After UFC fighter Julian Erosa got done submitting his opponent in the ring on Saturday, he decided to use part of his postgame new conference to, for some reason, go after Lia Thomas, the trans woman swimmer who last competed two years ago.
“I don’t like cheaters.” Erosa said after his UFC Fight Night win over Ricardo Ramos.”I wanted to call out Lia Thomas. I wanted to encourage her, encourage him, to transition from women’s swimming into women’s MMA, and then I’ll transition into become a woman and beat that dude’s ass.”
I love that Erosa is so confused that he first used the accurate pronoun for Thomas before correcting himself, then making a bizarre challenge to transition to female if Thomas would decide to take up mixed martial arts.
I doubt that Thomas, who is in law school, has time for such nonsense, though it would be funny to see Erosa have to go through the hormone therapy necessary to transition.
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Erosa then went after Fallon Fox, a trans woman MMA fighter who last fought in 2014.
“It’s all about getting a little bit of shock value,” Erosa said. “The world we’re living in, there’s no common sense any more and it’s becoming a bit ridiculous. … I just don’t agree with men’s in women’s sports. The whole Fallon Fox thing, girls .. er, guys that are fighting in women’s MMA and knocking them out, it’s a bad look.”
I love that for the second time, Erosa correctly gendered a female trans athlete before correcting himself to stick to his transphobic narrative.
Erosa’s rant is the latest from a UFC fighter, though he still has a ways to go to top Sean Strickland, who revels in making homophobic and transphobic comments.
Erosa’s comments were dutifully reported on by the usual online outlets that thrive in bashing trans women athletes, though it’s the same offensive shtick over and over.
Since there are almost no examples of trans women dominating their sports, they keep bringing up Fox and Thomas as their poster children for why such athletes should be banned. Sadly, the anti-trans lobby has been very successful in marginalizing trans women in many sports, making their competition all but impossible.
There was one thing where I do agree with Erosa: He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, though he used a much more unintentionally nonsensical yet hilarious analogy.
“I’m not the smartest crayon in the box,” he said. No debate there.
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