UFC fighter and BJJ brown belt Sean O’Malley is the latest of MMA fighters who have voiced their thoughts and criticisms of Alana McLaughlin – the transgender fighter who had her MMA debut against a female fighter Celine Provost, winning it by Rear Naked Choke.
In her past, McLaughlin was a male enlisted in the US military. 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. Today, she 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.
Check out the fight’s highlights and McLaughlin’s choke below:
Alana Mclaughlin (pink hair), the second transgender fighter wins MMA debut.
How do you guys feel about this? #ufc pic.twitter.com/HH1TgVDGwW
— Weasle (@ThaWeasle) September 11, 2021
In the latest episode of his podcast, O’Malley criticized McLaughlin:
I don’t think that’s okay. I just don’t think that’s okay. In just competing in sports, I mean, especially mixed.
It’s like she had testosterone for, who knows, 20 to 30 years of her life and now I’m a girl. You could tell that’s a dude. A jacked girl. I mean, look at those arms.