Ashlee Evans-Smith, the woman who handed me my first professional MMA loss, now says that I have unfair advantages that should bar me from competing against other women. Let me repeat: The fighter WHO BEAT ME says I have UNFAIR ADVANTAGES.
"I don't feel like Fallon should fight dudes," she said. "I don't feel like she should fight women. I feel like there should be a unique organization for those needs. She did have an advantage. She definitely did." [Check out the interview of Evans-Smith below]
Her interview was hard to watch. She started out by saying that I didn't have a strength advantage or a cardio advantage, which is exactly what I've been saying this whole time. Then she went on to say that I hit hard.
Damn right I hit hard! I'm a MMA fighter and that's what we do! It's not as if there are not other female MMA fighters who can hit as hard as or harder than me. Marciea Allen has trained with me before, and it's been my experience that she hits harder than me. When I fought Allana Jones, both of us could tell that I hit harder than her. So, I fit pretty neatly in the variation of strength and punching power alongside my sister competitors.
I'm not complaining about the advantages Ashlee had over me, and I lost. Her leg strength was stronger than mine for sure. It aided her technique when I took her down and she just sprang back up almost every time. It plays well into her fighting style.
And she admitted that her cardio was better for this fight. So, do I then go around complaining about her physical attributes or skill? Do I now say, "Hey, Ashley was taller than me, her legs were stronger, her cardio was better. She beat me, what the hell? I think that fighters with her characteristics should be in a separate category from all other female fighters!"
No, I won't say that. I realize that all female fighters come with different attributes and we compete with each other in order to see who is better at getting around them within the category of "woman." That is the whole point.
She needs to get it together. It's not as if I knocked her out in five seconds like Veronica Rothlenhouser did. Yes, that was her amateur career. But seriously, what happens if she faces her again? What happens if she faces Julia Budd or Ediane Gomes? What happens if she drops down to 135 and fights Sara McMann, Sarah Kaufman, or Holly Holm? Those are women with strength or punching power that is likely equal to or greater than mine.
But, that's clearly not really what this is about. This is about the category she has me in within her own mind. It's apparent to me that many people see me as "transgender" and not "woman," meaning they don't look at me as female, they don't look at me as male, they look at me as something "other". How rude and uneducated! All of this "misgendering" because they are not used experiencing a trans woman.
I am not an "other." I am female, a woman. I am classified as a transgender woman or transsexual woman. The terms simply label the type of woman that I am. Black woman, white woman, lesbian woman, and straight woman are other examples of labels we put on different types of women. Saying that I should be segregated in a class of only trans women is ignorant and discriminatory. It's much like how they tried to say that black women shouldn't be allowed in track when they first competed. They said they belonged in a separate category all to themselves.
Every minority in sports has to go through this, and all because of ignorance and fear. It's only been within the last hundred years or so that modern medicine has created the ability for people to change their sex. Individuals like myself will have to struggle against the mindset of people like Ashlee Evans-Smith. It's sad that we have to repeat history over and over again. But, this is the reality.
Some of the MMA world is acting like she accomplished some great feat, as if she beat a male fighter. No, not even close. She defeated another female fighter - plain and simple.
She needs to stop crying about competing against me. The whole thing is just silly.
Perhaps one day she will wake up and realize that she fought another woman. I don't know. I can only hope.
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Comments
Personal attacks
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By Cyd Zeigler on 11.20.13 9:00am
Fallon is not a woman
Fallon, if you are a woman, where are your ovaries?
By Rexfelis on 05.06.14 2:18pm
RexFelis..
If you are human, where is your brain? or intelligence? You sound like a single brain-celled organism (with that cell badly damaged).
By jseeley on 08.11.14 11:27pm
My mother doesn't have ovaries any longer.
You just insulted her by insinuating she isn’t a woman. Further, there are women born without ovaries and uterus…doesn’t make them any less of a woman.
By WestonJamesKC on 09.19.14 12:12pm
It seems
like a big part of your argument Fallon is essentially to say, ‘yeah i have some advantages but look, you have some too’. The problem is that the counter argument believes some of your advantages have come as a direct result from having been a man. Not really the same thing as someone having stronger legs than their counterpart is it. And just because she beat you does not make it impossible for you to have had an unfair advantage over her, for the same reason someone who gets popped for steroids doesn’t always win the fight where they had such an advantage. Unfortunately for you, the only thing that would prove your point in this ugly on going debate is the science; undisputed facts. As we know, the facts as of now seem to be pointing in all sorts of directions
By miniSLDR on 11.20.13 9:16am
Hey, Fallon Fox!
So glad you actually wrote this! I agree wholeheartedly – no serious people were calling for Brock Lesnar or Tim Sylvia to be in separate MMA categories, despite the fact that they had massive size and strength advantages (in their prime) over the rest of their competitors.
Bottom line: if Fox’s weight and T levels are in line with the rest of her women competitors, she should be allowed to compete, the same as Cyborg.
By kemi.fuentesgeorge on 11.20.13 9:22am
Brock and Tim were men fighting other men
By TheDeuceMcNasty on 11.20.13 10:23am
In the biggest weight class in the world which has been historically speaking the shallowest division in MMA.
It’s not their fault guys were smaller than them or not as genetically gifted as they were.
By jlim4 on 11.20.13 10:43am
I know
talk about comparing apples and oranges.
By TheDeuceMcNasty on 11.20.13 10:48am
Yep
Fallon doesn’t appear to have nearly the physical edge they did.
By TwitchWasHere on 11.20.13 10:57am
Have you seen any of their fights?
Watch Lesnar vs Overeem and then tell me about Lesnar’s physical edge.
By TheDeuceMcNasty on 11.20.13 11:01am
Well, in that case...
…watch Lesnar v. Herring, or Lesnar v. Couture, and then tell me about Fox’s physical edge.
By kemi.fuentesgeorge on 11.20.13 12:02pm
So Herring a guy with so so wrestling at best and a LHW are your counterexamples?
By jlim4 on 11.20.13 1:36pm
Okay first of all the only advantage Sylvia ever had was that he was 6'8 and could jab someone from really far away.
He’s a pretty crappy example. Brock is a genetic freak and both of them were competing against other fully grown men who knew what they were getting themselves into. Brock made weight and no one ever clamored for him to fight in a new division is because he was the biggest draw in the UFC/MMA, HW has always been notoriously thin and there were plenty of guys who matched up to him from a physical standpoint or were close enough : Carwin, Reem, Cain, JDS, Herring, Mir and Duffee. What separated Brock as a fighter was his speed and agility for someone so big, he was also an NCAA Division 1 Wrestling champ.
Fallon is a completely different case as she wasn’t born a woman and that’s a problem for some people. I personally don’t care as long as it’s disclosed to her opponent and they agree.
By jlim4 on 11.20.13 1:35pm
Brock Lesnar and Tim Sylvia have been beaten but smaller men...Size isn't the issue!
Boy and girls are relatively the same at birth until puberty sets in. The hormonal changes that start to occur in boys builds stronger bones structure and muscle then girls. For girls competing in same sports as boys, girls begin to fall behind. This shows how few girls ( elite girls) can compete on boys high school wrestling teams as well as other sports. By the time these girls get to college, there maybe a few special cases were women still compete relatively to boys but boys are much more physically superior to girls on college level. Now, with that being said…What kind of athlete would Fallon Fox have been if she remain a man? Could Fallon have competed at 145 lbs as a man against men and be successful? Fallon competing as a man and fighting men with normal physical conditions would have been an average amateur fighter. Since Fallon is fighting as a Transgender fighter, she will have greater success fighting women vs men. Yes, there will be many women that will beat Fallon in her pro career but Fallon as a man would never have a pro career fighting as a man…This is the advantage that Fallon gets in fighting women. So, is Fallon taking the spot of a woman that could have fought Ashlee Evans-Smith. YES! Will all the “State Commissions” allow women to fight me in combative sports…??? Just like the Nevada State Commission that just band TRT, it is ruled an unfair advantage. Even thought, it is perfectly legal for a doctor to prescribe to an individual. Science will show that Fallon has an unfair advantage to the average wmma fighter. Fallon will never be a UFC champion but it allows Fallon to compete successfully (make money) in a women’s pro division.
By tuffytiger on 03.10.14 11:17pm
For many of the reasons there are separate men's and women's divisions,
Fallon Fox should not be fighting in either.
Whatever the motivation for her sex-change, it should be a given that would disqualify her from any gender-distinctive sport.
By Piscatorial Pursuit on 11.20.13 9:25am
Just because she beat you, doesn't mean that you don't have an advantage
Personally, I don’t know anything about endocrinology or the muscular and skeletal system of a grown man vs. a grown woman, so I can’t say either way.
But to think that someone who grew up with male hormones, and their bones developed as a male doesn’t have some, regardless of how slight, advantage seems…wrong.
That said, If a woman KNOWS that you are a trans-fighter, and they agree to fight you, that is their prerogative. But they, absolutely, should be privy to that knowledge before they agree to fight you!
By Fedorable on 11.20.13 9:26am
"Personally, I don’t know anything about endocrinology or the muscular and skeletal system of a grown man vs. a grown woman"
Exactly
By Cyd Zeigler on 11.20.13 10:26am
I'm not an edocrynologist
Are you? Is Fallon?
The point is that, unless you have spent years and years of your life studying it, you shouldn’t have an “informed” opinion.
Even if you are someone who lives the life (Fallon).
Until there is proper data available on the physical advantages or non-advantages that a trans-woman would have over a woman who wasn’t born a different sex, we should be cautious.
Again, I’m not against Fallon fighting women, as long as they have the knowledge that she grew up and developed as a man. If they have no issue with that, then great. But it should be information that is available until we know whether or not there is some type of advantage.
By Fedorable on 11.20.13 10:38am
Dude,
They’ve studied this already. The medical data does not support any conclusion that Fox has some superhuman abilities out of the normal variance of women in her weight class.
By kemi.fuentesgeorge on 11.20.13 12:03pm
If love to see the study
Links?
By Fedorable on 11.20.13 12:12pm
Really? You need links? You haven't seen enough links about this situation over the past year?
By edub001 on 11.20.13 12:31pm
Where there was a definitive study that someone did, with conclusive evidence, that there is no physiological advantage that a transgender woman would have?
I haven’t not seen that.
I have seen links and articles of Dr’s who have gave their opinion, both for and against.
So yes, if someone says there is a study (again, not a Dr’s opinion) that proves there is no possible advantage that Fallon would have, I would love to read it.
By Fedorable on 11.20.13 1:11pm
"The medical data does not support any conclusion that Fox has some superhuman abilities out of the normal variance of women in her weight class."
That’s not what he said. My subject line is what he said, and basically the exact same thing you wrote down above. There is no conclusion either way. Hence “medical data does not support any conclusion…”
You either simply misread his post, or were fishing to write your reply to me even if it is in line with what you replied to in the first place.
By edub001 on 11.20.13 6:06pm
I understand what he said
And as I said, I’ve yet to see a study that says this
By Fedorable on 11.21.13 3:34am