Coming to a pay-per-view near you: a transgender title fight.
It isn’t official just yet, but if the World Boxing Council (WBC) will have its way, it would be establishing a separate category for transgenders. If this plan pushes through, the WBC will be the first — and only — sanctioning body to have such category, adding a third one to the traditional male and female divisions.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman announced this plan in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, where he emphasized that the council “will not allow — ever — a transgender born a man to fight a woman, who was born a woman.”
The WBC’s transgender category will make sure transgender fighters fight based on the gender in which they were born. This means a transgender man born as a female will be allowed to fight a transgender foe that meets the same requirements. Likewise, a transgender woman born a man will only be able to box against transgender females born males.
“It is the time to do this, and we are doing this because of safety and inclusion,” said the 53-year-old Sulaiman. It is a progressive decision for one of the sport’s four major organizations. There should be no gray area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions.”
To date, there are very few transgender fighters in boxing, with the most notable being Patricio Manuel. A former five-time women’s U.S. amateur champion, Manuel is now fighting in the men’s category, debuting as a male boxer in 2018. The boxing’s first transgender fighter, however, has struggled to secure fights and has, in fact, not fought since his debut four years ago.
The introduction of a transgender category may change the trajectory of Manuel’s career, though it might be too late as he is now 37. But it might open doors for other transgender fighters, like Thailand’s Nong Rose Baan Charoensuk, who are looking to carve a career in boxing.