Growing up, I always wanted to do kickboxing and I always loved it, but my father just didn't want me in it, so I unfortunately couldn’t get involved.

At the age of 18, I saw an MMA video DVD at the video store on mixed martial arts and ended up hiring it. I loved it and joined the local gym and started karate, jujitsu, mixed martial arts, and went on for a couple of years. I lost a lot of weight – I was 120 kilos at the time, and dropped down to 73, but I didn't realize I was that heavy and I didn't even realize that I lost the weight because I was having so much fun.

I hadn’t had top surgery yet, at the time I was training with electrical tape on and training with binders. It’s very challenging in a sense, when you got hoodies on, so I did probably lose weight from just wearing clothes. When I dropped the weight, I wanted to compete.

But I ended up tearing my anterior cruciate ligament and couldn't train anymore. I got a bit depressed but I ended up getting into Pad Holding because that was all I could do. I became a coach and started specializing in pads for combat and stand up. That started my brand where I had the nickname, The Pad Technician. But it's a bit of a double-edged sword, because as much as I loved what I did, I was also pushed into it for the wrong reasons.

The bad experiences allowed me to learn to not do some things, as a coach. I learnt to be more empathetic, but also to see how people train in the gym — to see women and the perception of toxic masculinity.

It had its pros and cons. I just probably dwell more on the cons because from everything I've gone through, it took away what should have been the best of times. For example, the women who wanted to fight or pushed to fight, couldn’t train with the men because a lot of the women didn't want to be hit. And it could be for a number of reasons — a lot of them had certain jobs, where you couldn’t have a black eye.

But the ones that did, pushed, “Well, I want to train with the men because the men will hit me, the women won't.”

So if you take away the gender aspect for a minute, there are men that are in the gym who don't want to be hit, who can't because they're lawyers, or some of them are shy, some of them have been bullied, some of them have severe trauma, where they don't want to be around the fighting aspect, but they want to box.

If you take away gender, the men would be no different from a woman with the same situations and challenges.

How is she going to get better when you keep giving her less?

In my experience, women do get treated differently in training. When we train, they'll tell me "Hey Pharell, I need you to run 100 meters, do 20 Push Ups."

Whereas for a woman it would be, "Sharon I want you to run 50 meters and do 5 push-ups."

Why are you treating her differently? How is she going to get better when you constantly keep giving her less? I won't get better if I keep only doing five push ups. How can we compare the real strength of a woman or a man or a child, when we're not really allowing them to be the best, or giving them the best of their ability to reach their full potential?

I find it's always about the hierarchy, so when everyone trains with me, they know they'd get a rant to respect each other. When it's a mixed class, everyone — young and old — gets the same lecture. Everyone respects each other at their levels. I don't want flirting, I don't want people disrespecting genders. I don't want people doing anything unprofessional. It's about equal respect.

If anyone comes in thinking they're better, they’re out. If someone does anything disrespectful, they’re out, I do not want to know them.

On the ring, we're there to win and we better kill you, but when you leave that ring, you respect everyone the same. Don't you dare think for one second that if you leave that ring, you're better than anyone else, because then you get out of my ring, you get out of my gym.

You may be the best scientists but have you worked with trans athletes?

I've been through so much in life – I've been so bashed and bullied from doctors, family, friends and partners who treated me like crap. I couldn't care less about what I say, in a respectful manner. But the pressure for others can be significant. There may be some beautiful people in the world of sports high up there who want trans people to compete, but maybe they can't speak up because look at the backlash they'll get.

They may lose their job, they may be potentially outcast, recieve death threats or lose friendships. I know that sounds silly but these people may not be able to support us because they don't even have support for themselves. There’s so much stress in our mental health, because you're now putting a ban on the community and the backlash and comments are just so degrading.

It's heartbreaking to see what younger trans kids have to go through. I don't want to see people losing their lives. Let's say you wanted to become a professional boxer, and if someone can't fight as a trans man, you can't transition now. What do you do? Stay as a ‘woman’ to compete?

The public is very angst about it, so it creates a very complex dynamic of emotions, anger and politics. And it's not going anywhere — everyone's got their opinions and there's no freedom to actually have a solution. We talk about inclusion but why aren't people like myself included?

"Hey Pharrell, you're trans, you're in boxing, jump on the board, I'll show you the ‘science’ behind these sports policies."

At least then I can say, "Oh, my God, maybe they are right. Or maybe they're wrong and need more information."

Everyone claims, "We've got the best scientists in the world".

You may be the best scientists, but have you worked with trans athletes?

I will never be a biological man, but I am a gentleman

We keep talking about trans athletes in sports, but look at how we’ve got athletes who’ve abused drugs in the system. There's so much corruption but yet we're all fussed about gender. I don’t like picking and choosing words because we shouldn't have to, but it’s really challenging. If you say something silly, the media eats it up and it gets thrown out there in the worst possible way.

I never tell people that I'm a real man. I will never be a biological man. But I'm a gentleman. And I know that.

What the community is trying to fight for is just the inclusion of acknowledgement — that we're just people. As a person, we still feel the same, give love in similar ways, speak similar words. So that's why gender stopped meaning something to me.

To take away the rights of someone's participation for what they love because of their gender is heartbreaking. All these people want to do is to play a sport and to be able to live that life because that's all they have. Or maybe that's all they want to do.

But our career path and choices are now being made by someone else. So what does that give you left in life to live for, when you've had that decision made for you? Why are other people making our choices for us?

Women who get breast cancer and lose their breast — they didn't make that choice. But if a man were to judge her all the time, she's going to feel less of a woman, less of a person, all because of something that was out of her control. It’s similar being transgender where we’re like, “I didn't choose this. I'm a man and this is who I am.”

But now I can't compete. I can't fulfill my life or that passion I have in sport, so what do I do? I don't think people understand that, and maybe they don't have the experience or empathy to understand.