Demian Maia is typically measured and not attention hungry. But the case of Alana McLaughlin got to the Brazilian legend and he ended up giving a statement on the matter.
“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,” Maia said (h/t AG Fight).
“It is very clear that you cannot let this happen. It’s one thing for a man to want to fight a woman and for a woman to say: ‘Okay, I’m going to fight. The choice is mine’. Now, for you to force a woman to fight a transgender person who was born a man is absurd. I think that only those who are not in the sport accept this, because they have no idea what it is.”
Maia was not the only one to condemn this either – former middleweight champion Michael Bisping also piped in:
“I’m not here to talk about transgender rights, you can identify as whatever you want,” Bisping said. “But I do believe that if you’re a woman that feels trapped in a man’s body, there are certain advantages that you should have to give up. If you have the body of a man, competing against girls or women, when you’re using your body to beat someone unconscious, has to be one of those things you sacrifice.”
Bisping concluded: “If you want to play volleyball, soccer, be my guest. But in a sport that you beat someone into submission or unconsciousness, it shouldn’t be allowed. It’s unfair to women’s mma.”
Sean O’Malley also shared his thoughts on the subject:
“I don’t think that’s okay. I just don’t think that’s okay… in just competing in sports, I mean, especially mixed,” O’Malley began on his YouTube channel.
“it’s like she had testosterone for, who knows, 20, 30 years of her life and now I’m a girl. And look at that, you could tell that’s a dude. A jacked girl. I mean, look at those arms.”