We have been accused of unfair advantage in sports then how do they explain this win in boxing by a trans man?
Transgender boxer Patricio Manuel’s KOs barriersBefore he could get in the ring he had to fight for the right to get into the ring.
Mercury News
By Adam Grosbard Southern California News Group
December 16, 2018
Patricio Manuel stood in the tunnel of the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio last week, waiting to, at last, enter the ring – history ahead of him but not on his mind.
The 33-year-old Manuel went into the routine that he’d fine-tuned since he first started boxing at 16. He focused on his opponent, Mexican super-featherweight Hugo Aguilar, and his strategy for the bout.
[…]
He walked out to the ring, like he’s done many times before, but this time, unlike anyone before him.
When he entered the ring last weekend, Manuel became the first-ever visible transgender male boxer in U.S. history to participate in a professional fight. The bout ended a six-year altogether different battle for Manuel, starting with his social transition in 2012 and medical transition a year later, to be allowed to fight against the gender he identifies as.
He was left to wait for factors outside of his control to move his life forward. As he aged out of his athletic prime, it became more and more frustrating.I am not a fan of boxing but I am a fan of equity and this was a big step for us and I am glad he won his battles.
“I’m not getting any younger,” he remembered thinking. “Time is not on my side.”
But that changed last weekend.
[…]
The boxing community as a whole was supportive of him before and after his fight, he insists. After the fight, Aguilar had nothing but positive things to say about the man who had just beaten him.
“For me, it’s very respectable,” Aguilar told reporters. “It doesn’t change anything for me. In the ring, he wants to win and I want to win, too.”
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