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Former UFC fighter Jake Shields has recently emerged as a prominent Twitter celebrity who often makes controversial statements through his social media account. In the latest chapter of the UFC fighter- transgender athlete beef, the 44-year-old uploaded a tweet accusing the transgender community of trying to get him fired from his job:
"The pronoun people are sending emails trying to get me fired. Unfortunately for these dorks I own most of my own shit and the people I work with think they are weirdos too," wrote Jake Shields.
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Jake Shields used to compete in the UFC's welterweight division. During his stint in the multi-billion promotion, the California native competed in eight fights but scored a victory in only half of them.
The 44-year-old's last UFC fight took place in March 2014 when he went up against Hector Lombard at UFC 171. Shields failed to get his hand raised that night and lost the scrap via unanimous decision. The three judges scored the contest 30-27, 30-27, and 29-28 in favor of Lombard.
After that, Shields parted ways with the UFC and went on to compete in other MMA promotions like WSOF and PFL.
UFC fighter - transgender athlete beef: What did Jake Shields say to start the argument?
On several occasions, Jake Shields has uploaded tweets against the transgender community and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.
Recently, the former UFC fighter uploaded a series of tweets, issuing a challenge to fight 10 transgender athletes back-to-back:
"Since trans men are real men I would like to challenge the 10 toughest trans men in the world to a fight I fight them with no training camp and no rest between each fight"
The 44-year-old then tweaked his challenge and added Mike Jackson to the list of people he would fight on the same night.
Shields then claimed that transgender athletes were scared to go up against him in a fight:
"A million views and not a single trans Man has stepped up to accept my challenge. I’m starting to think they don’t have the balls to fight me."
Shields challenged drew outrage from many on the internet, and several trans-athletes put out tweets responding to the former UFC fighter's challenge. Trans-MMA athlete Alana McLaughlin listed out the conditions that Shields needed to fulfill in order for her to accept the offer.
Mack Beggs, a transgender athlete, also took to social media to accept the challenge from Shields.
