The World Boxing Council announces its plan to launch a transgender league.
On Thursday, the World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman sat down for an interview with The Telegraph publication. During the interview, Sulaiman announced the organization is creating a transgender category and will be reaching out to those individuals next year if they’re interested in joining.
“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,” Sulaiman says. “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.”
Sulaiman explained that trans athletes will only be allowed to fight against each other and will follow the “at birth” policy. This means “a trans fighter born a man would only be able to fight a fellow trans fighter born a man.” Sulaiman says following the policy will help promote “safety and inclusion” amongst the sport and players.
“In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change,” Sulaiman added. “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.”
Nevertheless, the organization promises to “keep researching with the utmost professionals in healthcare to have a greater understanding of the matter, and will keep looking for fairness in the sport and equality.”
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