The World Boxing Council, an international professional boxing organization, announced Thursday 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, revealed the plan in an interview with the Telegraph.
“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,” he said.
Sulaiman acknowledged that trans entrants identifying as women still carry male physical advantages that can overpower and potentially endanger 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.”
Sulaiman told the British paper that the WBC will gauge interest in transgender-exclusive events in 2023, for which there would likely be unique rules and regulations.
“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,” he said. “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.”
In the combat sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), which allows techniques beyond the punching permitted in boxing, female fighters face even greater risk of injury. In an infamous 2014 match, Fallon Fox, the first transgender-identifying MMA fighter, brutally pummeled his female opponent. Fox allegedly participated in two fights before revealing his history as a man. American fighter Tamikka Brents lasted just over two minutes against Fox’s raw strength until the referee blew the whistle to end the contest.
Brents suffered a fractured skull after repeated blows, sending her to the hospital for emergency treatment for a concussion and a broken orbital bone. She received seven staples in the head, according to WhoaTV.
“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. . . . I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” Brents told the outlet in 2014. “Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch.”
While distinct from boxing, MMA has made some progress on the transgender issue. In September, the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) held a conference on transgender policy for its member federations and invitees from across combat sports. Since 2021, the organization has had a provisional policy barring transgender entrants in “existing male and female competition categories on a safety basis.”
The organization has argued that mere testosterone limits for transgender female athletes does not negate their biological dominance as men. This stance is at odds with many other presiding bodies in international sports.
IMMAF rules state that “the scientific evidence currently available is compelling enough to prevent Transgender athletes from competing at IMMAF Competitions because the risks of injury and unfair competition are too great. . . . The scientific evidence in relation to the effects of testosterone suppression treatment shows that those effects are not significant enough for IMMAF to permit Transgender athletes to compete at IMMAF Competitions based on testosterone suppression.”
The IMMAF is reportedly considering designating the male category “open” or creating new categories in a manner similar to the WBC’s plans.