NewsRescue
Under some conditions, USA Boxing will allow men who have transitioned to female to compete against biological women, according to the organization’s 2024 regulation. Boxers have slammed the decision, with one former champion describing it as “men, basically, beating up women.”
Men over the age of 18 will be eligible to compete against women under the new rules if they undergo gender reassignment surgery and agree to quarterly hormone testing for four years.
For the next four years, transgender athletes must demonstrate that their plasma testosterone levels is less than 5 nanomoles per litre. Adult men should have levels ranging from 10 to 35 nmol/L, whereas adult women should have levels ranging from 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L.
“The purpose of this policy is to provide fairness and safety for all boxers,” USA Boxing stated when announcing the policy.
Other sporting organisations, on the other hand, have abandoned similar policies in favour of outright bans on transgender athletes. Low testosterone levels are insufficient to “completely eliminate the benefits of testosterone during puberty in men,” according to the International Cycling Union, who adds that transgender women benefit from “biomechanical advantages” due to their masculine bone structure.
Even after two years of taking female hormones, studies reveal that transsexual women retain an athletic advantage over biological women.
Transgender women have been forbidden from competing in women’s sports by World Athletics, the governing body for track and field and other running activities, FINA, the regulating body for swimming and World Rugby.
Athletes slammed USA Boxing’s decision, with former world champion Ebanie Bridges calling it “wrong on so many levels.”
“It’s bad enough having trans women breaking records in other sports like track and field, swimming and powerlifting, but it’s a bit different to them breaking our skulls in combat sports where the aim is to HURT YOU,” Bridges posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Saturday.
“Cutting your bits off and adding boobs won’t take back the masculine maturity your body has gone through before you decided you are now a woman,” she went on to say.
“It’s a man, basically, beating up a woman,” British boxer Carl Froch told the New York Post earlier this year, when the policy was under consideration. “A man born as a man with the XY chromosome fighting a woman with a uterus.” This should never happen. It should be prohibited and outlawed. “It should never happen,” he remarked.
Amateur boxing in the United States is governed by USA Boxing, and American athletes wishing to represent their country at the Olympic Games must compete in its events. The International Olympic Committee has declined to develop its own transgender policy.