One of the big stories over the past couple weeks has been that of Fallon Fox, a transgendered person trying to be a female professional fighter. Born a man, and having completed gender reassignment surgery, Fox is now legally considered a woman and has embarked (at age 37) on a fighting career in WMMA. It was something she didn’t disclose to the promoter of the Championship Fighting Alliance nor the Florida Athletic Commission (or her opponent for the matter) prior to her opening round win.
In what has been a fairly slow news cycle following UFC 158 this story has received headlines, especially with the Supreme Court hearing arguments on same sex marriage this week, and Fox was slated to be in the same tournament as Peggy Morgan. Both had made the semi-finals of the CFA WMMA tournament, albeit on opposite sides of the bracket, and potentially could meet in the finals. That is until Morgan declared she wouldn’t be fighting Fox via a YouTube video … yeah, these kinds of things happen in MMA. This one happened to include a semi-classless manner from Morgan’s manager, to boot.
And while no one can agree with the level of disrespect shown to Fox the one thing you should agree with is that Morgan is absolutely right in being unwilling to take that fight if both happened to meet in the finals. Why? The science isn’t settled … hence Morgan has every right to protect her physical well-being as she sees fit.
“I understand why people are advocating for Fallon and I appreciate that it is important to protect her rights, but I think it should be just as important to protect the safety of the other women in the tournament,” she wrote on her management’s website. “Until I am presented with conclusive evidence that a fight with Fallon would, in fact, be fair, I will not be entering the cage with her.”
So far we have a handful of doctors arguing over whether or not Fox’s new status as a woman, and former status as a man, has conferred upon her any additional benefits. The science is far from settled and so far we have anecdotal evidence from both sides arguing their case without access to Fox’s medical records. You can’t make an argument either way that Fox doesn’t have an advantage without them. Fox was unwilling to show the athletic commission her medical records, covering up her transgender status, and argued on AXS TV’s ‘Inside MMA’ that she shouldn’t have to either.
So far all we’ve gotten from Fox is standard “everyone’s scared of me” rhetoric and vague arguments from doctors who don’t know specifics of the case, only generic statements about transgendered people as a whole. It’s a weak argument and while Fox probably isn’t hiding something one could argue that with her lack of disclosure she could be doing so. The old saying “if there’s smoke there’s fire” has to be weighing on her and her management’s mind right now. Odds are there’s nothing to see but that “what if” has to be taken seriously.
That’s a lot of risk factors involved for someone who’s trying to ply their trade as a professional fighter.
This isn’t Ronda Rousey and Cris “Cyborg” Santos engaging in shenanigans to make their fight as lucrative as possible; that’s a matter of gamesmanship, nothing more. This involves Peggy Morgan potentially walking away with a serious injury against someone that potentially be the equivalent of a similar sized man fighting a woman. And until Morgan has proof she has every right to not take the fight.
