The national governing body for amateur/Olympic-style boxing recently codified a rule permitting male participation in the women’s division in its 2024 rulebook.
USA Boxing added a ‘Transgender Policy,” written in August 2022, into its 2024 rulebook, declaring that male boxers who transition to female are eligible to compete in the female category under certain conditions. To qualify for the female division, a man must declare his gender identity as female, have undergone gender reassignment surgery, have done hormone testing for a minimum of four years after such procedures, and have met testosterone limits set by USA Boxing.
“The athlete’s total testosterone level in serum must remain below 5 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category,” the 2022 rule said. Male boxers must demonstrate a total testosterone level in serum that is below 5 nmol/L for at least 48 months before first competition.
Minor boxers under the age of 18 must compete in the category aligned with their biological sex, but adult boxers can switch to the category of their preferred gender if they meet the requirements.
“The purpose of this policy is to provide fairness and safety for all boxers,” the organization told the Daily Mail in announcing the rule addition Friday.
USA Boxing’s move to enshrine trans participation into its guidelines for the new year contrasts with the actions of some international professional boxing organizations to safeguard the female category and avoid subjecting its fighters to disproportionate danger.
The World Boxing Council announced in December 2022 that it intends to create a separate category in which transgender athletes can compete in order to protect the women’s division but accommodate men who have undergone sex changes.
Mauricio Sulaiman, the president of the WBC, told the Telegraph at the time: “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.”
Sulaiman acknowledged that trans entrants identifying as women have overwhelming male physical advantages that can overpower and threaten women.
“In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change,” he said. “There should be no gray 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.”
Other female strength, combat, and niche sports, such as powerlifting and mixed martial arts, have been affected by male intrusion.
The Canadian Powerlifting Union for years has allowed male participation into the female category with few guardrails and restrictions. Ontario-based female powerlifter April Hutchinson told National Review that the CPU’s rules haven’t been updated in about five years and are stunningly lenient compared with those of national and international governing bodies for other individual sports. Hutchinson refused to compete at the Vancouver national tournament in February after she learned she was supposed to face Anne Andres, a transgender-identifying man, in her weight class.
Many organizations have testosterone caps for male competitors and require them to have identified as trans for multiple years in order to compete against women, but the CPU only requires that lifters present a passport listing the sex they’re seeking to compete against. Canadians and Americans can now request a change to the sex listed on their passport by filling out a form.
Following Hutchinson’s activism, the International Powerlifting Federation ordered the CPU to stop allowing gender self-identification. Now, it requires male competitors to declare their gender identity with government identification and report their testosterone levels.