Fallon Fox

Fallon Fox
Born	(1975-11-29) November 29, 1975 Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
Nationality	American
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight	144 lb (65 kg; 10.3 st)
Division	Featherweight (2012–present)
Reach	70 in (178 cm)
Fighting out of	Schaumburg, Illinois
Team	Midwest Training Center
Years active	2012–present
Mixed martial arts record
Total	6
Wins	5
By knockout	3
By submission	2
Losses	1
By knockout	1
By decision	0
Mixed martial arts record from Sherdog

Fallon Fox (born Boyd Burton, male, November 29, 1975) is an American wrestler and mixed martial artist (MMA). He is the first openly transgender athlete in MMA history.

Fox has caused much controversy by competing in women's wrestling when he is actually a man. In 2014 when he was fighting a female opponent Tamikka Brents, she suffered a cracked skull. She needed seven staples in her skull as a result of the injury. Many people say this is unfair and he is cheating.

Early life

Fox was born Boyd Burton in Toledo, Ohio. He recalls struggling with issues relating to gender as early as five or six years old. As a teenager, Fox believed he may have been a gay male, but learned about the term transgender at the age of 17. Fox continued living as a heterosexual male and married his girlfriend at the age of 19 when the latter became pregnant with their daughter. Fox then joined the US Navy to support his new family, serving as an operations specialist on the USS Enterprise.

After leaving the Navy, Fox enrolled at the University of Toledo, but dropped out citing ongoing psychological stress from his unresolved gender issues. After leaving college, Fox worked as a truck driver to earn money for sex reassignment surgery. He later moved to Chicago, Illinois with his daughter. In 2006, he traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to undergo gender reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, and hair transplant surgeries at the Bangkok International Hospital.

Controversy

Fallon Fox publicly identified as a transwoman on March 5, 2013 in an interview with Outsports writer Cyd Zeigler and sportsillustrated.com, after his two initial professional fights. Controversy swelled over confusion with the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) and Florida’s athletic commission over the licensing process Fox chose to complete in Coral Gables. After publications shed light on the licensing procedure and Fox’s coming out many commentators brought up the issue of whether a male should be able to fight in women’s divisions in MMA. Most notably, UFC color commentator and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan came out in strong opposition to Fallon Fox receiving licensing on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, as did his guest, MMA personality Bas Rutten.

Due to controversy and the licensing procedure CFA co-founder Jorge De La Noval, who promoted Fallon's fight on March 2 in Florida, postponed Fox’s April 20 fight. However, De La Noval later stated his organization will not “turn our backs on himi… As long as he's licensed, he's always welcome in our promotion. We stand behind him and we give him all of our support." Fox claimed in his video interview with Cyd Zeigler to be within the rules of organizations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for postoperative transsexuals and wishes to continue fighting in MMA.

On April 8, 2013, Matt Mitrione, in an appearance on The MMA Hour, vociferously expressed his disapproval of Fox;s behavior. Saying that Fox was "still a man," Mitrione called him an "embarrassment" and a "lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak." UFC quickly condemned his comments and, referring to itself as "a friend and ally of the LGBT community", immediately suspended Mitrione and fined him an undisclosed amount. The next day Fox issued a response stating that Mitrione "personally attacked me as a fighter, as a woman, and as a human being".

Fox and the controversy surrounding his competition in female MMA was a topic on the April 2014 edition of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. The documentary Game Face gives an inside look into Fallon's life during the beginning of his MMA controversy.

Advantage

There have been numerous attempts to deny Fox possesses an advantage over female fighters. In an interview with the New York Post, former UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey stated she would be willing to fight Fox, saying "I can knock out anyone in the world", although she believes Fox has an unfair advantage due to having male bone density and structure. She stated in an interview with TMZ, "if you go through puberty as a man it’s not something you can reverse…There’s no undo button on that." UFC president Dana White stated that "bone structure is different, hands are bigger, jaw is bigger, everything is bigger. I don’t believe in it. I don’t think someone who used to be a man and became a woman should be able to fight a woman.” Eric Vilain, director of the Institute For Society And Genetics at UCLA, disagreed, stating in Time magazine that "Male to female transsexuals have significantly less muscle strength and bone density, and higher fat mass, than males". Vilain reviewed Fox's medical records and supported his right to fight as a woman.

Vilain, who worked with the Association of Boxing Commissions when they wrote their policy on transgender athletes, was also quoted by Time as saying that, to be licensed, transgender female fighters must undergo complete "surgical anatomical changes ... including external genitalia and gonadectomy" (see sex reassignment surgery) and a minimum of a subsequent two years of hormone replacement therapy, as two years is "the current understanding of the minimum amount of time necessary to obviate male hormone gender related advantages in sports competition". When asked if Fox could, nonetheless, be stronger than his competitors, Vilain replied that it was possible, but noted that "sports is made up of competitors who, by definition, have advantages for all kinds of genetics reasons", and said that it would be discriminatory to treat Fox differently than other athletes with potential genetic advantages.

Time also noted that, as he has neither testicles nor ovaries, Fox probably has lower testosterone levels than most of his competitors. Fox says that he has less strength and endurance than his female training partner, and that he has to make up for it by perfecting his technique.

Fox responded to the allegations made by Rogan and Rousey in a guest editorial for bloodyelbow.com. He claimed the advantage of taking estrogen resulted in bone density, which is also a side effect of taking testosterone. He challenged Rogan and Rousey to make such claims about black women, who have been noted scientifically to have the same bone density as white men. Finally, he questioned how a '"male frame"' can produce the massive "punching power" that Rogan speaks of without male muscle mass behind it.

During Fox's fight against Tamikka Brents, Brents suffered a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and seven staples to the head. After her loss, Brents took to social media to fuel the controversy surrounding Fox's unjust advantage: "I've fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” she stated. "His grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…"

Online Harassment activities

In June 2020 Fox harassed J.K.Rowling on Twitter, interrupting her dialogue with a 7-year-old child whose picture she was praising. Fox boasted that he loved to inflict physical violence on women and would do again to "TEFS" meaning "terfs" but he spelled it incorrectly. His exact words were "For the record I knocked two out. One woman's skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know, I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It's bliss!"

Mixed martial arts record

Professional record breakdown
6 matches	5 wins	1 loss
By knockout	3	1
By submission	2	0
By decision	0	0

Res.	Record	Opponent	Method	Event	Date	Round	Time	Location	Notes
Win	5–1	Tamikka Brents	TKO (punches)	CCCW: The Undertaking	September 13, 2014	1	2:17	Springfield, Illinois, United States
Win	4–1	Heather Bassett	Submission (armbar)	Xtreme Fighting Organization 50	March 21, 2014	2	0:44	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Loss	3–1	Ashlee Evans-Smith	TKO (punches)	CFA 12	October 12, 2013	3	4:15	Coral Gables, Florida, United States	Women's Featherweight Tournament Final
Win	3–0	Allanna Jones	Submission (shin choke)	CFA 11: Kyle vs. Wiuff 2	May 24, 2013	3	3:36	Coral Gables, Florida, United States
Win	2–0	Ericka Newsome	KO (knee)	CFA 10: McSweeney vs. Staring	March 2, 2013	1	0:39	Coral Gables, Florida, United States	Women's Featherweight Tournament Semifinal
Win	1–0	Elisha Helsper	TKO (injury)	KOTC Wild Card	May 17, 2012	1	2:00	Worley, Idaho, United States

Awards

In 2014, Fox was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.