Pit Boxing Club’s Brittani Vaughn, pictured above, is set to fight Sam’s Gym’s Will Macmillan on Saturday, Aug. 3, as part of the Southside Rumble 12 at Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo Provided)

HUNTINGTON — Pit Boxing Club’s Brittani Vaughn is looking forward to fighting Will Macmillan out of Sam’s Gym when Southside Rumble 12 gets underway on Saturday, Aug. 3 inside Parkersburg South’s Rod Oldham Athletic Center.

“I’ll take any fight anyone wants to give me,” admitted Vaughn, a runner-up at the Parkersburg Toughman and a champion in the 139-pound and under division at the 2023 Huntington Toughman. “I kind of feel sorry for this kid. He’s only ever had four toughman fights in all, and he’s only won one of them. We’re going to fight, but I mean I just feel sorry for him.

“I’m pretty excited. Training is going well. We’re all getting good rounds in. My cardio is doing good and I’m feeling good. We’ve got some good people in the gym and we’re pushing each other. Of course, Hailey (Pennington) is fighting (Michigan’s Shamiah Jones) as well and she’s trying to prepare herself and be ready for that (pro) fight. We’re all just trying to work together to help each other be the best that we can.”

Although the amateur Vaughn would be the first to tell anyone she’s more of a lover than a fighter when not in the ring, things haven’t always been easy for the native West Virginian.

The former Army combat engineer, who trained for more than three years at Ground Zero in Huntington before starting Pit Boxing with Pennington in Guyandotte, had her military service cut short while serving in Germany.

“The thing is they found out that I was trans and I got medically discharged,” admitted Vaughn, who earned a black belt at Master Kim’s Tae Kwon Do School. “I had a three-and-half-year contract and I only got to do a little more than a year-and-a-half. They found out I was trans and they got me out of there, but at least I have an honorable discharge. I’m just not trying to lie to myself, you know, or anybody else. I am who I am and I should conduct myself like that. Just because people are not wanting to have backlash for not letting trans people into women’s sports, that doesn’t give them a right to jump in there.

“I’ve gotten into debates and stuff with some people that don’t share my views and there’s no talking to these people. They are dead set in their mindset that it’s OK for somebody that was a man for 25, 30 years, to go in there and fight a woman. It’s wrong. I mean I spar Hailey and I spar other girls we get in the gym, but I mean that’s different. I’m not going full bore on them. I’m putting the pressure on them and I’m pushing the pace so they can get better, but I’m not hitting them hard or anything. I’m just tapping at them. I’ll spar other women, but I’ll never step in the ring or the cage with a biological woman.”

Vaughn, who often gets snide comments on social media posts, said she’s only fought two trans women in her career.

She lost a kickboxing match once and noted “we had a really good fight” and that she also “whipped” her opponent last year at a Rough N’ Rowdy event.

“At first it was difficult, but I’ve gotten pretty callused in my outlook on things,” admitted Vaughn, who started transitioning in 2007 and fully committed after leaving the Army in 2011. “Like, I don’t really care what people think about me. The people that respect me and are kind to me, those are the people I want to be involved with. The people that have something bad to say for me, it’s usually because they are insecure within themselves already and they want to transfer that back on to me to make them feel better about themselves.

“I just don’t worry about what they say. Some people would get all butthurt and stuff, and some people would have a mean comment to say. Let them say it. That’s their human right to express their own opinion. I shouldn’t let that affect my outlook on things. So what if they have something mean to say? I don’t care. It’s just words, but I think at this point I carry myself well and it tends to keep people from wanting to test me, I think.”

The topic of transgender people competing in sports continues to be a hot topic of debate, but not in the eyes of Vaughn.

“A lot of my drive comes from my desire to try to protect women’s sports as much as I can because I feel like if I’m out here competing and winning a lot of times, I’m putting my community and myself into a better light so people can see like we are all not delusional, you know,” she said.

“There’s some of us out here that realize the fact it’s not OK just because you identify as a woman, it doesn’t mean you should compete against women. It’s cheating at the end of the day. I look at it as they are cheating because they know that they can’t compete in the men’s division, so they think they can get an easy win, and sometimes they get beat by the women because they suck.”

Vaughn, who started boxing nearly four years ago and will attempt to claim the vacant Dawghouse Promotions lightweight boxing title, said she was partially raised in Naples, Florida.

“My dad built houses down there and then we moved back up here and wanted to focus more on the real estate business,” said Vaughn, who admitted she knew she was different at a young age. “I spent some time out West in Utah for a while and then Arizona and I lived up in Vermont and taught snowboarding at a ski resort, and then I came back here to help my dad with the business. I help fix up the apartments and do maintenance on them and stuff. Probably about when I was 7 or 8 is my earliest memory of wanting to be a girl.

“I grew up with three older sisters and three younger sisters. I was in the middle. I think I was born intersex, which is you’re born with both basically, and there are varying degrees. Back when I was born, like now they do consult the parents more about it, but back then they would just make a medical decision as to what sex the baby was going to be if it was that type of situation. I’m pretty sure I was born intersex and they decided that I was going to be more male than female.”

Vaughn, like former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, isn’t going to back down on her beliefs.

“There was a big controversy recently, and I kind of got put into the middle of it,” she explained. “There was this group of trans women going around to jiu-jitsu competitions and trying to compete in the women’s division. A lot of them got smashed by the women, smaller than them, and I tried to call those women out and was like why don’t you come fight a real trans woman and stop lying to yourself.

“They just blocked me and stuff. It was stupid. I tried to call out that Alana McLaughlin chick who fought that French girl (Celine Provos) recently and she blocked me. She won’t talk to me. She was in the Army Special Forces and she got out and decided to transition and started fighting women in MMA.”

Vaughn admits she’s come a long way since her first fight and subsequent defeat against Delbarton’s Jacob Ray, but she’s still honing her craft on a daily basis.

“It wasn’t in a ring and I think a lot of nerves got to me,” said Vaughn. “He got me with a really good right. I’ve learned over the years how to take a shot and deal with that. I have a pretty good chin. I definitely have a lot of strength in my style because I have my taekwondo background and a little bit of Muay Thai, and I’ve studied some jiu-jitsu and Jeet Kune Do, which is Bruce Lee’s style he came up with.

“I have a very odd style compared to other traditional boxers. I switch my stance a lot. It’s hard for people to deal with that. It’s good for my training partners because they get used to different styles and different looks, and it helps them in the long run, but for my opponents it’s a hard couple minutes in the ring with me because you never know what I’m going to throw. I kind of developed my own style over time and it’s kind of unique to me, definitely.”

Although Vaughn said she can take a hit, she’s continually working on her punching speed and head movement.

“I really love this sport and just combat sports in general, and I’ve kind of become a little obsessed with it maybe,” she added. “That happens when you put yourself into something like this.

“Like I said earlier, I want to be a positive role model and representation of myself and my community and just show people I’m out here and I’m making it happen for myself. I’m just trying to do something that I love and protect the sport from people that would taint it with their selfishness.”

Suffice it to say she’s definitely not in the camp of former University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

“That was ridiculous and I’ve talked to Riley Gaines a little bit about that,” Vaughn said. “She’s a really wonderful woman and I’m just sorry that she had to go through that because that’s got to feel so bad. One of my sisters went to college on a sports scholarship. I’ve just thought throughout this whole process, and my combat sports career, how would I feel if my sister lost her sports scholarship that she worked her a– off to get to somebody that just couldn’t cut it in the men’s division, and thought I’m just going to get a sports scholarship in the women’s division because it’s the easier thing to do. I just keep that in mind.

“That’s what I’m fighting for is to protect women from this culture that has popped up recently of people just getting delusional through just people not wanting to offend anybody. Sometimes people need to be offended. Maybe they need to take a nice hard look at themselves and what they are doing and take a step back and stop being selfish about how they feel. Like think how other people feel and how your actions affect others. I feel so weird about it because these trans women that compete in the women’s division get more exposure than I do. I don’t get it. I guess controversy sells better, but I feel like I need to get my message out there as much as I can.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com