Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: On Fallon Fox and the Rising Sun Symbol
Mar 28, 2013 - 1:10:07 PM HYDEN BLOG: On Fallon Fox and the Rising Sun Symbol

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

MMATorch columnist Brad Walker put up an interview this week that he recently conducted with Fallon Fox. It's going to be a multi-part interview, and I can't recommend reading it enough. It's very enlightening, though it did make me embarrassed about how I originally thought about the topic.

To quickly recap, Fallon Fox is a transgender MMA fighter who has been facing blowback from competing against other women. The thought is that Fox has an unfair advantage because she used to be a man. When I first heard about this I agreed. I thought that Fox had an unfair advantage. "Well, she has leftover testosterone in her because she used to be a man," was my initial reaction. I've come to find out that I was wrong for thinking that.

I hate being wrong, and I generally try to collect as much information about a subject before forming an opinion on it. A lot of times real life gets in the way, though. That's not a good enough excuse, and I'm certainly not trying to excuse my initial thoughts on this topic.

I take pride in the fact that I always try to be as inclusive as possible, and I failed to do that in this case, at least at first. I'm ashamed of that because I showed the same close-mindedness that I'm usually so quick to call out.

The best thing I can hope for is that there are others who come to realize their mistake as I did. Fallon Fox deserves to be able to fight, and I don't believe she'd have an unfair advantage. There's evidence which backs this up, and I hope all of you read the interview she did with Brad.

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Chan Sung Jung wrote an open letter to Georges St-Pierre about his walk-out gi from UFC 158. The gi had the rising sun symbol on it, which can be found to be offensive by many people in Asia. It has to do with atrocities committed by the Japanese military during World War II. It's a part of history that may not be well-known in this side of the world, but one that everyone should learn about. It's a disturbing look into the heart of darkness that exists in mankind.

I personally am someone who is not easily offended by signs and symbols, but that doesn't mean that I endorse the use of those symbols. This is especially true when it's so easy to avoid using them. Hayabusa Fightwear is the company that provided this gi to GSP to wear, and they were quick to say that they will not use this symbol in the future. They handled it the right way, quickly.

Jung wrote that he didn't think that GSP did this purposefully, and I absolutely agree. I don't think there's any way that GSP would do this for any reason other than ignorance. The thing we can all take from this is to perhaps be a bit more careful in the future when it comes to things like this.

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If anyone would like to discuss these, or any other, topics further I would point you towards the official MMATorch forums. Just head to MMATorch.com/forum/forum.php, or on your mobile phone. I check the forums everyday and I'm always up to discuss anything.


Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com