Patricio Manuel changed boxing forever. Now the trans trailblazer is retiring.
The impact trans boxer Pat Manuel had on his sport in and out of the ring, and on the trans community, has been formidable.
Mark
Patricio Manuel, the first transgender man to step into a men’s pro boxing ring and fight, announced his retirement from boxing over the weekend
His pro ring stats read: 4 Professional fights. 3 wins. 1 loss.
He retires having earned a title that rises as high as any championship belt. Patricio Manuel is a People’s Champion.
For many of us who are trans, and especially for those of us who are trans and get into competitive sport, a hard-hitting super featherweight who found himself in his sport and refused to quit was our story, our pride and our challenge to keep pushing forward.
Manuel understood all of these things.
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“To some people, sports are just frivolous hobbies,” he said in his retirement announcement on Instagram. “But for many of us, they’re part of the foundation of who we are.
“Looking back, there have been two decisions that shaped my life. The first was choosing to medically transition.
“The second was walking through the doors of a boxing gym.”
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Patricio Manuel’s new beginning and an old pair of boxing gloves
My understanding of this man in many ways is shaped by an old pair of gloves.
In an interview in 2022 that was part of the trans history anthology Trans Hirstory In 99 Objects, Manuel looked back at when he started his transition.
It was 2013. A shoulder injury had kept Manuel, then a budding women’s amateur champion, out of the Olympic trials the year before, and while healing he found that it was time to step into his truth.
The LGBTQ center where he was teaching boxing to kids got him a new pair of gloves. Those gloves were with him through training for those first amateur fight post-transition. They also represented what he loved most about the sport and what it meant to his personal journey.
“I always appreciated the ‘drag out’ fights when people would have wars with each other and a particular type of toughness,” Manuel said in that interview. “That would become such a cornerstone whether I had realized it or not.
“Because of that cornerstone and my own pride of being that tough fighter when I would get in the ring. It allowed me to be that tough as I was growing and forming who I was going to be as a man.”
It was in that journey we saw that toughness, but also the perseverance and patience. It took four years for Manuel to get to his first professional fight.
On a December night in 2018, he made the most of the opportunity in a unanimous decision over Hugo Aguilar.
Then the test began again. His second pro fight was another four-year wait.
Within that wait is were Manuel found his voice, and many of us heard it.
“A lot of people in boxing who I talked to, they would come to me and say, ‘You could have been one of the greatest female world champions, though you would throw it all away to be yourself,’” he recalled as part of an ad for Everlast in 2019.
“I’d tell them, that’s how bad I felt living that lie. If it meant that much to me to risk the love of my life, boxing, then they knew that it was something that was valid.”
For Manuel, that was his personal dividing line and it was an example.
“Sacrifice is giving something up in service of your values,” he says. “Compromise is giving yourself up to keep something you don’t want to lose. I chose sacrifice. I’d make that same decision every single time.”
Legacy and leadership of Pat Manuel
This May I saw a post from Pat Manuel casting a wide net for trans athletes. He was seeking to get with some people and build a PSA for Pride month on trans athletes.
He said it didn’t need a script or a message, just people seeing trans people at every level being a part of sports.
“Right now, there’s a lot being said about trans athletes, and almost none of it is coming from us,” his message stated. “If you’ve ever competed at any level, trained to challenge your body, played for fun, or just moved your body in a way that mattered, you’re part of this.”
He talked about that ethos at length with me in that interview years before. Looking back, I see it as a mission statement, and that statement stayed with me all the way to my own return to a special arena months later.
“One of the most gender-affirming things I think I’ve experienced is the affirmation as I walk in the gym. I spend most of my time not being a trans man, but just being a man,” he said. “There’s not a moment now when I’m in a gym where I ever do not feel just being a man, it’s not even about being cis or trans, but just being a man in that space. I take a lot of pride in that.”
He also took pride in speaking up. When the World Boxing Council discussed a “trans division”, Manuel spoke out against a poorly conceived idea. When USA Boxing put forth their draconian restrictions, the former amateur champion was strident in his contentions.
When he put out the call for us to show who we are, we responded. The result showed many of us, myself included, but in the backdrop was Manuel’s mission statement.
Being in that space, that ring, that court, that field, win or lose, mattered.
Four fights is not the full measure of Patricio Manuel.
The measure of this man?
You can start with his nickname, “Cacahuate.” Spanish for “peanut”, and the perfect moniker for a man who grew strong through harsh conditions. He came out and lost connections, friends, coaches, a gym even threw him out. But he kept going.
The measure of this man is a sturdy, determined fighter who’s example in the ring refueled many of us.
Because he did, I saw that I could.
Brother, I thank you for that.
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Patricio Manuel leaves the ring with his head high and arm raised, the belt slung over his shoulder as People’s Champion that was well earned.
He also leaves us with a challenge to continue to take the space, show up and press on.
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