Demian Maia is the latest fighter to speak out against the transgender fighter Alana McLaughlin since her win over Celine Provost.
McLaughlin won her fight via submission after being rocked in the first round. McLaughlin took to Twitter to talk about the people speaking out against her debut.
Maia is a legendary UFC title challenger who is most known for his fantastic BJJ. Maia had this to say in regards to McLaughlin being able to compete, “I think it’s absurd for you to put a person who was born a man to fight a woman. I’m going to talk about my sport, which is fighting. The person (who faces the trans athlete) will get hurt. There is no comparison. ‘Oh, but she started taking (female) hormones early on.’ Does not matter. The development there… And it’s not prejudice, none of that. But you have to understand that to work on the issue of prejudice in society, it’s not like that. This is not what will make people more or less prejudiced. (H/T MMAnews)
Maia is one of many that has spoken out against McLaughlin this week. Sean Strickland gave his opinion saying “Change your name, call yourself a woman… but you’re still a fu****g man, get out of women’s MMA, coward,”
Michael Bisping, ‘Suga‘ Sean O’Malley and Megan Anderson has also spoken out against McLaughlin competing against women. The most notable being Anderson. The more women that speak about McLaughlin, the more of a feeling we will have about how McLaughlin’s competition feels about her being able to fight. The women’s opinion holds a bit more weight than the men’s when discussing Alana McLaughlin’s ability to compete, since they will be the opponents of McLaughlin.
Do you agree with Demian Maia?
Should McLaughlin be allowed to compete against women inside the octagon?