in an unnatural manner. You probably shouldnt be fighting anyone.

          And as I stated earlier, she didnt disclose her medical history for a reason, so she could circumvent system and fight women without questions being asked. She will be fighting on indian reservations anyways once commissions deny her any chance of fighting chicks.

          While not the same, Japan once thought it was acceptable to have Genichiro Tenryu punch Kandori (female) legitimiately in the face until her face was bruised and bloody. Alot of bad rep for that.

          So lets face the facts all these guys who think she is trailblazing are lying to themselves. This is an individual who doesnt even wanna play by the rules given to her.

      • Steve4192 says:

        “She’s biologically a woman and has been for many, many years”

        No, she’s not.

        She is intellectually and emotionally a woman, but biologically she is a man without the reproductive organs who has chemically altered her estrogen / testosterone levels. She doesn’t have ovaries. She doesn’t have mammary glands. She still has internal male reproductive organs. She has a Y chromosome. Biologically and genetically, she is a man.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          And really that is how they should handle it. Do a Chromosome Check…

          XY’s get one division. XX’s get another division.

          Simple and easy.

          And then transgender athletes should be kept to the same standards that regular athletes are. Regular athletes are not allowed to change their hormone levels (I think TRT will be outlawed in MMA soon). And Transgender athletes should have that same criteria.

          Chael Sonnen shouldn’t be able to take something to get his hormone levels to a certain level. Dana White is even now saying this. Why should Fallon Fox be able to? She shouldn’t. No more double standards.

          It’s more of this garbage: “We want to be equal when it favors us, but we want special privileges when they don’t.”

          I saw they need to be equal all of the time….

  2. Chuck says:

    I do believe that she should be able to fight women IF her medical records are disclosed to her opponents. The level of arrogance on display from her is staggering. Jonathan already said a good analogy at the end of his comment.

    The screen grab of the Riddle video makes him look like a total stoner. Totally coincidental, but I just find it funny.

  3. As for Rogan’s points:

    Marijuana can provide numbness to avoid pain, but that’s a different subject altogether because then we’re talking about FIGHTING HIGH. That’s not what happened with Riddle and has occurred with other fighters. Even then you have to wonder about reflexes and other factors being negatively affected.

    Also: “There’s a lot of guys who like to do marijuana and do jiu-jitsu because they say it enhances their feel”

    That’s almost right out of Eddie Bravo’s mouth. He’s a big, big proponent of that. And AFAIK really the only one. It’s bullshit pseudo-science.

  4. Mark says:

    I wonder if K-1 is considering making a transgender division to get their freak show fight mojo back. Although they’d probably just decide to do Akebono vs. Fallon Fox or something for Dynamite!! 2013.

  5. 45 Huddle says:

    Taking the high road type of answer: “I can’t say why people do not want to fight against me. You would have to ask them.”

    Fox’s answer: ” I think that’s because they’re scared, number one because I’m pretty good and, um, or they might just have a bias or they just might be a hate-filled person who doesn’t want to touch me or whatever but, um, I don’t want to fight those people anyways because they’re scared and what kind of fight would that be?”

    She is not doing herself any favors with answers like that….

    ***********

    Joe Rogan is right. MJ does have positive effects for fighters.

    Fans have a problem with fighters being on TRT because despite being at normal levels during fight, they can elevate their levels during training and get a better result out of it.

    From what Joe Rogan says, MJ does the same thing. So AC’s finding MJ in your system during a fight shows that the fighter had an advantage with a federally illegal drug.

    At the end of the day…. It wasn’t so much the weed that got Riddle in trouble. It was his lack of ability to learn from a mistake. If they banned eating Fruity Pebbles before a fight and a fighter gets busted twice in a year from it…. He is showing that the suspension did not teach him the lesson it was supposed to.

    It’s like a parent having two teenage girls. One gets caught with alcohol ONE time and gets grounded for 30 days because of it. The other one is late just 5 minutes after her curfew, but does it 5 times in a week after being warned multiple times. She too is likely to get the same punishment as her sister. Why? It isn’t because being late by 5 minutes is as big of a deal as underage drinking. It is because she continues to not learn from her same mistakes over and over again.

    This is why Matt Riddle is no longer in the UFC.

  6. Steve4192 says:

    Regarding transgenders competing in MMA, there is no hard data either way. To the best of my knowledge, there have not been any studies on the long-term effects of transgender surgery / treatment in regards to athletic performance in general or combat sports in particular. Both sides of the argument are spouting supposition and pseudoscience.

    Given that we don’t have any real data on the subject, I would prefer to err on the side of caution. If you are going to let transgenders compete against women, the very least you can do is let the woman make an informed decision. I find it appalling that an athletic commission would allow a woman to fight a transgender without letting her know her opponent was born a man.

    Ed. — Your assumption is that Florida’s commission actually bothered to check medicals and discover Fallon Fox’s status. I don’t think they even bothered with that.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      But even if we find out that there is no competitive advantage….

      Why can transgender athletes alter their hormone levels… But then non-transgender athletes cannot? That is not fair.

      The entire debate about TRT is whether or not a fighter should be able to get his low T levels to a “normal” range. And more and more people are saying “NO”. If they don’t produce it naturally, tough luck.

      The same rules should be applied to transgender athletes.

      If they need a needle to get the correct hormone levels, they should be treated equal to every other athlete who has been forbidden to do so.

      Competitive Advantage doesn’t even have to enter the debate here…

      • Mark says:

        Testosterone or not, men have superior strength to women also due to their muscle build. So having the sex organs cut off and taking estrogen pills doesn’t change that. Nobody but commissions who don’t care or non-US promotions giddy for the freakshow value will ever let a transgender fight a real woman.

        • Steve4192 says:

          I think it has less to do with freakshow value and more to do with being perceived as intolerant. They figure it is easier to just let transgenders fight women rather than deal with the potential PR backlash when the gay/lesbian/transgender community comes after them guns a blazing. The whole issue is a political hot potato and they would rather sacrifice fighter safety than deal with it.

        • Mark says:

          They would have a problem if they denied an all transgender division. Or even Fox fighting men is sympathetic. But 99.9% of people will think this is an absurd request. So I don’t even think a reputable organization like GLADD would get involved with this. So a backlash would be minimal.

        • Jay B. says:

          Pretty sure the promoters down in Florida dont want to take her off the card because they want a Freakshow and they think its going to draw publicity and prestige their crappy little promotion.

          Florida should be receiving backlash for the circus sideshow they are running and not taking proper checks into Fallon Fox debacle.

          Now we got Fallon fox telling sob stories, telling us how she doesnt wanna follow the rules when applying for licenses and how she deserves to beat up and fight females even though its clear she is nothing like the average female.

  7. frankp316 says:

    She’s supposed to be part of this CFA tournament and the next round was supposed to be in April. But the promoter has already postponed her match pending licensing. If she doesn’t get a license, it’s over. BTW, the promoter was not aware that she is transgender until it came out afterwards. Fallon Fox and her manager deliberately withheld that info on the license app and the Florida AC stupidly rubber stamped it instead of looking into her medical records as they should have. The manager should have known better. They are trying to get away with something and the jig is up.

  8. Bellator Fan says:

    Dana White will eventually make a tranny division if people will watch it.

  9. frankp316 says:

    If he defies the AC, they take away his license. He’s out of business. No one fighter is worth that.

  10. Jay B. says:

    Possibly, promoters are delaying the tournament for Fox anyways. So I guess if she is denied. Its over then for her and back to Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma or whatever sovereign ground she can find.

  11. […] Fox doesn’t believe that trans people should be required to disclose their medical history, she did, and her license has been cleared.) In the U.S. we teach boys never to hit girls. We don’t […]

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