Losing was not an option.

Patricio Manuel entered his first professional boxing match certain he would prevail. It was too terrifying to consider the alternative. For the 33-year-old California athlete, the match was much bigger than his own pro debut and his 16-year-long journey to get there.

On 8 December, Manuel became the first openly transgender boxer to compete professionally, and despite jeers from spectators who wanted to see him fail, he also became the first to win.

“It did not cross my mind that I could lose,” said Manuel, two weeks later, seated inside a downtown Los Angeles gay bar not far from his home. “There was no doubt in my mind I was going to win that fight. But looking at it now, if I lost, especially in such a public way … it would’ve validated everyone’s belief that I couldn’t do it.”

That characteristic confidence helped Manuel throughout his tumultuous path to the international spotlight inside the ring this month. Though he did not begin boxing with the goal of making history, the persistent exclusion of trans people from sports gave him no other option.

Patricio Manuel got his first boxing club membership at age 16, and said it felt like ‘love at first sight’. Photograph: Damon Casarez/The Guardian

‘Boxing connected me to my roots’

Manuel didn’t realize it at the time, but boxing saved him.

Growing up in Gardena, just south of Los Angeles, Manuel first tried boxing when he was around 13 years old. His grandmother got him a boxing club membership at age 16, and it felt like “love at first sight”.

Manuel was assigned female at birth, but long struggled with his gender identity, rejecting the many ways society and his family forced him to live as a girl. His mother thought of him as a “tomboy”, but he knew he was different. He didn’t, however, have the basic language to understand his identity and there were simply no role models or media representation to teach him: “I didn’t even know trans men existed.”

Manuel channeled his angst into boxing.

“It was structure. It was discipline. It was control. I had spent so much of my puberty years feeling out of control,” he recalled. “I was feeling intense gender dysphoria, feeling like I had no control over my body and what it was doing …. It was my subconscious being like you need to do something because you’re mentally falling apart. It was really self-preservation.”

Manuel, who is black but was raised in a white family, said boxing was one of the first places he found black community: “It was a really great way for me to connect with my roots.”

He also idolized Archie Moore, an African American boxer who was repeatedly denied a chance to fight due to racism, but eventually went on to be the longest reigning world light heavyweight champion.

Manuel, whose boxing nickname is Cacahuate, quickly excelled, working with a coach who had trained Olympians and becoming an amateur star in women’s competitions. He fought in the 2012 Olympics trial, the first time women were included, but suffered a shoulder injury and couldn’t continue.

It was a blessing in disguise. His dedication to boxing had consumed his life and prevented him from confronting his truth – that he couldn’t live as a woman anymore. “It was pretty easy to ignore all the other things that were whispering in the back of my head, like, ‘Do you feel good about being called a woman all the time?’”

At first, he struggled during his time off, including drinking too much: “It was a messy journey.”

Manuel knew that if he came out and lived as a man, he risked losing everything he had fought so hard for. He also knew his transition would be public given his fame. But he pushed ahead anyway.

The Los Angeles Times started documenting his journey early on, and he quickly suffered major consequences. His long-time gym no longer wanted to be associated with him if he was going to be openly trans, he recalled, and he lost his coach in the process.

“It hurt a lot … gyms are our safe space,” he said, adding, “To have someone basically say you can be here, but no one can know you’re here, I don’t live my life like that. I will never compromise who I am to make someone feel comfortable.”

Transition, including taking hormones and undergoing gender-affirming surgery, changed his life for the better. But it also brought new uncertainty: Would he ever be able to go pro?

Patricio Manuel’s pro debut fight with Hugo Aguilar at Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, CA. Photograph: Texas Isaiah courtesy Patricio Manuel

‘People hate me for who I am’

There have been a number of high-profile trans athletes who have competed professionally over the years, often in the face of intense scrutiny and attacks and, in some cases, coordinated campaigns seeking to disqualify them.

Renée Richards, a tennis player and trans woman, made history when she played in 1977 after winning a court battle against the United States Tennis Association, which had banned her from competing as a woman. Despite increasing visibility and acceptance in the years since and some changes by the International Olympic Committee to make more trans-inclusive guidelines, there are still many barriers.

Much of the public debate has focused on trans women, with critics saying they could have “unfair advantages” over cis women possibly due to hormones, strength or previous training in men’s competitions. Joanna Harper, a trans runner and medical physicist, has studied the subject and contradicted some of those key claims in her research. In a recent phone interview, she noted that sports have always allowed a certain range of advantages (such as left-handed baseball players).

“There are a lot of trans athletes who just don’t try, because they know what they are going to face,” she said, adding that she personally didn’t want to engage in competitive sports after her transition due to the likely attacks that would result.

Trans men, meanwhile, are largely excluded from discussions about LGBTQI rights in sports, the same way trans men are almost entirely invisible in mainstream media and entertainment. When trans men do try to compete, they are expected to fail against cis men, said Chris Mosier, a triathlete who became the first trans man to make a men’s US national team in 2015.

“Pat’s participation and victory as a transgender man in boxing shatters the stereotype that transgender men cannot be competitive,” he told the Guardian in an email.

On 8 December, Patricio Manuel became the first openly transgender boxer to compete professionally. Photograph: Texas Isaiah/courtesy Patricio Manuel

Manuel eventually found a new coach and trained to fight other men. But he continued to face obstacles – most notably, that no men wanted to play against him. Sometimes, he even secured a match, but then had his opponent back out last minute after learning he was trans.

He received his license to compete and finally got a break when Golden Boy Promotions, founded by former boxer Oscar De La Hoya, scheduled him his first professional match, against Hugo Aguilar, who later told a reporter he didn’t care that Manuel was trans: “It doesn’t change anything for me.”

Manuel had just eight days of prep after the match was officially approved.

“There is a lot of weight on the first person to do anything especially in the face of oppression,” said Manuel’s partner, Amita Swadhin, who helped him handle the media firestorm. “I’m really proud of him finding a way to have agency and claim his power in a country and world that is systematically set up against him.”

Manuel tried to treat it like any other match, even though he knew the world would be watching him at Fantasy Springs resort casino. He meditated, did hypnotherapy and breathing exercises and listened to his go-to pump-up songs – On the Sly by Metric and Kryptonite (I’m on It) by Purple Ribbon All-Stars.

He didn’t let the boos from the crowd shake him. He said he mostly zoned out the taunts, though there was one particularly rage-filled white man whose angry face is seared in his mind.

“People hating me just for who I am isn’t new either as a black man. This is America,” said Manuel, who has “bash back” tattooed on his knuckles. “So I’ve been conditioned for a very long time to know that people won’t accept me.”

After he was declared the winner, he thanked the crowd as hecklers tried to drown him out. He told them he would be back.

“I refuse to ever let anyone take my moment away.”

‘You’re saving lives’

Manuel is adjusting to the stress of intense international media attention over the last two weeks, and at times, he said he has grown a bit tired of reporters fixating on his hormones, surgery and his life pre-transition.

He said he hoped speaking out would help push competitive sports to become more welcoming to trans people, noting that black boxers like Joe Louis and Jack Johnson paved the way in the fight against discrimination.

“I’m also really proud to be a black trans man, being able to represent the black community in a long tradition of black men who have had their humanity validated through this sport.”

Athletes like him aren’t going to back down, he added: “We’re not going anywhere. There’s just going to be more and more of us.”

All the attention feels worth it when he gets messages from parents of trans boys who say his story has given them hope.

For some, it’s the first time they’ve seen what a future could look like for their sons.

One father told him, “‘Your representation has saved lives … I want that for my son, to be able to do anything.’”