The World Boxing Council will create a new transgender boxing category so that transgender boxers who want to compete can do so amongst themselves.
The president of WBC says they are adopting an ‘at birth’ rule and makes clear that “a man fighting a woman must never be accepted”.
Here’s more from Daily Mail:
The World Boxing Council plans to introduce a new category solely for transgender fighters in 2023, according to reports.
The sport will soon initiate a ‘global call’ for trans athletes to come forward ahead of next year, with the aim of setting up a fresh league or tournament.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman believes that boxing needs to evolve for ‘safety and inclusion’ reasons.
In an interview with The Telegraph, he insisted that trans fighters will not be allowed to compete against non-trans athletes as a result of their proposal.
‘We are going to put out a global call for those who are interested in 2023 and we will set up the protocols, start consultation and most likely create a league and a tournament,’ Sulaiman said.
‘It is the time to do this, and we are doing this because of safety and inclusion. We have been the leaders in rules for women’s boxing – so the dangers of a man fighting a woman will never happen because of what we are going to put in place.
‘In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change. There should be no grey area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions.
‘Woman to man or man to woman transgender change will never be allowed to fight a different gender by birth.’
Adopting the ‘at birth’ rule, the sport will only allow trans fighters to compete against each other if the athletes were born with the same sex.
Sulaiman added: ‘We are creating a set of rules and structures so that transgender boxing can take place, as they fully deserve to if they want to box.
‘We do not yet know the numbers that there are out there, but we’re opening a universal registration in 2023, so that we can understand the boxers that are out there – and we’ll start from there.’
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I hate it because it continues the normalization of this transgender mental illness when there’s nothing normal about it.
On the other hand, I respect the fact that Sulaiman is trying to protect women in the sport of boxing from having to fight biological men, which is inherently and completely unfair. He’s absolutely right that this should never be allowed and he’s doing this for their safety. He sees the transgender controversy train coming to his sport and he’s trying to head it off in a reasonable way.
I just wonder how the transgender community will respond to this because Sulaiman is clearly stating that biological females and transgender females are NOT the same. I suspect many will call him homophobic and reject what he’s trying to do here, because that’s just how messed up our society has become.