The only trans man in MMA makes his last fight before taking hormones

Cris has always had to choose between being who he is or doing what he loves. Today, she chose to be who she is, and with that she ends a 15-year cycle rising on the mats, rings and octagons in female martial arts categories.

At 28 years old, six of them recognizing themselves and three presenting themselves as a transgender man, the Minas Gerais native has finally decided to start a process of hormoneization and surgeries, so he’s going to fight MMA against a woman for the last time this Saturday (13th), at an event in Três Rios (RJ).

The first and only athlete in the sport that is publicly recognized as such, Cris Macfer does not want others to make the same choice, so from now on he intends to lead a movement for the inclusion of “T” categories, exclusive to trans people, in competitions of sport.

“MMA is very late and is the most sought-after combat modality, with greater recognition and more media. So, if we open this path there, there will be an opening in other modalities as well. It’s arduous, but it needs to start”, he plans.

The fighter’s curriculum includes four specialties, with three world titles in hapkido won kisul (South Korean art focused on self-defense) and two in jiu-jitsu. It also has the black “prajied” (a kind of bow) in muay thai and is in the phase of approval of the black belt in taekwondo.

The first hurdle in sport came at age 14. He was expelled from the social project in which he learned to fight when he assumed a relationship with a teammate and saw the chatter in small Ervália, a city of 20,000 inhabitants four hours from Belo Horizonte, becoming unbearable.

Until then I thought I was a lesbian, because I watched Thammy Miranda come out as such on TV. At that time, he had already been sexually abused and routinely heard the nicknames “Maria-Man, Maria-macho, and dyke” at school and when he rode the streets on his blue and silver bicycle.

Gender awareness came along with the martial arts. “They have the power to make you turn to the other and to yourself, understand your potentials and weaknesses. My whole process to find myself was a lot because of that”, says Cris.

It also took place in a context where “vlogs” of trans people telling their stories became popular, with Tammy himself and actor Tarso Brant coming out as men. “If it weren’t for the media, I still wouldn’t know who I am,” he says.

From there, even performing in the male was another process. He had to balance his nine-year career and the sponsors and supporters he could lose in Viçosa (MG), where he spent most of his life and still lives today. In the end, he decided to follow the advice he had heard from his mother since he was a child.

“She always told me: no matter who you are, study, stock up on information and know that the outside world is cruel. If you don’t prepare, you will suffer double.” He completed a degree in physical education at the city’s federal university presenting a paper on transgender combat modalities. And then it came out.

By that time he had already set up a school and a martial arts institute with his last name, now with physical headquarters in Viçosa and in neighboring Cajuri. To preserve them during the pandemic, he rode his motorcycle around the city giving seven private lessons a day.

“I had to keep the dream alive. It wasn’t the survival of a school, but of an ideal of life, a belief in something much bigger. I created the project because I saw martial arts being marketed in a very empty way, without essence”, he believes .

It is the same essence that makes him decide today to stop fighting before starting to take hormones, which would frame him in doping.

“We don’t have anti-doping in most of the events, I’ve never been to one myself, but it depends on the character and strategy of each one. I’m very discerning in the message I’ll pass on to people, I fight for a fair and accessible sport, so I don’t I’ll do it”, he justifies.

The discussion on the subject in MMA is old and has already generated a lot of controversy. The biggest one broke out in 2014 when American trans athlete Fallon Fox fractured the skull of Filipina Tamikka Brents, who publicly said Fox was stronger than any woman.

The subject came up again in 2018, the year in which Anne Viriato, from Amazonas, starred in the first professional fight of a trans woman against a known cisgender man. Two months ago, American rookie Alana McLaughlin also defeated a woman and was the target of transphobia.

“Society has been resisting trans athletes because we have not brought the information carefully, in a scientific and didactic way. It is difficult to judge, because they are [lutadoras trans] they want to do what they love and, without specific categories, they have nowhere to go,” says Cris.

The big question at stake is whether it is fair and safe, in extreme contact sports and with physical risks to opponents, for a person who was biologically born with a man’s body, even if he had undergone hormonal treatment, to fight against women.

There are currently two regulations. The International Olympic Committee says that trans men can only declare themselves as trans men, but trans women must maintain their testosterone at a certain level within a year of competition — a 2003 rule that the IOC has already admitted is not adequate.

The Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC), in turn, which regulates boxing and MMA, requires hormoneization for both men and trans women. They, however, need to go through the process for at least two years and have sex reassignment surgery.

“For me there are other variables that should be taken into account”, says Cris. “It doesn’t assure me that after two years of treatment I’ll be able to fight a cis man who has had a different parameter from mine all his life. It’s not just physical, it’s psychological, emotional, social.”

The athlete defends that, today, transsexuals who did not take hormones fight following their biological genders, but being respected for who they are. Those who went through the process for a certain time or level would fit into the new trans categories.

With no references and few studies in MMA, he is going to use his own hormone treatment next year, accompanied by a doctor, as the object of a research project he has signed up for at the University of Viçosa. “I want to protect myself so I can keep doing what I love.”