Pat Manuel will make history as first transgender male to fight professionally in US
LOS ANGELES - When Patricio Manuel steps through the ropes and into the boxing ring just after 6 p.m. Saturday, few in the crowd at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio will know what a long and torturous trek he made to get there.
They won't know about the resistance overcome or the months of physical rehab endured. They won't know how hard it was to get those chiseled biceps atop a super-featherweight's thin frame. They may not even know that, at 33, an age when undefeated champions Rocky Marciano and Andre Ward had already retired, Manuel will be making his pro debut.
And if they don't know any of that, they surely won't know that Patricio used to be Patricia, and in a four-round bout against Hugo Aguilar, a journeyman boxer from Mexico, Manuel will make history as the first transgender male to fight
