You can't make this up @Commodore @Os Trigonum @cheke64 This person regardless of what they identify as has had testosterone and male features for decades.. I wonder why there aren't any biological females that identify as males in MMA hmm
I have pretty mixed feelings about this. In general men are stronger per weight than women after adolescence. Even with gender reassignment surgery on an adult their still are differences that would make a trans female likely still stronger than a comparably sized cis female. One reason why we have weight classes is to try to even out strength advantages and primarily for safety. As noted in the fight though strength alone isn't the sole determinant in success and while Alana did win this fight Provost did fight well and Alana won more on technique than simply overpowering. Watching the fight it seems like if Provost had a better ground game might've been able to win. Also I had a student who was a post operative trans female. She competed as a female but didn't dominate at her division and did lose matches to more skilled females. Also for her weight seemed at comparative strength to females her weight rather than males. For combat sports safety needs to be vital and certainly having significantly stronger opponents is risky. I'm still undecided though if trans females are so significantly stronger than cis females that they should be banned from competition. We also need to consider that frequently people voluntarily fight up in weight and it's not unusual for competitors at the lighter weight fight up due to lack of competition at their own weight. When I was coming up my competition division was 60 Kg (132 lbs) and in most small tournaments there were few adult competitors so many of my matches were against opponents 20 lbs or more heavier. I think the way this match was handled was about right. Provost volunteered for the fight and I think for now combat sports for trans should be done as optional with opponents willing to volunteer and withdraw without penalty if they feel that it wouldn't be safe to fight a trans.
Yeah i think in fighting they should have their own division. Trans MMA or whatever would be better. Then again the girls signed up for it so it's really up to them if they think it's fair or not.
How about just an open tournament where anyone can fight? They can call it....MORTAL KOMBAT!!! Men, Women, Non-Binary, Trans, Straight, Gay, Monster, Four Arms, Cyborgs....it's the dream....
If women want to get potentially beat up by mentally ill males, that's their decision. Personally, I think it defeats the purpose of separating the sexes in athletic competition so that real women can compete on a level paying field, but if they choose to fight males, they should be allowed to.... and they won't necissarily always lose.
inclusivity is the way of the future. also what's the difference between transexual and transgender? back then we used to say transexual until recently the latter was used.
In this instance, it was voluntary. End of story. Nothing controversial about this MMA event. Generally, I think this whole topic is much ado about nothing. I don't believe there are any (or many) world records held by a suspected transgender female athletes. Clearly elite athletes are physically superior to the rest of the competition. So why are some physical traits okay while other physical traits are not? It's hard to draw a line about gender without being hypocritical. What if a "female" athlete naturally has high testosterone. That's okay? What makes an elite athlete elite? I don't have the answers. It's tough. I only question that these instances are edge cases that are rarely, if ever, impactful on the actual sport yet draw a disproportionate amount of attention. Meanwhile, there are other "edge cases" where athletes just want to go out there and compete but can't because of irrational biases due to some seemingly arbitrary line about gender.
It seems to me the real issue is being a successful trans athlete. No one would care if a trans fighter had a 3-8 record with paltry highlights that were hard to clip in such a way as to frame a total mismatch based on physiology. It's the perception that a fighter's success is based on their transitioning instead of usual competitive metrics on a perceived even playing field.
I don't think biological men competing in women's Dungeons & Dragons tournaments is as controversial as this.
