The World Boxing Council (WBC) has announced a new category for transgender boxers to ensure the “safety” of competitors.
WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told The Telegraph on Thursday that the new rules will go into effect in 2023 and are meant to make sure female boxers are safe.
World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman during an open workout at BOXPARK Wembley, London. Picture date: Tuesday, April 19, 2022. (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Sulaiman added that WBC intended to ensure that “the dangers of a man fighting a woman will never happen.”
“We will not allow — ever — a transgender born a man to fight a woman, who was born a woman,” he added.
The WBC has added birth gender rules that maintain that males can only fight other males, and men who claim to have “transitioned” to being women can only fight other transgender women. The same will be true for female boxers who claim to be transgender males.
“It is the time to do this, and we are doing this because of safety and inclusion,” Sulaiman insisted.
“There should be no grey area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions,” he said, opposing the idea that transgender “women” should be allowed to fight natural-born women.
PAKCHONG, NAKHONRATCHASIMA, THAILAND – 2016/11/17: Somros Pholcharoen, 20, Thai ladyboy Muay Thai boxer, applies a red lipstick before the Muay Thai fight. (Atid Kiattisaksiri/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Woman to man or man to woman transgender change will never be allowed to fight a different gender by birth,” he explained.
Still, Sulaiman also said that transgender people “fully deserve” to join the sport of boxing if they want to do so.
One of the best examples of the dangers of free-for-all fighting is seen in the case of MMA fighter Fallon Fox, who was born a man and fractured the orbital socket of a female opponent in the ring.
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