Boxing Promoter Frank Maloney’s Sex Change Makes Headlines

News across the pond this morning is about boxing promoter Frank Maloney’s decision to make public his determination to have a sex change.

Frank Maloney’s sex change was the featured story in the Sunday Mirror, where the former boxing promoter discussed the choice to become a woman:

“In an astonishing emotional interview, she tells how she has felt trapped in the wrong body since she was a child and how she finally made her courageous decision to become a woman. The twice-married dad of three also reveals the anguish of breaking the bombshell news to his second wife – and the fears of a backlash from the testosterone-fuelled boxing world Frank left behind when he retired last year.

“But in the end, for Kellie, living as a woman has become a matter of life or death. ‘I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman. I can’t keep living in the shadows, that is why I am doing what I am today. Living with the burden any longer would have killed me.'”

It was just last October that the man everyone has always known as Frank announced he was leaving boxing because the sport had changed and he no longer wanted to be involved in it, but as Kellie, formerly known as Frank, told the Mirror, she had a different reason for leaving.

“But Kellie now admits she was secretly preparing to retreat from the public eye for her gender transition. She said: ‘I made the decision a long time ago but I retired from boxing because of my profile. I thought that what I wanted to do was to transition in a positive and private way. I closed my websites down, took my Facebook down and my Twitter account so that I could transition peacefully. The suicide rates from the pressure on a transsexual woman are very high and I didn’t want to get caught up in it. ‘

“The boxing community can think whatever they want about me now. I have come to terms with my transition but I don’t understand it. I hope society will be open minded. I know I could have done my job in boxing as a female.”

The Daily Mail notes that Maloney’s career included the making of Lenox Lewis, among others, and he spent 25 years working with those who make their money inside the ring.

The decision to live openly as a female comes as more and more public figures are embracing their sexuality in more open ways. Earlier this year, a New York congressman married his longtime partner.

[Image via independent.co.uk and mirror.co.uk]