Director: Marc Perez
Release Year: 2024
In Unfightable (2024), Emmy-winning director Marc J. Perez trades punches for poignancy in this gripping new documentary about Alana McLaughlin, a transgender woman, former U.S. Army Special Forces sergeant, and professional MMA fighter. The film dives headfirst into the cage, but not just the physical one. This is a story of blood, courage, and visibility, where the real fight takes place far outside the ring.
Alana’s journey is nothing short of a battleground. Raised in a conservative South Carolina household that forced her into conversion therapy, barred her from sports, and tried to hammer out any sign of femininity, she endured more hardship before adulthood than most do in a lifetime. But the girl they tried to erase grew into a woman who would become one of the most controversial, and inspiring, figures in combat sports today.
Perez began documenting Alana’s story in 2021, the year she trained for and fought her professional MMA debut. Facing vicious public backlash, athletes who refused to compete against her, and an uphill battle to find gyms willing to train her, Alana stood her ground. She made her debut on September 10, 2021, in Miami at Combate Global, fighting under the name “Lady Feral.” With a second-round rear-naked choke, she secured not just a win, but a spot in the history books as the second openly trans woman to fight professionally in MMA, following Fallon Fox.
But the film makes it crystal clear, Alana’s most ferocious opponents are not in the cage. Unfightable confronts the everyday violence she faces just for existing: being attacked on the street, having guns shoved in her face, being ridiculed for living her truth. And yet, through it all, she crafts swords and knives with her own hands, fitting symbols of the fighter she has always been.
What makes Unfightable truly stand out is its refusal to sanitize the emotional toll of Alana’s journey. It doesn’t just follow a fighter training for a match, it captures a woman building a life in a world that often denies her very existence. The camera lingers on her moments of doubt, rage, and quiet resilience, offering viewers not just a spectacle, but a human story. In an era where transgender rights are constantly debated but rarely understood, this film dares to make empathy unavoidable. It invites the audience into Alana’s world, not to judge or question, but to witness.
The documentary was released at a tense moment for gender in sport, as controversies swirl around athletes like Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at the Paris Summer Olympics. Unfightable doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but it demands that we at least stop asking the wrong questions, questions that frame transgender athletes as threats, rather than humans with the same drive, discipline, and desire to compete as anyone else.
The film is more than a sports documentary; it’s a raw and riveting portrait of resilience. From serving in Afghanistan as a Special Forces medic to stepping into the MMA cage, Alana has never stopped fighting. Now, she battles not just for titles, but for the right to be seen, as an athlete, a woman, and a warrior.
With a professional record of 1-0-0 and a lifetime of lived experience, Alana McLaughlin shows us that sometimes, the fiercest battles are the ones you fight to simply exist. And win or lose, her fight is one we all need to witness.
Image credits: YouTube
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