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(LifeSiteNews) — In 2014, MMA fighter Fallon Fox cracked Tamikka Brents’ skull in a cage fight that lasted just over two minutes before the referee stepped in to stop the mauling. Fox was a 45-year-old man identifying as a woman, and his obvious physical advantages ensured that the woman he was fighting was brutalized in short order.

Something similar happened in Poland over the weekend when a fight between male fighter Piotr “Mua Boy” Lisowski and female opponent and arm wrestler Ula Siekacz was also halted in the second round by a referee. The fight, which was condemned by the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF), was described by some as “horrific” due to the way Siekacz was battered by her male opponent.

“IMMAF categorically disagrees with this intentionally scandalous form of entertainment which does not represent the sport of MMA or its values and put women at risk,” a spokesperson stated. “It is unacceptable that women and women should complete against each other in combat sports, essentially for reasons of safety but also fair play, and we in no way endorse this.”

Siekacz ended up on her back being relentlessly punched by Lisowski but disagreed with the referee’s decision to stop the fight, stating that she’d taken more punishment in the past and survived.

Inevitably, condemnation of the fight is being associated with the debate over transgender athletes, especially since a former U.S. Army Special Forces member calling himself Alana McLaughlin finished female fighter Celine Provost with a rear-naked choke hold in just over three minutes in a bout in Miami, Florida, in September. McLaughlin had lived as a man for the first 33 years of his life, and had only identified as transgender for five years.

He responded to criticism of his decision to fight a woman by tweeting that “[t]ransphobes are just making my block hand stronger,” and after his victory donned a t-shirt reading “end trans genocide.” Even those commentators criticizing the fight obediently referred to McLaughlin by female pronouns while photos of the brawny, bearded Special Forces operative circulated on social media. Our society has accepted McLaughlin’s premises, and so now we pay the price.

While it is difficult to see in the short term how the transgender juggernaut can be stopped considering how effectively the movement has managed to get laws recognizing their chosen identities through legislatures, it is interesting to see that most media outlets are very comfortable with these fights. Perhaps it is an instinctual reaction to seeing women brutalized for a cheering audience by a muscular male identifying as female that rips away the façade of the transgender movement.

Despite the cultural dominance of feminism and now gender ideology, there is something deeply ingrained about the taboo of men inflicting violence on women that still strikes a chord in us. MMA is already at the extreme end of combat sports, and putting a man up against a woman just because he identifies as a woman, too, is rather like the transgender movement taking their premises to the furthest extent possible and then daring us all to call their bluff. They’ve demanded access to bathrooms, rape crisis centres, changing rooms, and many other female-only spaces. So what else will we put up with?

Will we tolerate seeing men breaking female faces and cracking women’s skulls because we’re too progressive to admit that this is insane? I suspect that most on the Left will be happy to do so. But nonetheless, there’s something about it that makes people cringe and wince. That’s their instincts telling them that this is truly messed up. Within a few years, I’m sure they’ll have suppressed those, too.

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.