Boxer Rob Newbiggin will fight for the last time Aug. 14 - as a man, that is.
The Southport, England, boxer will undergo a sex change operation, after which he will be a female known as Mercedes, The Southport Visiter reported.
Newbiggin, born in Pennsylvania in 1964, had the anatomy of a male but high levels of the female hormone estrogen, which mean he could not be definitively classified as either sex.
His parents abandoned him, and he was adopted at age 2 1/2 by Ted Newbiggin and his wife, who had immigrated to Canada from Manchester, England.
Around age 12, Newbiggin picked up boxing, after his father encouraged him to act more masculine.
“My dad said that I had to act like a man because people wouldn't accept me as anything else,” the younger Newbiggin told the Southport Visiter.
“He was trying to protect me. I didn't find out I was adopted until I was 16, and then about how I was born, but then it all started making sense to me,” he said.
Newbiggin's announcement was first printed in the daily tabloid The Sun, and he said afterward he had “lost every friend I have ever had in the world in this town.”
“My friends don't want to know me. I’ve got people winding their windows down shouting abuse at me while I go for my run – that’s why we are having to relocate. I have to think about my kids,” the boxer said.
As far as his kids are concerned, Newbiggin says sex will have no bearing on his ability to be a parent, and he might even do better as a woman.
“When it comes to my kids, it doesn't matter whether I’m a mother or a father as long as I’m a good parent,” he said. “And I think I'll be a better parent as a woman. I haven't provided enough financial stability in my male life for my children.”
He and his wife, Emma, who have been married for three years, are going to stay together, Newbiggin said, and added that she has been extremely supportive.
“I am so lucky in that respect because she understands what I'm going through.”
After becoming Mercedes, Newbiggin said, he hopes to have a future in modeling, painting and interior design. He also said he plans to apply for a boxing license as a female to continue his career.
Newbiggin said he has been flooded with supportive correspondence from people whom his story has moved to come forward.
“So our family’s sacrifice of our privacy is already working to help others, and that’s what this whole things is about.”
