Gita-Marie Figueroa is a trans MMA athlete out of Florida but unlike other trans athletes – Gita-Marie chooses to compete against her biological gender.
While this is certainly way less controversial it deprives her of the press coverage that both Fallon Fox and Alana McLaughlin received.
Figueroa has an amateur MMA record consisting of one win and one loss – both within WCFL.
Figueroa recently lost to Shane Misrtretta via Ref’s stoppage in round 1.
This is especially interesting considering that the trans athletes who compete against women insist both that the biological advantages aren’t real.
But with the curious case of Alana McLaughlin, Fox has been trying to get some clout online.
She recently posted two videos to all of her social platforms. In them she goes on to claim:
“There’s a lot of talk about the bone density of trans women in relation to sport. Opponents of trans women athletes say our bones are too dense to compete with cis women.”
” But did you know that there are racial difference and bone density? Did you know that many cis women have more dense bones and cis men, specifically, many black cisgender women have more dense bones when compared to white cisgender men. “
What Fox didn’t mention is that the following graph is from a research outlining that bone density is important because it can help to predict the risk of getting a fracture.
She also failed to mention some specifics: while black women aged 45 are less likely to get a fracture than white men of the same – the same cannot be said for her desired opponents – White and black women under 40 who are consistently the most likely to get a fracture (unless you also include Asian statistics).
And also that competing against men would be transphobic.
McLaughlin was quoted saying:
“I’ve had probably four or five different uh trans fighters now, like, trans women fighters who, I mean honestly, I can’t really take most of them seriously because they you know they haven’t gone and gotten a pro card. ”
“They haven’t like fought serious fights but they’re like: “Oh well we’re doing the right thing by fighting men because we know that, you know, we’re always going to be better than real Women,”.
“You know like they’re disrespecting themselves and they’re disrespecting cis women fighters because I guarantee you, like, like, the one girl she lost a tough man fight. “
“You know it’s like boxing rules, where um, you know it’s boxing rules with untrained fighters and she was turning her back to her opponent it was only one minute rounds and they were playing “dude looks like a Lady” over her bout.”
“It was just… So I’m looking at this and I’m like well you have no self-respect and you clearly don’t respect cis women fighters and I can tell you Celine would have tuned these girls up like any of them.”
Meanwhile Figueroa explained her choice to compete against men in a podcast appearance saying:
“You’re fighting dudes. That’s crazy, right?”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. That’s the more moral and ethical way to go about any sport when it comes to my situation. “
Later on she added:
“I just fell in love with the sport. The whole the culture behind it, mixed martial arts, in general, like it’s, it’s something that just is I’m drawn to. But I always had to ask myself, like, how was I going to go about it? And it was never a question that I was going to compete with other natural born male ones because of my stature because of my strength. Because of the way I was raised with morals, values and ethics and stuff like that. “
” my biggest issue in life was always looking in the mirror. Like it didn’t make sense to me the way I looked compared to the way I thought about life and who I was as a person. But one thing I knew for sure that I was gonna compete against other males. And I felt like that would be the more badass way to go, like, whether I win or lose, I feel like 99.9% of the human population is gonna be like, damn, Gina is a bad b*tch.”
You can also watch her other bout on her youtube channel.