Meme check: Did biological male fighter fracture 2 women's skulls?

Twitter owner Elon Musk replied with two exclamation points to a tweet claiming that biological male Fallon Fox fractured two women's skulls in professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fights. The tweet asks people to join a petition encouraging politicians to protect female fighters from future harm.

Transgender, Fallon Fox has now broken the skulls of 2 women. GOP state legislators must move to pass laws protecting women! PLEASE add your voice & sign petition to lawmakers to end this injustice. Sign https://bit.ly/3KHTlIv

Another Twitter user complained that Fox was actually awarded “Bravest Athlete in History” for "punching the living daylight out of women" and attached a video of one of Fox's victories over a biological woman.

Same bones, hands & punches

Podcaster Joe Rogan joined the protests against Fox in his podcast claiming Fox was fighting biological females while possessing significant advantages over them that do not disappear during a “gender transition”. Fight Opinion quotes Rogan:

She calls herself a woman but . . . I tend to disagree. And, uh, she, um . . . she used to be a man but now she has had, she's a transgender which is (the) official term that means you've gone through it, right? And she wants to be able to fight women in MMA. I say no f***ing way. . . .

The operation doesn't shave down your bone density. It doesn't change. You look at a man's hands and you look at a women's hands and they're built different. They're just thicker, they're stronger, your wrists are thicker, your elbows are thicker, your joints are thicker. Just the mechanical function of punching, a man can do it much harder than a woman can, period.

Not exactly

Other Twitter users, though, added the following clarification to the meme picturing the bloodied fighter:

The wounds on the fighter on the right were not inflicted by Fallon Fox. The fighter on the right (Kalyn Schwartz) sustained those wounds fighting Kay Hansen in March 2018. See clip at 12:15:00 https://dai.ly/x7y2sbo

Apparently, the tweet containing the video of Fox dominating a female opponent is mislabeled as well, as noted by other Twitter users.

•This video from March 2013 shows Fallon Fox beating Ericka Newsome, who did not suffer a skull fracture during her fight. sportskeeda.com/mma/news-repub… 

•Additionally, Fox claims her voice was altered: twitter.com/fallonfox/stat…

•Fox did previously fracture Tammika Brent's skull in September 2014, but that was a different fight: sportskeeda.com/mma/fallon-fox…

‘Bravest Athlete in History’?

The claim in the video tweet that Fox was awarded "Bravest Athlete in History" also appears to be unsupported. Fox was inducted in the LGBT Sports Hall Of Fame but was not officially declared the "Bravest Athlete in History". However, the claim is not without any basis. Cyd Zeigler, writing in Outsports, a news site focusing on LGBT issues in sports, labeled Fox exactly that.

When I wrote my book, Fair Play: How LGBT Athletes Are Claiming Their Rightful Place In Sports, the final chapter was titled, “Fallon Fox Is The Bravest Athlete In History.”

From the receiving end

As mentioned in the clarification of the video tweet, Fox did in fact break one woman's skull. In the biological male's second fight against women, Fox knocked out Tamikka Brents in the first round leaving the victim with a concussion, a broken orbital bone (eye socket) and seven staples to repair damage to her head. Brents detailed what it felt like to be punched by a biological male.

I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. . . . I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right. Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch. . . . I still disagree with Fox fighting. Any other job or career I say have a go at it, but when it comes to a combat sport I think it just isn’t fair. 

Enjoyed breaking her skull

Fox, for his part, made clear that he had no regrets about the damage caused to females.

For the record, I knocked two out. One woman’s skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know, I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS [sic - TERFs; Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists] in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It’s bliss!"

With the approval of women

Not only have feminists not jumped to the defense of biological females who need to face Fox in the ring, some, like the Feministing online community of young feminists, publicized just how “thrilled” they were with Fox's entry into women's professional fighting.

[W]e were thrilled to speak with the incredible MMA fighter and advocate Fallon Fox! 

Summary

• The meme depicting a bloodied female fighter having had her skull fractured by biological male and professional MMA fighter Fallon Fox is inaccurate — the pictured woman was defeated by a different fighter, not Fox; 
• the accompanying text stating that Fox broke the skulls of two women is inaccurate as well;
• another meme linking to a video of Fox allegedly breaking a woman's skull is also inaccurate as it is actually footage of Fox beating a woman whose skull he did not fracture.

On the other hand, 

• Fox did in fact fracture the eye socket of one female fighter's skull;
• said it was “bliss” to do so;
• was inducted into the LGBT Sports Hall Of Fame;
• was declared the “Bravest Athlete in History” by a writer for an LGBT sports news site; and,
• was shown beating a biological female in a video tweet, albeit a different woman than the one listed in the tweet.

We rate this meme partially true and advise against circulating it without a link to this article or some other webpage clarifying the facts about Fox.

Please see our previous article on gender issues:

AMA trying to shut down opposition to child castration surgery