Blaire White, Alana Mclaughlin
Today I wanted to take time to discuss the issues in one of Blaire White’s recent videos about MMA fighter Alana Mclaughlin. In this video Blaire reacts to Alana’s fight with another MMA fighter Celine Provost. I wanted to take each comment said by Blaire, and go over the misinformation that is presented in this video regarding trans women’s transition and trans women competing in female sports. Let’s begin.
Comment 1: “She knocked her the fuck out, it was pretty brutal”.- Blaire says this in reference to Alana winning the fight against Provost, and goes on to say that “This is just what’s happening and you’re not allowed to question it”. What Blaire doesn’t realize here is that other fights between cis women in MMA are just as brutal if not more so than this fight between Alana and Provost. Blood is shed, eye sockets are broken, the same types of injuries are had despite whether or not the other competitor is trans. No one is saying that it can’t be discussed, but we need to look at more than just the person’s physical form and say it isn’t fair. Also, these discussions ARE being had, so much to the point that many states are proposing bills to ensure that trans women can’t compete with cis women. This topic is getting nationwide attention, the issue here is that most of the information presented as to why trans women shouldn’t compete with cis women has no solid evidence to back up these laws.
Image 1: Cis Woman
Comment 2: “Hormone Replacement Therapy actually lowers in efficacy every single year, so by 30 it’s really not going to do much other than, you know, slow down your metabolism.” -There are no studies that I could find mentioning the efficacy of HRT in trans women for a prolonged use of time or for people who start taking it later in life. The only issues I have found are the general medical issues and risks involving HRT that may be enhanced because of one’s age, but to say that Alana’s body hasn’t changed much and only her metabolism has probably been affected is absolute nonsense. These photos clearly show that that is simply not true. Trans women can begin their transition at any age, and HRT certainly doesn’t affect everyone the same way, but to argue that the results of HRT are less than, say a 21 or 25 year old who starts HRT, is not true. There isn’t some cutoff age for people to start HRT, and it’s clear to see that from age 30-38, Alana’s body has changed drastically.
Comment 3: “You’re allowed to knee them like that? Oooh she’s picking her up”.-Blaire makes these comments in reference to some of the moves that Alana makes in the fight. Blaire clearly has never watched MMA before because these types of moves happen all of the time. These aren’t some moves that are only happening because of Alana being trans, however Blaire in a way makes it seem like that is the reason. By showing disgust, fear, and confusion only at Alana it indicates to Blaire’s viewers that this isn’t natural, yet this happens all the time in MMA.
Image 2: Cis Women
Comment 4: “People think of HRT as like this light switch, you take it, and suddenly you develop into the opposite sex seamlessly.”-Oh Blaire, nobody thinks this, especially trans people. This comment she makes here also doesn’t add anything to the point she is trying to make. Earlier in the video she even says that Alana transitioned at the age of 30, today she is 38. She has been transitioning for 8 years and this is no way some sudden “light switch change”. She is implying here that people think this is okay for trans women to compete in female sports without having the prolong use of HRT, but that ultimately isn’t happening. There are many states that have guidelines for trans women competing in female sports, most of which require them to be on HRT for a certain amount of time.
High School Policies:
https://www.transathlete.com/k-12
College Policies:
A trans female (MTF) student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism, for the purposes of NCAA competition may continue to compete on a men’s team but may not compete on a women’s team without changing it to a mixed team status until completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Any transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatment related to gender transition may participate in sex-separated sports activities in accordance with his or her assigned birth gender.
• A trans male (FTM) student-athlete who is not taking testosterone related to gender transition may participate on a men’s or women’s team.
• A trans female (MTF) transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatments related to gender transition may not compete on a women’s team.
More Policies:
https://www.transathlete.com/policies
Image 3: Celine (Left) Alana (Right)
Comment 5: “You can clearly see who has a highly likelihood of harming the other one”.-Blaire says this after showing a side by side image of Alana and Provost, though oddly enough she shows the photo at an angle where you cannot see that Provost is actually five inches taller than Alana. Blaire does this so that we only focus on Alana and her body, making people think that Alana is capable of causing more harm despite her short stature. I want to make this very clear, judging someone’s ability to do anything based on their physical appearance is extremely problematic and flawed. Let’s take a look at Olympic trans competitor Laurel Hubbard as an example. Everyone assumed she was going to win and blow her cis competitors out of the water, and most of them assumed this based on her, you guessed it, appearance. Hubbard actually didn’t even make it further in the competition because she failed to make her first lift. So this argument that Blaire makes just has no basis on anything. I also want to point out that every single human being is going to have some advantage or disadvantage over another. Cis men over cis women, cis women over cis men, trans men over cis men, cis men over trans men, trans women over cis women, etc etc. Instead of looking at these advantages or disadvantages of everyone involved however, people like Blaire only focus on the possible advantages that a trans woman may have over a cis woman. But let’s not forget that Blaire clearly used a photo of the two fighters to ensure her viewers wouldn’t see their height difference. We could look at this as provost having an advantage here, but of course this isn’t discussed ever.
Comment 6: Blaire then goes on to discuss that if she was ever in a confrontation with another woman, that she would be able to heavily defend herself or even fuck up the other woman. Blaire says this to feed into her viewers who also, more than likely, still see Blaire as a man and having an advantage over cis women. If anyone has seen images of Blaire, you would think it is downright comical that Blaire thinks she could beat up another cis women severely. I am a 5’11, 200 lb, trans woman and even I do not think that highly of my ability to fight, because well, I just can’t fight. I have absolutely zero upper body strength. My partner who weighs about 50 lbs less than me, is about an inch shorter than me, and is much thinner, easily beats me every time we attempt to wrestle each other jokingly. So this assumption Blaire has about her being able to take on cis women to the point of fucking them up is ridiculous.
Comment 7: “This is the same with Fallon Fox, the previously trans MMA fighter who cracked her competitors skull in seconds of fighting her, the way I see it, is there is no honor in these scenarios, there’s no sportsmanship in these scenarios”. -This is where Blaire decides once again to not do any research into the topic she is discussing. No, Fallon Fox did not crack her competitor's skull, and I am so tired of hearing people use this language as a fear tactic. She fractured her orbital bone, which is essentially the eye socket, which believe it or not, has happened in the past with cis women fighting other cis women. Molly McCann, Meisha Tate. Though Fallon Fox defeated her opponent in roughly 40 seconds, her opponent was also knocked out prior to that by a cis woman in less the time. Blaire refuses to mention any of this though. Also, what does she mean by no sportsmanship? Celine Provost agreed to fight Alana in the hopes that MMA will be more inclusive, do you really not think that is good sportsmanship?
Comment 8: “This is a relatively new phenomenon, like trans people have always existed, but its only recently that there’s just this huge uptick of trans women wanting to be in women’s sports, or being allowed I should say”.-The only reason that there is such an uproar is because there are several bills being proposed that will not allow trans women to compete in female sports, despite guidelines that have been in place for years. This uptick isn’t because more trans women want to compete in female sports, this uptick is happening because of these bills being proposed. Going back to the policies that I posted above, trans people are able to compete in the sport of their gender in several states, and most requiring HRT. This is NOT a new phenomenon, especially if we take a look at the Olympics. Trans people have been able to participate in the Olympics since 2004, it is only now that there have been trans people who were eligible and made it this far.
Ultimately there is not enough research that has been done showing that trans women have a competitive edge over cis women. This narrative however that Blaire promotes of this being a new phenomenon is not true in the slightest. These issues really need to be addressed because these types of videos that Blaire makes causes more harm than good. Judging from the majority of her videos they are not well researched and her claim of trans issues being important to her, is just laughable. If trans issues mattered to Blaire she would do her due diligence and actually discuss the truth revolving these matters, and stop catering to her audience. Blaire’s videos specifically target the trans community despite her plea that she cares greatly about trans issues. In a former video she made of trans weightlifter Janae Marie Kroc, Blaire outright lied in saying that she was competing against cis women despite that not being true. Ultimately Blaire was sought out by Kroc and Blaire eventually removed the video and issued an apology, but at that point it could have been too late. Blaire making these videos causes others to reach out to people she makes videos about and gives them a green light to harass, shame, and attack these trans people who’ve done nothing wrong. It needs to stop.