© Instagram / @lady_feralAlana McLaughlin has responded to online attacks.
Only taking up the sport earlier this year and struggling to find a gym until MMA Masters in Florida accepted her, McLaughlin launched her career with a win that came via a second-round submission on a Combate Global card.
Yet the doubters and naysayers have poured scorn on the win, with accusations ranging from McLaughlin cheating to suggesting that opponent Celine Provost took a dive prior to the rear-naked choke finish.
To address the matter, McLaughlin, who transitioned five years ago, took to Instagram.
"Good morning, friends, supporters and others!" began the post.
"I'm getting a lot of variations of the same nasty messages calling me a cheater like I didn't just get beat on for a round and a half," it was said, in reference to McLaughlin being rocked early in the bout.
Comment: Even with the unfair advantage it would appear the other fighter was still technically better.
"Y'all need to show Celine some respect and take your concern trolling elsewhere. She almost finished me more than once, and on [the] scorecards she definitely won that first round.
"This is the only post I'll make about this. Transphobes are just making my block hand stronger," signed off McLaughlin, who became the first openly transgender fighter to compete in the US since Fallon Fox in 2014.
Estranged from her religious mother after being denied gender reassignment from an early age, McLaughlin also had to pass a number of tests to get her fight against Provost greenlit, including hormone assessments.
Comment: Hormone drugs don't change one's genetics.
Elsewhere, the MMA debutante has also talked of wishing to carry on the torch from Fox, who ended her octagon tenure with a 5-1 record.
"Right now, I'm following in Fallon's footsteps. I'm just another step along the way and it's my great hope that there are more to follow behind me," McLaughlin said on a podcast.
"If we want to see more trans athletes, if we want to see more opportunities for trans kids, we're going to have to work out way into those spaces and make it happen."
Comment: The idea of encouraging children to be 'trans' is in itself highly controversial, and understandably so: Whistleblowers call for end to transgender 'unregulated live experiment on children' at NHS clinic
Yet reaction to McLaughlin's first win suggests it might be some time until she is universally accepted by the fight community, with PFL contender Tyler Diamond using a facepalm emoji to reply to one post that announced it.
'That's not a legitimate win'
Already fighting twice when she came out in 2013, Fox competed on a further four occasions and retired almost exactly 7 years ago to the day on a 5-1 record.
Fearing it would be scrapped when Provost tested positive for Covid in July, the fighter has talked about wanting to "to pick up the mantle that Fallon put down" in the sport.
Asking her religious mother for gender reassignment, a request which was turned down with the pair estranged and no longer on speaking terms, she served in the military for six years before being diagnosed with PTSD.
Finding an opponent was no easy task either, and though Provost willingly accepted the fight, others have taken to social media to voice their disapproval with the result.
Fellow 12-2 MMA combatant Tyler Diamond of the PFL simply replied to a popular Instagram post announcing the victory with a facepalm emoji, while members of the public commented things such as "That's not a legitimate win" and "Here we go again".
"Who is she fighting again so I can throw some money on her?" was a more light-hearted response, while someone else said: "Things have come full circle, feminists [now] encourage male on female violence."
"Joe Rogan is gonna pop a vein in his head on his next podcast" it was also quipped, in reference to the widely-popular show by the UFC commentator that Fox wanted to have canceled.
Err... we DONT!!! Unless it's against a biological male. Then we do. We really, really do.