Gay fighters

From male and female gay UFC fighters to encouraging closet members to reveal their identity to the world, the MMA community embraces Pride month in a spectacular manner. The UFC is slowly becoming more inclusive, with these growing number of fighters openly identifying as LGBT. Being an openly gay athlete in a sport like MMA takes a lot of courage to say the least.

Though the vast majority of the MMA community is completely accepting, such as UFC Dana White who has voiced his support of LGBT fighters multiple times, some are not. As part of Pride Month, BBC Sport looks at why there is a lack of openly gay male MMA fighters and what needs to change. This past Friday, the UFC flyweight prospect posted a statement to social media coming out as bisexual after an intimate video of him with another man was posted online without his consent.

gay boxers

The LGBT community is a loose group of people with various sex orientations united by a culture and cause. Its members are within other groups, subcultures, and societies.

Plenty of UFC fighters are a part of the spectrum and here is a handful of them. These are the UFC veterans with the most fights in the organization wit some having more success than others. Growing up in the "Cracklands" of Brazil where drug use runs rampant, Priscila Cachoeira overcame an extremely rough childhood to make it all the way to the UFC. Cachoeira is nothing spectacular, but considering her road to get there, it's remarkable in of itself.

Cachoeira is far from beloved in the sport though. In , her ex-girlfriend filed for a restraining order against the UFC fighter as she accused her of assault. On top of that, Cachoeira is known for cheating in her fights, as she did a blatant eye gouge in her fight against Gillian Robertson which painted her in a bad light with fans. Priscila Cachoeira currently competes in the Women's Bantamweight division after having missed weight at lbs.

Gloria De Paula is no longer in the UFC and her career was nothing to write home about, but she can still hold the honor of competing in the world's top MMA promotion. Fans may be more familiar with De Paula's girlfriend however. Tonya Evinger is not a name that newer fans would recognize, but the American Bantamweight fighter fought some of the bigger names from the early days of Women's MMA.

She made her way to UFC through the regional circuit. Inside the Octagon she stacked up a 5 - 4 record. She went 2 - 4 in the octagon and finally retired. Her goal was to spread awareness and respect towards community members. She harnessed her skills on the regional circuit and Strikeforce. Carmouche began her career with a five-fight winning streak. Later she was signed by the UFC. She made her promotional debut at UFC , where Ronda Rousey submitted her in another bantamweight title affair.

She defended the title three consecutive times. After stacking a 9 - 2 record Andrade made her UFC debut in After 4 years since her debut, she challenged Joanna Jedrzejczyk for the strawweight championship gold. However, she lost it in her first defense against Zhang Weili. She lost to Julianna Pena, but still made her promotional debut.

After her MMA tenure, she switched her attention to pro wrestling. She had a viral moment where she pleaded with WWE star Rhea Ripley to give her a "Stinkface" which is a move where your opponent rubs their butt in your face while you're trapped in a turnbuckle corner. She went 1 - 4 inside the octagon with her sole win being a unanimous decision victory over Jodie Esquibel. Israel Adesanya.