Australian boxer Ebanie Bridges, the IBF female bantamweight champion, back in June opined on the emergence of transgender women in female sports.
Bridges on Monday, in a conversation with BettingSites.co.uk said that she got “zero backlash” for speaking out, and all she heard was nothing but support.
“Everyone’s so scared to say anything,” Bridges said. “But no matter what you say people are gonna jump and turn on you. I think the reality is – I’m right, and it’s true.”
“People are obviously, scared and I think with me speaking up with the kind of person that I am, such a big name in the sport and not just in the sport but in the general world, it gives other people the OK to speak up as well.”
Bridges clarified that she believed trans people should be allowed to play sports, but it was about “segregating women to men to trans.”
“It’s that simple because we’re not the f—ing same. There’s a reason men don’t fight women,”
“I don’t care if you’ve got boobies, you were still born a man.”
Back in June, In an interview with Bitcoin Casinos, Bridges was asked whether she would ever fight against a transgender woman. Replying to which, Bridges said,
“No, never,” she replied. “I think it’s wrong, especially in boxing. I think in all sport. I just think a lot of women in sports that are breaking records weren’t originally women and in a sport where you are trying to hurt the other person. You’re born (a) man. I don’t care what you say, how many hormones you’re taking, you’re still born (a) man. – said Ebanie Bridges
“It’s like saying all of a sudden Mike Tyson wants to be a girl now and he goes and fights you – no way! And how do you measure it? ‘They don’t look really masculine so that’s OK,’ No. I even spar with boys or guys smaller than me and they are ‘hell strong.’ So, I think no. Especially in combat sports and general in sports. Think about a female wanting to be the best in her sport and then she has to compete against men who’ve transitioned obviously into women and that takes the whole feminine side,” Bridges continued
“And then you got women who transition into men that go against the men, which never happens. Very rarely. It’s always the other way around. There’s no girls that go, ‘I’m transitioning because I feel like I;m male’ and they go into men’s sport. They don’t do that. It’s only the other way around. And if it was the other way around, for example, in combat sports, unless she’s taking a lot of testosterone and steroids – which is banned – you’re gonna get blasted by men.”
“The reality is, biologically, it’s still what they are,” Bridges further said. “And it just takes away from the women, from women’s sport.”
As a counteraction to Ebanie’s take, Fallon Fox, an American transgender and former mixed martial artist took on to her Facebook handle and said,
“Carl Froch and Ebanie Bridges don’t know what the heck they are talking about. People often say, “What if Mike Tyson transitioned to female and went into the women’s league?!,”
“Bruh… If Mike Tyson transitioned, did the required HRT therapy, and maybe even gender reassignment surgery, they would be considered a woman not a man. Over time the transition would make her weaker, slower, and have less endurance. And givin her former experience as a pro boxer, she would simply be the female version of her former self and performing as such,”
“People like to bring up Mike Tyson partially because of how big he was. They want to put that mental image of a huge strong MAN fighting a tiny woman in the mind. But boxing goes by weight classes, a “man” Mike Tyson would not be, and she (Mike) would be fighting other women the same size if they were transgender. Fighters the same size as cisgender women’s MMA fighter Gabi Garcia and others.
We’ve already been here in combat sports with myself and Alana McLaughlin. The world didn’t end and neither did women’s sports.”
