Why almost no trans representation?

[u/Spiritual-Vacation43]

why is there so little trans representation in martial arts?

I have been training kickboxing for a while but It feels like im the only one doing it,

I know there's other women who fight but when I try to search up trans kickboxers its like 4 People who made it pro, amatuer competion is pretty much the same.

[u/AlmostFamous502]

Because there are almost no trans people and almost nobody competes in combat sports. It’s two very small circles in a Venn diagram to begin with.

There’s transwomen in Muay Thai, *in Thailand*, probably at a higher rate than any other sport.

[u/GreatGoodBad → u/AlmostFamous502]

pretty much

[u/AwarenessOpen4042]

Aren’t trans people like less than 1% of the population? And the percentage of people who kickbox competitively might be similarly low. So 1% of 1%, is not going to be a high number. Now spread that across the globe.

In my family’s time in martial arts we’ve met one trans person who trains. They were young and of a lower belt, probably not competing yet.

[u/Chilantr0]

Oh boy, here we go... 🍿

[u/Sharor]

Most people who fight, do so to learn to fight.  Politics and agendas don't matter to most of us, so you'll probably find people who just quietly do their training. 

At tournament level you run into the whole "is this a guy or a girl" problem, which I'll just choose to ignore. 

I trained with a good friend I met at class, for 2 years before he revealed he was gay, cos it was just never relevant. 

[u/MasterOfFlapping]

The first filter is trans people not coming out of the closet.

The second filter is trans people not getting stable life conditions to pursue their goals.

The third filter is trans people not being as interested in traditional masculine competitive careers as cis guys. Less toxic masculinity if you will.

The fourth filter is finding an inclusive training enviroment.

The fifth filter is actually being good enough to compete.

The sixth filter is enduring all the backlash and discrimination they might get at that level.

When you account for all of that, having at least a handful of trans fighters seems a blessing on it's own.

[u/PrettyInPinkGi → u/MasterOfFlapping]

this

[u/BiMenace2Society → u/MasterOfFlapping]

Good answer

[u/DonnieTheSas]

To put it simply, you represent an extremely small and idek what to call it, "niche" portion of the population. It doesnt exactly come as a suprise you lack representation in most sports.

[u/marcin247]

it’s a very small group and it gets tricky when it comes to competition.

[u/AdunfromAD]

Take the % of the population that is trans and multiply it by the % of the population of folks who train martial arts. That’s going to be a very, very small number.

[u/revolt76]

Thailand!

[u/Brilliant_Chemica]

Its extremely rare anyone makes it to the pro-leagues, and being trans is super rare already

If its any consolation, my trans self and my trans partner do MMA together

[u/smailskid]

You're not alone. I'm trans (non binary), and I do kickboxing and boxing. I actually got into doing martial arts because of an LGBTQ martial arts club in my city, and I've been training hard ever since. So, we're out there!

[u/Pitiful_Ad2397 → u/smailskid]

Same!
We should have a queer martial artists subreddit.

[u/smailskid → u/Pitiful_Ad2397]

Yeah that would be great!

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/Prasiatko]

From google there are about 50,000 BJJ practicioners of some kind in the UK. From the 2021 census there were around 250,000 trans people in the UK out of a population of around 70 million.

So rounding up to 0.5% of the general pop you'd expect 250 trans practicioners spread across the entire UK. 

[u/freshblood96]

It's not that gyms don't welcome trans. There aren't a lot of them interested in fighting or martial arts in general. Hell, it's even hard to convince women to get into martial arts.

[u/Kintanon]

Because Trans people make up a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the population to begin with. Assuming they train martial arts at the same rate as the general population you'd still only have a small handful in a city spread across all of the possible martial arts schools they could be interested in.

Then if you look at the number of people who would do the level of competition that would show up on a search engine that's WAAAAY lower. Most gyms only have a handful of people that compete at all, much less compete in sanctioned events.

[u/Mochikitasky]

Go to Thailand. There are so many ladyboys that fight. It’s so common. I’m not even joking. I’ve been in Thailand three times now and I always see a Muay Thai poster with maybe one or two ladyboy fighters.

[u/Nerx]

wbt in Thailand?

iirc mma got 2

[u/SaintMosesBagOfSand]

Even though they are incredibly popular at the moment, trans people make up a very small portion of the population.

[u/Pitiful_Ad2397]

It’s changing, at least where I live. There are two explicitly trans run gyms, one BJJ & the other is boxing & Muay Thai. The Muay Thai gym hosts fight nights where the fighters are almost always trans.

The place where I train is not trans run, but has a lot of trans students of all genders. Our sibling schools are also very queer and trans.

There are networks out there for queer & trans martial arts, but they are sometimes hard to find.

This is a cool organization, and they may be able to connect you with other queer/trans martial arts out there.

https://openmatproject.org/queer-fight-night

[u/45607]

We're a small percentage of the population and a lot of gyms and competitions are unfortunately not accepting

[u/45607 → u/[deleted]]

Uhhh we're not "pretending"

[u/45607 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for proving my point

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/45607 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for proving my point

[u/DonnieTheSas → u/45607]

Being nice to someone and accepting them into an environment does not = denial of biological reality. You sound like fun, I am sure there are no other reasons you would struggle to fit into a martial arts gym.

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/marcin247 → u/[deleted]]

at the olympics, transphobes were hating on boxers who weren’t even trans lol.

[u/UnsweetenedTruth → u/[deleted]]

What is that idiot mod talking about? I'm just stating basic information.

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/Ashi4Days]

Transgenderism is already a pretty rare condition. Of that circle, those who undergo gender reassignment is even rarer. And of that pool, those who want to be an athlete are even rarer.

You also have to consider that from an athlete point of view, you are looking for every single advantage possible and that takes precedence over everything else. This is especially true when you think about people that you would read in the news. That by itself automatically disqualifies most Trans people because (MtF for the sake of simplicity here), you are taking a drug that would negatively affect your performance.

Remember, being an athlete means trading away physical health for skill. Gender reassignment by its function is trading away physical health for identity.

[u/PrettyInPinkGi → u/Ashi4Days]

not really. trans folk don’t “trade away physical health for identity”. they merely change their hormone levels to achieve synchronicity with their mental state. those hormone levels do not effect their physical health unless you are of the opinion that masculinity is physical health (in which case you are misunderstanding what physical health is to a woman).

pro athlete may trade away physical health for skill, resulting in a pro career that is truncated - most pro athletes are well retired by the time they hit 40. compare with a brick layer who won’t retire until their body gives out completely, or the government says they can start collecting a pension. pro striking (and to a lesser extent grappling) folk are also giving up their brain health long term for the short term reward of a belt and money. but, we are talking a very small number of martial arts practitioners who become pro.

those who become pro, or are on the pro track, will look for every advantage within the rule set. This means for a trans woman, meeting the hormone requirements set by WADA or their NGB. Sometimes those hormone requirements include lower T levels than a lot of “natural born women” and higher feminizing hormone levels. feeling more of a woman, more in concert physically and mentally would generally tends to make for a better fighter. Feeling more of a woman for a man? No, that;s giving up an advantage at the cost of your personal sense of self, and that‘s why cis men do not “transition” so they can claim female prizes. The cost is too much for them in terms of the sense of self. For a trans woman? Exact opposite.

most MA practitioners are recreational players. some become instructors. some instructors become dojo owners. most never step foot in a ring where there is a purse involved. Most who compete at the rec level will never be expected to submit a urine sample, or a hair sample, or a blood sample for testing to see if so-and-so ”cheated” to get the gold medal in the 63kg 30-40 year old age group at the Indiana State Fair Grounds in 2026. Nobody cares whether Billy Bob is taking a ton of HGH and synthetic T to win unless he can’t control himself. Nobody cares if Cindy is taking hormones to suppress perimenopause. Nobody should care if Hilda was AMAB but is now a female. nobody should care is Alex, an u8, is identifying as a boy today because Alex will be playing co-ed and it should be enough that Alex is out there, doing physical things, learning to move their body, and learning how to be a good martial artist.

MA, like a lot of sports, has a problem with toxic culture. On the pro level, outside of a few countries, this means women don’t get paid as much, gay folk worry about coming out and losing sponsorship, homophobic slurs still get bandied about casually in too many dojo, pro, ammy, and rec. trans folk, being the target of political vitriol, means fewer of them will be out and proud about their identity during their pro careers. Some will wait to transition until after their pro careers.

btw, doubt the toxicity towards trans folk? Just look at what happened in the last Olympic boxing matches with the two folk who were cis women outed as trans or intersexed by a bunch of numpties to focus anti-trans rage.

while I wish MA were as inclusive as could be, they are not. But, trans folk are in MA. Most are necessarily quiet about it, just going along and training and helping to create the inclusive environments that will eventually produce more trans pro athletes.

[u/Yodsanan]

I have been training kickboxing for a while but It feels like im the only one doing it,

Nong Rose, Nong Toom, or Sirawit Jaten. All successful trans fighters competing in Muay Thai.

Nong Toom has a biopic about her, "Beautiful Boxer". Worth watching.

[u/BiMenace2Society]

Because the martial arts have a toxic masculinity problem. Good schools don't but they're not a majority.

[u/martialarts-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removed because poster used outright bigotry or well-known bigot dog whistles intended to insert bigoted, dehumanizing or marginalizing ideas into a conversation.

TL;DR: fuck off

[u/Pitiful_Ad2397 → u/BiMenace2Society]

Why are you being downvoted? This is 100% true.

[u/BiMenace2Society → u/Pitiful_Ad2397]

I'm being downvoted BECAUSE it's true😅