The first openly transgender MMA fighter to compete in seven years said she was receiving nasty messages calling her a cheater after her debut victory on Friday.
Alana McLaughlin, nicknamed Lady Feral, fought Celine Provost in a featherweight match at the Combate Global event at Univision Studios in Miami, Florida.
The fighters competed midway through the card. The match finished in the second round when McLaughlin tapped Provost with a rear-naked choke.
McLaughlin, 38, was supported cageside by Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender MMA fighter, who last competed in 2014.
“It was a nightmare trying to find an opponent,” McLaughlin said before the bout, according to ESPN. She added that she had “nothing but respect” for Provost.
ESPN also reported that McLaughlin had passed all the medicals, including a hormone panel, required to compete.
Regardless, she has faced backlash since her fight.
“I’m getting a lot of variations of the same nasty messages calling me a cheater,” McLaughlin said in an Instagram post on Saturday accompanying a photo of her bruised face.
“She almost finished me more than once, and on scorecards she definitely won that first round,” she said.
“This is the only post I’ll make about this,” McLaughlin said. “Transphobes are just making my block hand stronger.”
McLaughlin previously said on the podcast “The Trans Sporter Room” that she’d been inspired by Fox and hoped to inspire others herself.
“Right now, I’m following in Fallon’s footsteps. I’m just another step along the way, and it’s my great hope that there are more to follow behind me,” McLaughlin said.
“If we want to see more trans athletes, if we want to see more opportunities for trans kids, we’re going to have to work out way into those spaces and make it happen.”
*story by Insider
