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.
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