According to Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), the organisation plans to create a new transgender category and will issue a call for interested athletes to submit applications in 2023.

The projected category would follow the "at birth" rule, which means that a trans fighter assigned as a man at birth could only compete against another trans fighter assigned as a male at birth.

"We are going to put out a global call for those who are interested in 2023 and we will set up the protocols, start consultation and most likely create a league and a tournament," Sulaiman told The Telegraph.

"In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change. There should be no grey area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions. Woman to man or man to woman transgender change will never be allowed to fight a different gender by birth."

Transgender issues have gained significant attention as sports try to strike a balance between diversity and preventing undue advantages.

The world governing organisation for swimming, FINA, decided to ban transgender athletes from top women's competitions in June 2022. They also established a working group to create a "open" category.

According to FINA's rules, transgender athletes must be fully transitioned by the time they turn 12 in order to compete in women's events.