Nyla Rose is a transgender professional wrestler and the former women’s world champion of AEW. She has been prohibited from participating in Oklahoma because her bout from December of last year was deemed intergender by the state’s sports commission.
Last December, Nyla Rose engaged in a match televised by AEW in Oklahoma City. In the televised match, Rose defeated a cisgender woman in a two-minute bout. Although she was born a man, Rose underwent a gender transformation and has been participating in the company’s women’s division since the promotion began in 2019.
The Oklahoma State Athletic Commission has been vested with the authority to oversee all combat sports within its jurisdiction. It strictly prohibits intergender competition across various disciplines, including boxing, mixed martial arts, and professional wrestling.
Rose is registered as a female wrestler with the state, but the athletic commission found that her match was against the law.
According to Fox 25, the commission opted to caution Rose from facing a female wrestler within state boundaries or “there will be punitive action made against them.”
In light of the commission’s decision, AEW CEO Tony Khan expressed surprise and disappointment.
He said: “I was really surprised by this. It was not something I was expecting and of course, I was disappointed by the commission’s position and by that warning. I don’t think we did anything wrong. I’m really, really disappointed, shocked by it.”
“I don’t think there should be discrimination against transgender wrestlers or transgender people at all and, you know, they have rights and to that end, I absolutely stand by Nyla Rose. AEW stands behind Nyla Rose and all transgender people who want to play sports and this is wrestling.”
Khan did not say whether the warning from Oklahoma will stop him from producing such matches there in the future.
He said: “She deserves the same chances as everybody else. And if the AEW locker room, which consists of people from all over the world, all kinds of different backgrounds, all different beliefs, if everybody in the locker room can embrace Nyla, I would hope that the Oklahoma Commission could do the same thing.”
Rose thanked Khan directly on social media by saying: “Thank you @TonyKhan thank you @AEW forever grateful. Forever proud”
Rose is the first transgender wrestler who signed with a big American wrestling organization.