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Michael Bisping on Transgender fighter Alana McLaughlin: “It’s Unfair To Women’s MMA”

Michael Bisping on Transgender fighter Alana McLaughlin: “It’s Unfair To Women’s MMA”

Former UFC middleweight champion & UFC analyst Michael Bisping shared his views on the transgender MMA fighter Alana McLaughlin, implying that “this is not fair to women’s MMA.”
McLaughlin became a controversial figure in the mixed martial arts world because she recently made her professional MMA debut and defeated Celine Provost in a Combate Global promotion. McLaughlin, a former US special forces, is the first transgender fighter since Fallon Fox in the early 2010s, and many fans, media, and fighters disagree about McLaughlin fighting in a cage.

Bisping shared his thoughts on McLaughlin on his podcast. As for Bisping, he believes that McLaughlin should not compete with women in MMA. According to him, he has no problems with McLaughlin in general sports competitions, but in terms of martial arts, Bisping believes that McLaughlin should not fight in a cage and fight against female fighters.

“I’m not here to talk about transgender rights, you can identify as whatever you want. But I do believe that if you’re a woman that feels trapped in a man’s body, there are certain advantages that you should have to give up. If you have the body of a man, competing against girls or women, when you’re using your body to beat someone unconscious, has to be one of those things you sacrifice,”

On September 10, transgender MMA fighter Alana McLaughlin won her MMA debut against Celine Provost. She won in the second round by submitting Provost by a rear naked choke, although it wasn’t an easy fight for the novice.

McLaughlin, in her past, was a male enlisted in the US military in 2003. She put on muscle, rose up the Army ranks and became a special forces medical sergeant, part of an elite, 12-man team dispatched to Afghanistan in 2007. She left the service in 2010, and was diagnosed with PTSD.
Today, the 38-year-old McLaughlin is the first transgender athlete to openly participate in a mixed martial arts competition since Fallon Fox entered the mixed martial arts arena in 2014. She underwent a ‘sex reassignment surgery’ in 2016 and has passed all medical requirements, including hormone ratings, before making her MMA debut.

After she received, in her words, “a lot of variations of the same nasty messages”, she decided to react on her social media:

Good morning, friends, supporters and others! I’m getting a lot of variations of the same nasty messages calling me a cheater like I didn’t just get beat on for a round and a half. Y’all need to show Céline Provost some respect and take your concern trolling elsewhere.
She almost finished me more than once, and on scorecards she definitely won that first round. This is the only post I’ll make about this. Transphobes are just making my block hand stronger.