A boxer who revealed his plans for gender reassignment has said he has been forced to move house after losing all his friends and suffering abuse.
Rob Newbiggin, 44, was born intersex but is not yet living as a woman.
He told the Southport Visiter that since revealing his plans to The Sun, he has been verbally abused in Southport and will now have to relocate his family.
Newbiggin told the newspaper: “At the end of it [gender reassignment] I’ll be the woman I want to be and I’ll have done a lot of good, but it will be a huge sacrifice because I’m going to have to leave.
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Mercedes Newbiggin, who boasts a 20-year career as a professional boxer in the United States and the UK, will fight for the last time as Rob Newbiggin on August 14. After that bout, Newbiggin will begin a transition from male to female.
ReplyDeleteNewbiggin has requested that her new name, Mercedes, be used for this article. Mercedes was born with an intersex condition that causes high levels of estrogen in the blood, although her physical appearance was that of a male.
She was raised as a male, but has had gender identity issues from a young age and identifies as transgender. And because of her upcoming transition, she feels that she must leave Southport, a town that she loves.
“I’m having a hard time here,” she says. “Actually a living hell, as I’ve lost all my friends — even the closest family friends — due to peer pressure and their association with me and their misunderstanding of transgenderism.”
Mercedes says that she and her family — her wife, Emma, and her three children — will probably come to the United States.
“Ultimately,” she says, “if I can survive the onslaught of British prejudice, I will become a very successful woman living back in Palm Beach, Florida, and thanking myself that I came back to a land of open-mindedness and acceptance, at least in the community where I have friends waiting for me to return.”
Mercedes says that the prejudice and rejection that she is experiencing in Southport has left her family in a serious financial situation and that she has been unable to find employment there. In addition to boxing, she is also a painter, and, as Rob, she created many murals and paintings for her town and its residents. No one is interested in her work now.
But she is hopeful that a move will turn things around. She has already begun to receive inquiries about her glamour model work from contacts in the United States, and an award-winning British film producer has contacted her about making a documentary about her transition. She also hopes to find a good sex reassignment surgeon in the United States to “take me under his wing.”
Although she is unsure of the outcome, she intends to apply for a boxing license in the United States as a female. She says that the UK would not allow it. And even with all the problems that she has experienced, she does not regret being open about her transition, because she says that she has already been able to help many people.
“I get over 300 e-mails and phone calls a day from underprivileged people, disabled people, transgender and alike, all saying they have been inspired into coming out,” she says. “So my family’s sacrifice of our privacy … is already showing a positive effect.”
As for her children, Mercedes is concerned about their safety and well-being if the family remains in Southport, but she feels that they will adjust to her transition.
“I don’t need to be a good father or a good mother,” she says. “I need to be a good parent.”
"Mercedes was born with an intersex condition that causes high levels of estrogen in the blood, although her physical appearance was that of a male."
ReplyDeleteHis or her wife must be a hermaphrodite as well. I find it rather strange that the boxing industry do not "genetic" test these people.
and most of the female boxers look like males.
I am starting to believe that Ali's daughter took those estrogene pills to gain the strength that mimics a males.
Theres no way in hell he...or she should be aloud to box as a woman. Not only is it an unfair advantage but its a dangerous one as well. He/she will destroy any female opponent, possibly even kill her.
ReplyDelete