First transgender MMA fighter goes public
so here's in interesting story: a man who used to be a woman is now fighting women professionally in mma. yes, she's had gender reassignment therapy and yes, she's been on "hormone therapy long enough to remove gender-related advantages."
now, i don't know any of the science behind this stuff, but can hormone therapy remove all gender-related advantages? this is fighting we're talking about. physically stronger fighters have a distinct advantage over physically weaker ones, training and natural talent be damned. it's one of the reasons there are weight classes. men are, on average, quite a bit stronger than women. and men also tend to have much stronger upper bodies than women. it's just the way we're built. i don't see how hormone therapy is able to change physical differences to the point of us having insignificantly different muscle mass ratios.
i'm not not saying that she shouldn't be able to fight professionally. but i do wonder if there should be other restrictions. maybe she'd having to fight in a higher weight class, i don't know.
this does all bring to mind, tho, the story of hermaphrodite runner Caster Semenya.
2 comments:
At least in fighting, you're ultimately paired up with someone around your same weight. I'm no expert on MMA, but I'd guess that because of the somewhat openendedness of the fighting styles allowed, whether you have more weight in your upper or lower body doesn't amount to much of an advantage if any at all.
i def agree that a transgender fighting in mma is more fair than if she were now boxing. but seeing as how men are naturally stronger than women, i wonder if it's too unfair of an advantage regardless.
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