UFC suspends Matt Mitrione for anti-trans comments

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — Yahoo Sports reports that the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has suspended heavyweight Matt Mitrione indefinitely for making transphobic comments about Fallon Fox during an interview on The MMA Hour.

According to the report, Mitrione repeatedly referred to trans professional mixed martial arts fighter Fox, who is female, as “he” and “him” during the interview.

“He’s chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He’s still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That’s a couple years younger than I am,” Mitrione said. “He’s a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That’s ridiculous.”

Mitrione continued, “That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak, and I mean that. Because you lied on your license to beat up women.
That’s disgusting. You should be embarrassed yourself. And the fact that
Florida licensed him because California licensed him or whoever the
hell did it, it’s an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we
all should protest that. The woman that’s fighting him, props to you. I
hope you beat his ass, and I hope he gets blackballed and never fights
again, because that’s disgusting and I’m appalled by that.”

The UFC released a statement, condemning Mitrione’s comments.

“The organization finds Mr Mitrione’s comments offensive and wholly unacceptable and – as a direct result of this significant breach of the UFC’s code of conduct – Mr Mitrione’s UFC contract has been suspended and the incident is being investigated.

“The UFC is a friend and ally of the LGBT community, and expects and requires all 450 of its athletes to treat others with dignity and respect,” the statement says.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

Keep Reading

The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts

OPINION: Melissa Lantsman’s and Eric Duncan’s refusals to call out their party’s transphobia is a betrayal of the LGBTQ2S+ community

Over 300 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced this year. This doesn’t mean we should panic

OPINION: While it’s important to watch out for threats, not all threats are created equally. Some of these bills will die a natural death

Xtra’s top LGBTQ2S+ stories of the year

The best and brightest—even most bewildering—stories from a back catalogue brimming with insight

Elon Musk and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton are suing Media Matters. Here’s why queer and trans people should care

OPINION: When politicians and the rich leverage the power of the state to quell dissent, we all lose