To say that Mercedes Newbiggin is "in the news" is a little bit of an understatement.
Tranifesto:
A Google search for either Rob Newbiggin (her current name) or Mercedes Newbiggin brings up pages and pages of newspaper stories, blogs posts, twitter posts, and hundreds of other references to her situation.
Some are positive, some are negative, and some are just curious
and questioning. With all the information that is out there about gender identity, transgender people, and transsexual people, the Internet universe is still abuzz when someone of note announces a gender transition.
I can't say that I'm any different--I have quite a long post and a slideshow of photos at Examiner.com, and I'm writing this. But even so, I can't help but feel that people have gotten a little carried away.
I think the thing that has everyone so abuzz is that Rob Newbiggin is a boxer, and although there are plenty of female boxers in the world, the sport still has a solid foothold in male-only territory--and in the concept of uber-masculinity. That's not sweat they're wiping off that guy's forehead--he's dripping testosterone! So it's a huge surprise to (almost) everyone when someone with such a "masculine" persona comes out.
(Continue Reading Matt Kailey's post here)
In a separate article, NYDailyNews Reports:
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.
(Continue Reading This Story Here)
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