Fallon Fox is a 37-year-old MMA fighter, and she is facing licensing issues after it was revealed that she is a transsexual woman.
Fox won a featherweight fight last Saturday in Coral Gables, Fla., by first-round knockout (knee). A reporter learned of her transgender secret and called her and one of her trainers about it.
On Monday, SI.com’s Loretta Hunt revealed that Fox is a transsexual woman. She also reported that Fox’s fighting license in Florida is under review.
Fox underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2006. She told OutSports.com that she has been receiving hormonal therapy for 10 years. In a documentary teaser from Out Sports, Fox says she got into MMA after her surgery and began training in the sport. She credits it as a motivation for living.
Fox is 2-0 in her professional career and 3-0 as an amateur, with all of her wins coming in the first round. She is scheduled to fight in April after advancing to the semifinals of the Championship Fighting Alliance tournament, but that plan is currently on hold.
“Our department is currently investigating allegations pertaining to the information provided on [Fox’s] application,” a spokesperson for Florida’s Dept. of Business and Professional Regulation told Hunt.
Hunt says Fox said on her Florida application that she had been approved for a 2013 MMA combatant license by the California State Athletic Commission, which may have played a role in her receiving the license in Florida. However, SI.com says Fox’s California application is also being reviewed. The issue is that Fox may have mistaken a receipt for her $60 application as a sign that she had been approved for a license in California, which she passed on to Florida. She claims it was an innocent mistake. Fox has also applied for a national ID card through CSAC, which is also under review.
Hunt reports that Fox’s first professional fight took place on sovereign land in Idaho where no state oversees the fights. Her three amateur fights took place in Illinois, per Hunt.
MMA Junkie reports that Championship Fighting Alliance has cancelled their event in a show of support for Fox.
“There’s a lot of money on the line for her, and she’s performed very well. We’re going to give her a couple of weeks to see how this thing turns out,” Championship Fighting Alliance CEO Jorge De La Nova told MMA Junkie.
Fox does not see an issue with her competing in women’s MMA. She is recognized as a female on her Illinois driver’s license. As a transsexual woman, she would be allowed to compete in the Olympics, or in the WTA and LPGA.
“Some people believe I have an automatic advantage over other female MMA fighters,” she says in an OutSports.com documentary. “So they think that, ‘Oh, she has to be stronger because she used to be a male.’ But if they look into the science of it and what the hormones do to the male body after taken over a period of time — 2-3 years — it dissipates, and that’s what they found.
“Which is one of the reasons the International Olympic Committee has allowed post-operative transpeople to participate in the Olympics,” Fox says.
“Do I ever regret the transition? Hell no. It was the best thing that I’ve ever done with my body and my life. It actually saved my life.”
Fox also issued the following statement on her Facebook page Wednesday:
“I’d like the world to know that I deserve the right to compete in women’s MMA. I have trained hard for this, sacrificed relationships, invested money to attempt to accomplish my goal of being the best female MMA fighter I can be. I am a woman. A woman who happens to fall into the category of post operative transsexual. Just like there are black women, lesbian women, disabled women, and other types of women… there are trans women. We are just another type in the category of women.
“There is a misconception out there that post operative transsexual women have an automatic advantage over women born with complete female anatomy. This is simply not true. The general public needs to be aware of this and we are hoping to shed light on this misconception.
“I can not wait to fight again. And I would like to take my skills to the highest levels and promotions that I can.”
You can watch the preview of her Out Sports documentary below:
And here is video of Fox beating Scottie Fortner in the American Predator Fighting Championship last year:
Image via FallonFox.com
