Alana McLaughlin is a transgender woman beginning her career in the mixed martial arts. She'll have to contend with athl | dG1fdGl0NTU4ZWxMNzg
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00:00Alana, second interview, take one, mark.
00:09Mixed martial arts, it's a way to sort of re-inhabit and reclaim my body.
00:13It lets me feel like I have some measure of control that I might not otherwise feel that
00:18I have.
00:19You look for a fighter that you can really create a story about.
00:24And certainly Alana deserves an opportunity.
00:28MMA is probably one of those sports where people are most going to be pissed off about
00:31a trans woman participating because of the violent aspect of the sport in the first place.
00:35When people first hear transgender fighter, former military, they're like, no, we don't
00:41want that, we don't need that, we don't think that should even exist.
00:46Putting herself out there in this very international public way to be a target of transphobic hate.
00:54I've gotten thousands of death threats, like easily thousands of death threats.
00:57I've never had a more challenging task than finding Alana McLaughlin an opponent.
01:02There were people that were offended.
01:03How could you even ask me this question?
01:06Alana says she's a woman, but the truth is, she was born a man, she grew up a man, all
01:11belongs to a man, the skulls of a man, I think it's a man taking advantage of the system.
01:15I think that's taken perverse.
01:16You want me in there being your boogeyman, so get me a fight.
01:21I do know that it bothers her, but I've also seen her rise above it.
01:25We just want to live and compete and work.
01:29It's all that any person wants.
01:32Take trans, cis, gay, straight, black, white, whatever out of the equation.
01:37Pretty soon there'll be no women's sports.
01:38It'll just be men that couldn't hack it as pros, they'll switch to become women and they'll
01:42dominate women's sports.
01:43People have a lot of feelings about trans athletes.
01:46It's not actually backed up by the facts of what is actually happening.
01:52I want everyone that comes after me to not have to deal with the same fear-mongering
01:56I've had to deal with.
01:57I want a better world for the people that come after me.
02:00Hands up, hands up!
02:02Her power, her strength wasn't the same.
02:05McLaughlin has to survive here, you can't keep marching like that.
02:08Alana needs to keep her hands up and her head up, because if not, it's going to be a very
02:12dangerous situation for her.
02:14The only way that trans people are going to have more freedom and more inclusion is if
02:17we step up and make that space, clear it out for ourselves, because it's definitely not
02:22going to be given to us.