One punch at a time for transgender boxer’s fight to compete

SANTA CLARA — Boxer Patricio Manuel was walking alone in his East Los Angeles neighborhood a few weeks ago after a training run when a police officer approached him and asked what he was doing.

As a black man, Manuel, 33, was used to extra scrutiny from the police. As a black transgender man, the first to compete in a professional boxing match, he was used to extra scrutiny period: He has encountered it regularly, he said, since he began a medical transition from a woman to a man six years ago.

“When I started passing as a man, I was passing as a black man,” he said Wednesday at Levi’s Stadium, after a symposium on LGBTQ athletes, sponsored by the 49ers and San Jose State’s Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change.

“Suddenly the world was treating me very differently,” he added. “Now I’m used to walking around being seen as a threat.”

Manuel said he’d rather be seen as a threat in the boxing ring, where he once won five national amateur women’s titles, and came close to qualifying for the London Olympics in 2012.

In sports involving transgender athletes, the biggest debates usually focus on the fairness of people who are genetically male competing in women’s events, like Renee Richards playing tennis in the 1970s. Transgender athletes Parinya Charoenphol, a boxer, and Fallon Fox, an MMA fighter, have faced such backlash in recent years for competing against women.

Manuel, competing in men’s events, has a slightly different challenge.

“Every time I go in there as a black trans man I don’t get to just be myself,” said Manuel, who has tattooed the word “Bash” on one hand and “Back” on the other. “I am someone who is willing to risk being hated by you to live my truth.”

He said when he entered the ring for his professional debut Dec. 8 — in a fight at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio in the super flyweight division (128 pounds) — he heard every possible jeer and cheer.

Manuel tried to focus instead on his opponent, Hugo Aguilar of Mexico, and he succeeded: he controlled much of the four-round bout to win in a decision that was unanimous.

By winning on points, Manuel said, he made a point.

“We’re expected to lose in everything, not just boxing but in life,” he said, referring to transgender people. “They were not booing me but booing their own narrow interpretations that were proven wrong.”

Manuel grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena, reared by his mother, grandmother and two uncles, described by him as Irish-Americans. He started boxing at age 16, after his grandmother gave him a membership to the Los Angeles Boxing Club as a Christmas present. His father, an African-American, had not been part of his life and for the first time, he found black male role models at the boxing club, Manuel said.

The first day Manuel walked into the gym, he said, a coach declared, “I hope she is here to box. She looks tough.”

Not that tough. Manuel got stopped within a half-minute in his first fight, then lost the next two. He eventually rose through the ranks until losing a bid to qualify for the first women’s Olympic tournament because of chronic shoulder injuries.

He never fought as a woman again.

His transition from woman to man began in 2013 with hormone treatments that helped him add muscle weight and grow a beard. The next year he underwent surgery to reshape his chest.

He said it took time to adjust to his new body, even though the physicians did not make drastic changes. Manuel, whose rectangular glasses frame a V-shaped face that sports a full beard, said he felt quicker and could hit harder after taking the male hormone testosterone. The therapy has led to accusations that Manuel uses performance-enhancing drugs to cheat the system. He said his testosterone levels are within an accepted range under drug-testing guidelines. The World Anti-Doping Agency two years ago created a “therapeutic use exemption” policy for transgender athletes undergoing testosterone therapy.

“At first, they say you’re going to get your ass beat because you’re a girl,” Manuel said. He added, using a slang term for the drugs: “Then it is you’re ‘juicing,’ that’s how you are able to do it.”

Manuel, who is known as “Cacahuate,” or Peanut, because of the small size of his head, was not sure he would even get to the point that he was the subject of such debates. After being open about transitioning to become a male, he lost his coach and was dropped by his boxing gym. He finally found a welcoming club in the Los Angeles area that supports his efforts.

The California State boxing commission also balked at issuing him an amateur license because it had never encountered such a situation. But officials relented in 2016 after the International Olympic Committee ruled that female-to-male transgender athletes could compete in the Rio Games.

Gaining eligibility was not the final hurdle. Manuel had trouble finding opponents because, he said, many men do not want to risk losing to someone identified as a girl at birth. He had only three amateur fights against men, including his debut in 2016.

Now Manuel is training for a second professional fight June 13 in Hollywood, against an as yet unnamed opponent. The fight is part of Golden Boy Promotions, the Los Angeles-based company that has given him an opportunity few others have.

Manuel said he doesn’t know how much longer he can box after losing his prime years wading through seemingly endless bureaucracy.

But whatever unfolds, he plans to enjoy every moment in the ring he gets, Manuel said. He also wants to continue speaking out to improve transgender people’s public profile.

“I can reach people in a different way than an activist because I am an athlete,” he said. “It would be irresponsible for me to not reach out to people because that’s where I can impact change.”