There have been many debates about transgender people recently, inside and outside of the sports world. Some of the most violent language yet comes from Jake Shields, known for a MMA career including CFF, IFC, EliteXC, Strikeforce, UFC (where he fought Georges St. Pierre for the welterweight championship in 2011), World Series of Fighting, and PFL bouts between 1999 and 2018. Shields’ initial tweet here Tuesday appears to have been taken down by Twitter, but it’s preserved in screengrabs from people criticizing it:
When we talk about genocide and genocidal language, well, we're at the stage in the US where semi celebrities are using their platform to ask this kind of question. pic.twitter.com/hwctKbrTfy
— Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) April 26, 2023
https://twitter.com/EliasCepeda/status/1651223408422580224
As some pointed out, Shields (seen above in October 2013 after a UFC Fight Night event) has said similar things before that haven’t yet been taken down by Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AlanaFeral/status/1651236692953554944
He had many other tweets on “pedophilia” and trans people Tuesday that weren’t removed:
Something else I've noticed is all the pro-pedo/trans account use anime profile pics
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) April 25, 2023
My guess is Portland, San Francisco, or Seattle
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) April 25, 2023
Shields also weighed in on the story of 54-year-old trans marathoner Glenique Frank, who finished in 6,160th place out of 20,123 female runners in the London Marathon.
This loser enters the women's division and still doesn't win pic.twitter.com/r5c8o91dQ3
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) April 26, 2023
Shields has weighed in in controversial fashion on many other topics recently, including retweeting a claim that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is the son of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, retweeting influencer Andrew Tate (who’s facing criminal charges in Romania on human trafficking, rape, and more), and retweeting a photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell (who was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in 2021). His past comments on race have also drawn a lot of fire:
— Matthew Hill (@mhill360) April 21, 2023
Shields has 334,000 followers on Twitter. His last notable fight was a TKO loss to Ray Cooper III in a 2018 PFL bout.
[Photo from Jason Silva/USA Today Sports]
