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On Sunday night in the shadow of the White House, Donald Trump held a gladiator-style fight night on the South Lawn that drew comparisons to the excesses of Caligula—the first professional sporting event ever staged at the presidential residence. The event, UFC Freedom 250, featured seven bouts, military flyovers, and Trump sitting ringside flanked by Dana White, Melania, and Mark Zuckerberg. It was almost certain to be used as a political stage for Trump’s favored culture wars—and it was. During one of the mid-card fights, UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit beat Derrick Lewis by TKO, exited the cage to drape a gold chain around President Trump’s neck at ringside, then returned to the microphone and called Michelle Obama “a man,” a reference to anti-trans conspiracy theories in right-wing circles that Michelle Obama is transgender—she is not.
In the aftermath of the fight, Joe Rogan interviewed Hokit in the cage. “Congratulations, sir. I’m here with the winner, Josh Hokit. Josh, once again you proved the doubters wrong, moved to 10 and 0, and knocked out one of the biggest knockout artists in the history of the sport,” Rogan said. Hokit responded: “I’m the man with the plan, the piece that’s ready to feast. You know what, f—k this speech. Shoutout to Trump for having the balls to put something like this on. And if I’m going to say anything, there’s only one person more incredible than the Incredible Hok, and that’s my lord and savior Jesus Christ”—before pivoting from his supposedly deeply held religious beliefs to transphobia: “And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” Rogan smiled, did not push back, and ended the interview: “Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Hokit.”
You can see the exchange here:
It is not Hokit’s first brush with transphobia—he has made it a centerpiece of his fighting career. The fighter, who is ranked highly, has repeatedly used his post-fight interviews as a platform for bigotry. After beating Eric Lunsford at in May 2025, before he was even in the UFC, Hokit ended his interview with the same line: “Michelle Obama is a man.” In January 2026, after beating Denzel Freeman, he ended a post-fight speech by calling WNBA legend and 10-time All-Star Brittney Griner “a man”—during the same speech in which he also used the N-word. No consequences followed. Hokit has also posted an Instagram video in which he explicitly threatened violence against transgender women, stating: “If you’re a man and you identify as a woman, you don’t belong in women’s sports, women’s restrooms, or women’s prisons. You belong in this Octagon with me, cause you need to get your ass whooped.”
It is also not nearly UFC’s first brush with transphobia and homophobia. UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland has called being trans “a mental f—king illness” and said that society “should never accept” transgender people. He once claimed that having a gay son would mean he “failed as a man” for creating “such weakness.” The sport has also long struggled with hostility toward Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender MMA fighter, who competed in the 2010s and whose treatment by the MMA community became a precursor to the broader anti-trans sports bans we see today.
The event itself had drawn intense criticism long before Hokit opened his mouth. UFC Freedom 250 was the first professional sporting event ever held on the White House South Lawn, ostensibly a celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence but more transparently a $60 million taxpayer-supported birthday party for a president who turned 80 that day—the crowd sang him “Happy Birthday” midway through the card. The spectacle arrived as Americans faced gas prices above $6 a gallon in parts of the country, inflation at its highest rate in three years at 4%, and an ongoing war in Iran that has disrupted global energy markets and sent crude prices soaring.
It is worth noting that the conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is transgender is completely unfounded. It is part of a broader pattern in which people opposed to transgender existence claim that prominent women—from Serena Williams to Lady Gaga to Brigitte Macron to Brittney Griner—are “secretly trans,” treating the accusation itself as a degradation. The underlying logic is the same logic that drives bathroom bills and sports bans: that someone could be “secretly” transgender, and that this would be a deception, a danger, or a punchline. These conspiracy theories tend to simmer in the background of far-right forums and social media, but every now and then—like last night, on the White House lawn, broadcast to millions of people with no care for the damage it inflicts.
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Hope they had fun on that giant trampoline.
Yikes.
