Trans people & sports

[paulpablo]

She hasn't won something in a big way every now and again though,

She cranked a girl once and people lost their shit.

she's won more than every now and again and lost less than every now and again.  She's lost one and won 8 that you know of. 

-she's won something in a big way..a grand total of once...and even that's suspect..since her competitors are considered to be second class competitors (or worse).  

I tend to lean in agreement with what a lot of people have said on this thread concerning the fact that I don't think that advantage necesserily means an unfair fight, some women have more testosterone than others naturally and I don't know where the line should be drawn although I admit to not be an expert in the subject.

What advantage, what trans advantage does she have?  Hell, what advantage does she have period.  Shes not bigger, she's not a "better" shape, you understand that her hormone levels aren't at issue, and her bones are no more or less an advantage than that possessed by the darker fighter™ in an inter-racial match.  

What advantage.....?

But even with that being my perspective it seems dishonest to say that Falon Fox has won in a big way everynow and again when she's lost one fight out of eight.

She's not good enough for the UFC, not even close, not even against women, or so the party line goes.  What "seems dishonest" to you is just a recounting of how the hubbub began for her.

If you think winning eight fights is winning something once, I don't know what to say to that.

I haven't said there is an advantage in being trans, my point was that beyond the fact of their being ANY advantage in between fighters it might not make an unfair fight.  Fighters agree to fight other fighters who have a reach, height and muscle advantage all the time and win.


If there's some medical experts on the one hand who say there's a decrease in muscle mass and bone structure and that might make them more able to compete against females, then there's people who have careers in fighting, martial arts experts, plus the people who have fought trans opponents saying there is an inherant strength advantage, who would I be to stand in the middle of that argument and say I know more than either of those groups?

Here are some points from Falon Fox's wikipedia, mirroring all the points I've made.

UFC president Dana White claimed that "bone structure is different, hands are bigger, jaw is bigger, everything is bigger" and said "I don’t think someone who used to be a man and became a woman should be able to fight a woman.”

During Fox's fight against Tamikka Brents, Brents suffered a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and seven staples to the head in the 1st round. After her loss, Brents took to social media to convey her thoughts on the experience of fighting Fox: “I've fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” she stated. “Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…

UFC color commentator and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan and MMA personality Bas Rutten came out in strong opposition to Fallon Fox receiving licensing,[8] with Rogan stating “First of all, she's not really a she. She's a transgender, post-op person. The operation doesn't shave down your bone density. It doesn't change. 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.” Current state of research indicates that some transwomen have less muscle strength and bone density than men, even though still higher than women, prior to medical treatment. The researchers concluded that this was likely due to a difference in lifestyle, not some innate biological difference in transwomen

Eric Vilain, the director of the Institute For Society And Genetics at UCLA, worked with the Association of Boxing Commissions when they wrote their policy on transgender athletes. He stated in Time magazine that “Male to female transsexuals have significantly less muscle strength and bone density, and higher fat mass, than males” and was quoted as saying that, to be licensed, transgender female fighters must undergo complete “surgical anatomical changes […], including external genitalia and gonadectomy” (see sex reassignment surgery) and subsequently a minimum of two years of hormone replacement therapy, administered by a board certified specialist. In general concurrence with peer-reviewed scientific literature, he states this to be "the current understanding of the minimum amount of time necessary to obviate male hormone gender related advantages in sports competition". Vilain reviewed Fox's medical records and said she has “clearly fulfilled all conditions.”[/url] When asked if Fox could, nonetheless, be stronger than her competitors, Vilain replied that it was possible, but noted that "sports is made up of competitors who, by definition, have advantages for all kinds of genetics reasons".Fox herself responded to the controversy with an analogy in a guest editorial for a UFC and MMA news website: As an ethnic group, African American women statistically have bone mineral densities close to Caucasian males[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallon_Fox#cite_note-21] and bones more resistant to fracture, which, however, does not imply an unfair advantage of individual African Americans, either.

I don't know the answer to if they have an advantage or not, plus as I just said in the previous paragraph, I don't know how you'd define a fair fight anyway on the basis that people are going to have advantages in fights whatever happens anyway.

I imagine a reason why Falon hasn't fought in UFC is because the main people in that organization have said transexuals have an unfair advantage as shown in the quotes by Dana White and Joe Rogan.

Ronda Rousey won't fight her, not because she believes she's not a good enough opponent but because she believes she may have an advantage over naturally born females.

I don't necesserily agree with their opinions but I don't dismiss their expertise in fighting either.