USA Boxing is now facing a fight outside of the ring.
The organization, which acts as the governing body of the sport in the United States, has updated its rule book to allow male boxers who transition to compete in the female category.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of The Fifth Column – Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch – to discuss the new policy and why it needs to be revoked.
USA Boxing Rule Change
According to the 2024 USA Boxing rulebook, a fighter who transitioned from male to female can now compete in the female category if certain conditions and hormone testing requirements are met.
Boxers must “declare that her gender ideology is female” and have “completed gender reassignment surgery” in order to compete. The athletes’ testosterone levels must be under five nanomoles per liter for 48 months before their first fight, and the fighters’ total testosterone level must remain below that level through their eligibility to compete against women.
These rules apply to adults over the age of 18. Boxers under 18 years of age will still be required to compete as their birth gender. USA Boxing says the purpose of the policy “is to provide fairness and safety for all boxers.”
‘It’s Ridiculous’
Reaction has been swift since news broke of the rule change. “This has been a joke up until now,” Megyn said. “This has been the one sport that people have been joking about, like, ‘What’s going to happen in boxing?’ It’s happening right now.”
While Megyn admitted that USA Boxing does require reassignment surgery, she does not believe that alleviates any concerns. “I’ve got news for USA Boxing: Cutting off your penis doesn’t eliminate your male muscle, bone, and lung strength… advantages,” she explained. “I mean, picture The Rock… suddenly his penis is gone and he’s lowered his testosterone – he’s still going to f-cking kill somebody. It’s ridiculous.”
Foster found the policy particularly interesting given the rules that already exist in boxing. “There’s a reason why you have weight classes in boxing – you’re trying to avoid people who are of dramatically different capabilities getting into a ring together and bludgeoning one another to death,” he noted. “I don’t know if they’ll be able to maintain that sort of parity by disregarding gender, even under the particular criteria that they’ve defined.”
Megyn was willing to wager the answer is “a no… a hard no.” “They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” she concluded. “This needs to be reversed immediately.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with The Fifth Column by tuning in to episode 694 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.