In November last year, I attended two queer-led Muay Thai fight events in different parts of England. The first was an interclub event in Birmingham which included a panel talk on the experiences of women and LGBTQ+ people in Muay Thai. The second was another interclub in Brighton, organised by a collective of queer martial arts gyms. Both events defied the standard categorisation of Muay Thai to allow for mixed-gender bouts.
Drawing from interviews with founders of these gyms, a perspective from a trans fighter who’s competed in Thailand and the US, and research on LGBTQ+ inclusion in sport, this article explains how queer Muay Thai events are challenging norms to create inclusivity, and why our sport needs communities like these.
Queer-Led and Trans-Inclusive Events Changing the Fight Game
Bristol’s Athena Combat Club and Brighton’s Team Queen are both advertised as Muay Thai and kickboxing gyms for people of marginalised genders (an umbrella term referring to anyone who experiences marginalisation on the basis of gender, including cis and trans women and non-binary, intersex and gender-diverse people in all their identities). Together with trans-led London Muay Thai club Bender Defenders , these gym communities team up to hold inclusive interclubs, where fighters are not matched by sex or gender, but by weight and experience.
Christina Saunders, founder of Team Queen, explained how it all started. “A fighter I know was matched against Ash from Athena Combat Club and told me that Ash also runs a gym similar to ours. I reached out to Ash, and she was so excited to hear there was another gym doing the same as her. I also told her about Bender Defenders, and we all made that connection and shared our thoughts and ideas together. We then decided to host an interclub which was inclusive and queer-friendly”.
Interclubs (or smoker fights) involve non-competitive bouts with controlled striking, and give newcomers and those beginning their competitive journeys an opportunity to gain fight experience. Christina explained how these inclusive interclubs reject the traditional men’s and women’s categories to make fighting more accessible for trans and gender-diverse people. “The fights are matched by experience and weight and not by gender, which means that the trans community can get involved more freely without facing any barriers. We wanted to have a space that encourages diverse and marginalised groups and doesn’t segregate them”.
This approach challenges the assumption that gender or sex categories are the only way to organise combat sports events. Demand for their first event exceeded expectations, hosting 37 fights. Their most recent interclub in November was the third instalment. It was hosted by Nam Yang Brighton, which was recently awarded for its inclusive approach and support of the local community. In 2022, the club received a Sports Club of Sanctuary award for their work with refugees, and was the first martial arts club in the UK to receive the award. The event began with a briefing for all fighters, coaches and spectators. As well as laying out the rules of competition, it also included a reminder not to assume anyone’s pronouns and to use gender-neutral language, and provided a way for people to indicate if they didn’t consent to being photographed or recorded. These considerations to actively promote respect, consent and autonomy contributed to a welcoming and affirming space.
To protect that environment, these interclubs are promoted only within trusted networks beforehand. “We have made the event invite-only to ensure we invite people we know and trust and who support what we do”, Christina said. At a time when many trans people report feeling unsafe in the UK, this consideration is needed to avoid potential hostility and preserve the sense of safety and community that makes these spaces so important.
“So far we haven’t had any bad feedback, which is great, and the event has been well received”, Christina added. Luca of Bender Defenders also noted that the events have been received with excitement and curiosity. “So many people commented on how refreshing it was to be in a space like the one we’ve created together”, he said.
Ash Guest, founder and coach of Athena Combat Club, explains that the success of these interclubs shows that this doesn’t need to be a radical concept, and inclusion isn’t as complicated as people might assume. “Running the events has shown that it’s actually not that hard to make sports inclusive and to give everyone the opportunity to fight. I think it’s been really important to be doing this, particularly right now when there’s so much scaremongering and misinformation around trans people and sport. Seeing people have their first fights has just been awesome”.
This collective isn’t the only group exploring more inclusive approaches to Muay Thai in the UK. Phraya Progress in Birmingham held their queer-inclusive Empower Interclub last year. The event also included a panel talk on the experiences of women and LGBTQIA+ people in Muay Thai, featuring coaches Erin Gilbey and Sam Doughty, as well as Samantha, co-director of Bent Collective, a trans-run fitness community and non-profit providing combat sports classes in Leeds, which has also held their own inclusive interclub. I had the pleasure of joining them as a speaker, which meant I could also enjoy watching the bouts.
During the panel, Sam spoke about how prejudice has often created an added barrier when entering new gyms. “As someone who’s trained at a few different Thai boxing clubs, it takes a lot of energy to start at a new club, be underestimated and have to prove yourself, and then be told ‘oh, you’re alright actually!’, every single time”. Samantha also described how derogatory ‘jokes’ about trans people have created hostile environments, stating “as a trans woman, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a gym where I haven’t heard [those] jokes thrown around”. She also explained how Bent Collective goes beyond standard ideas of inclusion to also address financial barriers to participation.
“Muay Thai as a sport can be a little bit expensive. Being from a marginalised background often affects how much material wealth you have, and that can affect your access to gyms. So what we do, which I’m really proud of, is we don’t turn anyone away because of a lack of funds”.
– Samantha, Bent Collective
In a follow-up exchange, Sam mentioned that Phraya Progress opted to change the colour palette of the event’s promo poster from teal and purple to a more muted green and gold, as they suspected that some more traditional clubs weren’t taking them seriously with the original one. After making the change, they noticed a considerable increase in responses.
She also added that while the Empower interclub was a success without any issues, the club had initially found it challenging to find fighters to participate in mixed bouts for previous events, with some hesitancy from women. This posed challenges when seeking match-ups for men in particularly light weight classes, where there are much fewer opponents. It was suggested that this may be rooted in women’s prior negative experiences of sparring with men in their own clubs, and worries that an interclub bout might recreate this dynamic.
When asked for his take on this barrier, Luca mentioned that Bender Defenders, Athena Combat Club and Team Queen had addressed it in the sign-up form for their collective interclubs. “This is something that we put in the form”, he said. “We give people the option to not fight against cis men. But for us, this comes from the awareness that out in the world, our participants are on average more likely to have experienced harm by cis men, so we don’t want to put people in a position where they could be re-traumatised. However, if anyone says ‘I don’t want to fight against a trans woman’ or ‘I’m a woman and I only want to fight women’ we don’t match them”. Bender Defenders replicated this approach in their own interclub event with the tongue-in-cheek name Fist Fest this month.
Why Have Queer Muay Thai Gyms or Events?
A common criticism of queer sporting spaces is that they appear unnecessary or even exclusionary. Some people may wonder why LGBTQIA+ people might need to create separate training environments, or why queerness needs to be discussed in relation to Muay Thai at all. But these spaces are a response to the historical and ongoing marginalisation of queer people, both within sport and wider society. Queer Muay Thai gyms and events are needed because many mainstream gyms still fail to provide the safety, representation and sense of belonging that others take for granted.
Those who question why queer people might want or need their own spaces to train might never have experienced marginalisation, discrimination or violence on the basis of identity, or always had access to gyms that felt welcoming and inclusive to them. However, it’s important to recognise that this is not everyone’s experience.
An Accessible Entry Point
The goal of these communities isn’t for queer fighters to be segregated, but to address a crucial gap by providing dedicated spaces to dismantle the unique barriers they face. In a sporting landscape that isn’t always welcoming, they provide sanctuary, as well as an accessible entry point into the sport for newcomers. Luca explained how Bender Defenders feeds into the growth of other local Muay Thai clubs by often acting as a gateway after giving members the confidence to pursue the sport further.
“A lot of people end up accessing mainstream spaces after gaining confidence by training in a queer space”, he said. “They come to us, make friends, then they fall in love with the sport and they want to train more, so we tell them which friendly mainstream gyms are out there”. He added that having queer gyms like Bender Defenders creates a sense of safety for those members, and described the security that comes from having a supportive community to return to. “Knowing that they have a home with us means that there’s less at stake for them in case something goes wrong”.
Sport is Often Unsafe or Unwelcoming for Queer People
When looking at the barriers many queer people continue to face to participating and thriving in sport, the need for queer-inclusive spaces becomes clearer. Luca described some of the risks queer people encounter in mainstream sporting environments:
“A lot of queer people are very scared to go to mainstream gyms, and this fear is very rational. When things go bad, they go very bad. We’re talking about verbal abuse, bullying, harassment, stalking and assault. It’s not horrible for every single queer person every time, but those are the risks we are working with”.
– Luca, Bender Defenders
There is consistent evidence that LGBTQ+ people face discrimination and exclusion in sport, as well as higher rates of various types of interpersonal violence. A 2025 survey by Greater Manchester Moving & LGBT Foundation found that just under half of trans and non-binary people surveyed faced discrimination when accessing a movement, exercise or sport activity. A 2023 survey by the Equality Within Sport Committee of the European Non- Governmental Sport Organisation found that only 24% of the trans respondents reportedly felt safe in sporting environments, and 46% of trans women respondents reported having experienced discrimination or harassment (including verbal, physical, psychological, and sexual) in sports. According to a 2019 report, ‘The Relevance of Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity in Sport in Europe’, a survey seeking to understand the extent of the discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ people in sports found that 90% of respondents considered homophobia and transphobia to be a problem in sports and 82% had witnessed the use of such prejudicial language themselves. Among those who reported negative personal experiences based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, trans women were the highest proportion at 45%.
In Australia, Pride in Sport has reported that many LGBTQ+ people in sport feel less included and have poorer mental wellbeing. In Canada, a 2023 Non-Binary Youth in Sport Report found that only 11% of non-binary youth were currently participating in organised sport, with half avoiding sport due to concerns about feeling unsafe with teammates and coaches, 4 in 5 avoiding sport because of locker room layouts, and 66% of non-binary youth avoiding team sport because they would have to play on a binary-gendered team.
In martial arts specifically, a 2021 study, ‘“Just Existing Is Activism”: Transgender Experiences in Martial Arts’ explored the experiences of transgender martial artists and the strategies they use to cope with cisheteronormativity in their sporting contexts, through interviews with trans martial arts practitioners in the UK and Finland.
The authors highlighted a need to dispel myths and misconceptions about trans participation in martial arts, recommending education on gender diversity for coaches, staff and members. “Such education would alleviate the pressure facing transgender martial artists to adopt an educator/activist role while simply attempting to exist in [martial arts & combat sports] spaces”, they wrote.
The study also noted that the problem is not just cultural, but also structural, highlighting a lack of protective policies in martial arts gyms and federations. One participant said: “I read the [federation’s] strategy for the next year and couldn’t find any of those words in the strategy, like equality, non-discrimination. You know. Nothing about racism, or minorities, or anything like that”. This gap in policy and practice leaves the specific vulnerabilities faced by people from marginalised groups unaddressed.
The study also emphasised that gender-neutral training practices are required to dismantle barriers to inclusion and belonging for trans people in martial arts, as well as ‘non-binary means of organising sport’ itself. These interclubs are a living example that this is possible. They’ve provided spaces where queer people could take part without having to question whether they would be welcomed, respected or represented. For some of the fighters participating, that opportunity might never have existed otherwise.
Representation Matters
Ash said she started Athena to address a gap in representation and make Muay Thai more accessible to the queer community.
“I think traditionally we’re not represented in a lot of sports generally, but particularly in martial arts. It can have a huge impact on people who might feel like the space or the sport isn’t for them when they don’t see themselves represented. As a queer person myself, I wanted to create a space that felt safe, where people could show up exactly as they are, without having to change themselves to learn a sport they love. I started Athena because I wanted to give people who may have previously felt like the sport wasn’t for them the opportunity to train. Ultimately, I just love Muay Thai so much and I wanted the sport to be accessible to everyone”.
– Ash, Athena Combat Club
Christina says the same motivation drove her to create Team Queen. “I’ve attended multiple gyms in the past where as a queer woman, I felt I was treated differently, and although not all gyms are like that, sometimes it’s hard to find a space where you feel included, safe and cared for”, she said.
“At previous gyms I’ve trained at, I’ve always felt that I rarely met trans fighters or anyone LGBTQ+ and I think the reason for this is because they are underrepresented in Muay Thai. That’s why I think it’s important to provide these spaces, so people who may not feel included or represented in traditional Muay Thai gyms
can train in a space where they are supported and given opportunities to fight if they want to.”
– Christina, Team Queen
Representation can either create or break down barriers to participation. If queer people in Muay Thai never see people from their community platformed in the sport, it becomes harder to feel that they belong there. As well as providing a sense of belonging for queer people, these gyms show the broader Muay Thai community that everyone has a place in the sport.
Access to Sport is a Wellbeing Issue
When asked what motivated him to set up Bender Defenders, Luca explained it as a simple matter of wellbeing.
“People need to exercise to be well. Knowing that a gym space will provide a basic level of safety and respect is incredibly important for you to be able to access this space, and therefore access exercise. A lot of people don’t question that they will receive this basic safety and respect, so find it hard to understand where our community is coming from”.
– Luca, Bender Defenders
Queer gyms provide more than just training. They offer opportunities for connection, confidence-building and community, and spaces where people can participate in sport without having to question whether they’ll be respected, accepted or protected. They can also provide a sense of affirmation. This was highlighted in the GM Moving and LGBT Foundation report, which found that two in five trans and non-binary people surveyed said that exercise is important for affirming their gender identity.
Making Muay Thai Better for Everyone
As well as increasing LGBTQIA+ representation in training and competition, queer spaces in Muay Thai also challenge the power dynamics and gendered hierarchies of the sport.
The significance of this extends beyond LGBTQIA+ participation. By questioning assumptions about gender, hierarchy and belonging, they create opportunities for us to rethink aspects of sporting culture that affect the broader Muay Thai community, including others who have historically been marginalised.
This is also important for creating safer spaces. Researchers have identified masculine sporting cultures as a contributor to various types of mistreatment in sport, including sexual harassment. By showing us what Muay Thai looks like without these rigid norms, queer-led gyms can help to dismantle these masculine sporting cultures and create environments that are safer, healthier and more inclusive for all. There’s also a growing body of evidence of the case for inclusion in sport from a business perspective, which suggests that LGBTQ+ diversity in sports spaces contributes to improved wellbeing, performance, and overall experiences for everyone.
How Can We Make Muay Thai More Inclusive?
When asked how Muay Thai gyms, authorities and communities can create more inclusive spaces, the consensus was that it’s not as difficult as you might think.
Luca began by saying “the only thing that Muay Thai authorities and community needs to do is to actually care about it”, stating that it should be made a priority rather than a ‘nice to have’ which is only provided by specialised spaces. “People are not ignorant, stupid or deliberately cruel and the solutions are not secret or complicated. People are just not interested in prioritising inclusion. They think it’s a massive headache and ‘not worth it’”.
He also spoke about how the misconception that inclusion is somehow incompatible with the nature of Muay Thai should be challenged. “I think some people in Muay Thai might mistake being inclusive with being soft”, he said. “Muay Thai is an inherently hard sport, and fighting is hard, but you can still train hard and fight hard and include everyone”. These interclubs show that making Muay Thai more inclusive doesn’t require compromising sparring or fighting, or watering down the sport.
Ash stated that for those who do see inclusivity as a priority, a lack of confidence in how to approach it can sometimes create hesitancy to take action.
“It doesn’t take a lot to make somebody feel included in your gym. I think people get scared of getting things wrong and then don’t try at all, but no one expects you to know everything. Just be nice and genuine to everyone who walks through the door and be open to learning”.
– Ash, Athena Combat Club
Christina says that this starts with fostering connections and open dialogue.
“Talk with and connect to the queer Muay Thai community. Be open to learning and discovering new ways to make much-needed changes in Muay Thai spaces. Make the goal to integrate, not segregate!”
– Christina, Team Queen
Finding Queer Muay Thai Community in Thailand
Canadian fighter Nikki spoke to me about her experience as a trans woman in Muay Thai, and the importance of trans representation in the sport.
“I was inspired (and still am) by Nong Toom, Nong Rose, Fallon Fox and Alana McLaughlin. I wanted to push things for other trans athletes in Muay Thai since there weren’t really many of us out there (or so I thought), but the scene is pretty toxic in my city and it didn’t seem to be worth the potential transphobic backlash. Then I went to Thailand and started connecting [with the queer Muay Thai community] online and everything changed”.
– Nikki
Nikki and I had connected over Instagram after I’d posted a video highlighting some of Thailand’s trans fighters, and she expressed a desire to train with Nong Toom at her gym in Samut Prakarn. Some months later, we met there and had a training session together. Later, she told me how meaningful it had been for her to have the opportunity to train there.
“Having a space where queer and trans people can learn how to fight and be ourselves will look and feel really different than most mainstream gyms. It’s a space where we care for and respect each other in more conscious ways, and definitely a more joyful space. I think that’s just healthy […] Finding spaces as a trans person to learn how to defend yourself is in itself an act of defiance and an attempt to gain bodily autonomy and futurity. To me, it was that”.
– Nikki
Being able to train at a gym led by a trans woman was a breath of fresh air for Nikki. “When I left some toxic environments and stepped into Nong Toom’s gym, I felt I’d finally landed somewhere safe and filled with kindness, and that’s when I really fell in love with Muay Thai” she said.
She later travelled to Chiang Mai, choosing Manop Gym as she’d heard it was an LGBTQ-friendly place to train. “I was welcomed by Kru Manop and we were talking in the car while he was driving me to some nearby accommodation. He said “here in Thailand, you can be anything [meaning any gender], its okay. Do you want to fight men or women?” I said ‘I can fight anyone, ‘kathoey1‘ also’. She fought three times in three months, facing a cisgender woman (Namthip Sor. Anucha), a trans woman (Bella Sor. Ananchai), and then a cisgender man (Kongkangwan). She won the first two fights by TKO with knees, and the last one by decision.
She described feeling some anxiety around getting into the ring for the first match, not because of the fight itself, but the threat of transphobia. “I didn’t know if people would clock me and realise I’m trans. Most of the audience was farang2, so I was very aware that things could turn bad”, she said. “Even though my fear of experiencing transphobia was there, I did have a good time”.
Her second fight was advertised as an ‘LGBT fight’. “I remember seeing Bella getting ready and I was amazed by her and the fact that we were going to fight each other”, she said. The pair were happy to have made this connection through fighting, and have kept in touch since. “I found it pretty special to have these different opponents and just so surprised at how accepting and kind of more open to possibilities it was for trans women like me. It was definitely less of a big deal than in the West, and there was no backlash this time”.
I also spoke to Bella to ask for her thoughts about the fight and Thailand’s LGBT Muay Thai scene (her responses have been translated from Thai). “I was so happy and excited”, she said. “This was my first time fighting against a foreigner”. She added that prior to her bout with Nikki, she’d also never fought another trans woman before.
When asked if she felt that Thailand’s Muay Thai community was accepting of trans fighters, Bella mentioned that despite progress, a lack of representation still poses a barrier. “Although Thailand is more accepting now, there are still very few LGBTQ+ fighters in the Muay Thai community”, she said, noting it’s not a popular choice for LGBTQ+ people, with many choosing to work in fields where their representation is more normalised, such as influencer marketing3. Bella said she’d love to see queer Muay Thai fight events in Thailand similar to the UK’s inclusive interclub events. I’d had a similar conversation with Nong Toom during our training session at her gym. While she’s organised many matches for trans fighters in Thailand who followed in her footsteps and even put on her own promotion, she hasn’t yet had enough fighters to put on an all-LGBTQ+ event.
After Nikki’s stint in Thailand, she went on to compete in the US, winning the first-ever transgender championship belt on Warrior’s Cup against Summer Brady. The event also featured a match-up between two more trans fighters, Corissa Griffith and Gita Figueroa.
Nikki emphasised that queer community in Muay Thai has been integral to her experience, and cultivating that community is a priority for her moving forward.
“Now, it feels as important to spend time connecting and contributing to this network of trans/queer people and gyms, events and spaces as it is to keep training hard and see where competing leads me”.
– Nikki
Inclusion in Action
The topic of inclusion in sport is often dominated by debates about queer and trans people rather than conversations with them. Queer- and trans-led Muay Thai initiatives show what’s possible when they’re not only included in the conversation, but given a chance to lead it. In dismantling some of the unique barriers faced by their communities and creating joyful, welcoming spaces, they provide an example that the broader Muay Thai community could learn from.
- As the Asia Pacific Transgender Network notes in their Transgender Day of Rememberance Media Toolkit, “some culturally specific terms are best understood within their evolving cultural context”. ‘Kathoey’ (กระเทย) is one such term. It’s a Thai colloquial term that is often used to describe trans women, but does not directly translate to English and is not used exclusively in this way (for example, it can also be used to describe gay men). While this term is widely used, it can also be offensive in some instances, and is considered derogatory by some. ‘Sao praphet song’ (สาวประเภทสอง) and ‘phu ying kham phet’ (ผู้หญิงข้ามเพศ) are more formal terms for trans women in Thai. However, it’s important to consult with individuals on the terms they use to describe themselves. For example, Bella explained that she personally prefers to be described as ‘sao praphet song’ as it’s more polite, but she might use ‘kathoey’ only when talking with certain close friends. ↩︎
- A colloquial term Thai people use to describe white foreigners ↩︎
- Much has been written about the barriers trans people in Thailand face to acceptance in the workplace, with stereotypes limiting many to ‘accepted’ fields of work, such as the entertainment or cosmetics industries. To learn more about this topic, read the Asia Pacific Transgender Network’s report ‘Denied Work: An audit of employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity in Thailand‘. ↩︎
Emma Thomas
Founder, Under the Ropes
Emma is a safeguarding and lived-experience consultant specialising in survivor-centred approaches to tackling sexual violence in sport. She’s also a former fighter and survivor-advocate, and has been writing about gendered issues in Muay Thai since 2013.
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