Patricio Manuel who in the ring goes by the nick name “Cacahuate,” the Mexican Spanish word for peanut is an American professional boxer who also just happens to be Trans. Now despite having a Spanish sounding name and ring name Manuel is not Latino his sur name which he says is (pronounced man-you-all) was born July 22, 1985, to an Irish American mother and an African American father.

He identified as a man after being a five-time national amateur champion, as well as competing in the 2012 Women’s U.S. Olympic Trials, Manuel was eliminated from those trials after being forced to withdraw due to a shoulder injury. His last fight as a woman came against Tiara Brown that year. He began his transition with hormone treatments in 2013, and he had top surgery in Salt Lake City in 2014.

In 2018, he became the first transgender boxer in the history of the United States making his professional debut on a Golden Boy Promotions event on December 8, 2018 in Indio, California, scoring a four-round unanimous decision victory over Hugo Aguilar, with all three judges scoring the bout 39–37. Aguilar only knew of Manuel’s transition two days prior to the bout. He stated “For me it’s very respectable … It doesn’t change anything for me. In the ring he wants to win and I want to win too.” According to BoxRec this is Manuel’s one and only professional fight and if you ask him it was probably his last seeing as every fight since then has been canceled or outright refused.

There is plenty of discussion to be had when comes to trans-athletes competing with natural born male/females at any level and there seems to be a hard line drawn in the sand for combat sports. Pat Manuel might have been the first but I doubt he will be the last trans-man to compete in the sport of boxing like it or not. In May 2019, Manuel was a keynote speaker at the launch event for the San Francisco 49ers LGBTQ+ and allies fan club, held at Levi’s Stadium and in September of 2019, Manuel became the new face of Everlast boxing equipment. Manuel is now currently living with his partner Amita Swadhin and their pit bull dog, Ginkgo in California with no word on where his pro career is headed.