Summer Brady, the Muay Thai specialist known as the Non-Binary Ninja, appeared on Adam Hunter’s MMA Roasted podcast to talk about her upcoming match in what would be the first-ever transgender MMA championship title. Brady opened up about her identity, her history in combat sports, and what she hopes this match means for trans athletes everywhere.
On the matchup itself, Brady was direct about what both athletes want out of this matchup. She stated, “What I think is cool about Gita and I meeting for this trilogy in an MMA match, we both wanted either challenging matches against male athletes, or we wanted the most fair matches possible and we wanted to create a trans lane for athletes like ourselves.”
The match, set to take place in Coney Island at Cyclone Stadium on Juneteenth, nearly did not happen at all. A previous booking fell apart just days before the event.
She noted: “It was supposed to be the first time Gita and I were ever going to compete. This promotion made the announcement. They had the posters. We’re both posting about it. Gita flew all the way to New York. And then it was like four days before the match. The promotion just sends us like a random text and they’re like, ‘Hey, sorry to break it to you, the venue doesn’t feel comfortable with trans athletes.'”
Brady has been competing for years despite facing obstacles at nearly every turn, including coaches pulling out before bouts. She described showing up to a match in West Virginia after being told it was set at 159 lbs, only to discover her opponent weighed in at 176 lbs.
She stated, “I weighed in at 152.4. By far the lightest and smallest I’ll ever be.”
On her identity, Brady explained what non-binary means to her in personal terms, describing it as something she arrived at over time. She stated, “Deep down, I never truly felt like if a therapist asked me, ‘Oh, so you feel like you’re a woman stuck inside,’ for me personally, I’ve sort of felt like neither nor.”
She said she knew something was different from as early as age four. She continued: “We found some old videotapes of me crying about it. I used to go to bed and I would pray to God that I would wake up in a different body.”
She described the repeated cycle of starting hormones, facing social consequences, and retreating. She mentioned, “Every time I would try this and start moving forward, what would scare me back into the closet is me losing privilege. Suddenly people that I never had to worry about disrespecting me would be treating me like complete garbage.”
Brady was candid about where that path was heading. “I’m fully convinced that if I didn’t go through this, and I ha te to talk this way, there’s a good chance I probably would have ended things myself,” he stated.
Now working as a therapist alongside her combat career, Brady sees the trans athlete field as far deeper than most people assume.
“Every match I have leads to like a new crew of other trans athlete trying to bully me in the DMs,” she said, adding that she has received challenges from people in Seattle, the Netherlands, and Thailand. Her goal, she said, is straightforward: “I would love to be able to get this belt off Gita, and then get every trans athlete on the planet coming out.”
