Aristotélēs
πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2025
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Being a gay man in this sport is emotionally exhausting.
Needless to say, this past week has been exhausting between the Dan Hooker stuff and pretty everything Sean Strickland has said and done in the past week. I’m an openly gay MMA hobbyist and UFC fan, lately interacting with anything MMA related has felt like a draining exercise.
I’ve trained at a few intense MMA gyms and want to compete eventually, the thing that has kept me from diving in and putting in the time commitment is the awful culture in the MMA community. I love the sport itself but it seems like anyone of any influence in the sport never passes up a chance to degrade and dehumanize LGBTQ people. I’ve been trying out a few local gyms and looking at giving it another shot at doing this seriously. I honestly think I could get decent at the sport in the right training environment. I was on my college’s taekwondo team and went to the national championship twice, and I’ve been picking wrestling pretty seriously.
Seeing how supportive the vast majority of the MMA community has been of Sean Strickland’s homophobic and transphobic rant at the pre fight press conference last week was definitely upsetting. For my community, the F slur pretty much means the same thing that the N word means to black people. It’s a word with a cruel history that is meant to be dehumanizing. Hearing Strickland throw it around so casually was enough for me to skip watching the fight.
The whole Dan Hooker situation shows that even if you’re an elite level pro fighter, fans will still turn on you the second they think you MIGHT be gay. There is no way to even be “one of the good ones” in MMA. It’s also disappointing to see the massive lack of representation of gay or bi men in the MMA. It definitely takes a lot of mental discipline to even pursue competing at an amateur level in the sport when you see no room for someone like yourself.
Needless to say, this past week has been exhausting between the Dan Hooker stuff and pretty everything Sean Strickland has said and done in the past week. I’m an openly gay MMA hobbyist and UFC fan, lately interacting with anything MMA related has felt like a draining exercise.
I’ve trained at a few intense MMA gyms and want to compete eventually, the thing that has kept me from diving in and putting in the time commitment is the awful culture in the MMA community. I love the sport itself but it seems like anyone of any influence in the sport never passes up a chance to degrade and dehumanize LGBTQ people. I’ve been trying out a few local gyms and looking at giving it another shot at doing this seriously. I honestly think I could get decent at the sport in the right training environment. I was on my college’s taekwondo team and went to the national championship twice, and I’ve been picking wrestling pretty seriously.
Seeing how supportive the vast majority of the MMA community has been of Sean Strickland’s homophobic and transphobic rant at the pre fight press conference last week was definitely upsetting. For my community, the F slur pretty much means the same thing that the N word means to black people. It’s a word with a cruel history that is meant to be dehumanizing. Hearing Strickland throw it around so casually was enough for me to skip watching the fight.
The whole Dan Hooker situation shows that even if you’re an elite level pro fighter, fans will still turn on you the second they think you MIGHT be gay. There is no way to even be “one of the good ones” in MMA. It’s also disappointing to see the massive lack of representation of gay or bi men in the MMA. It definitely takes a lot of mental discipline to even pursue competing at an amateur level in the sport when you see no room for someone like yourself.
