The Medway boxing community has reacted with shock to the news a tough-talking promoter is living as a woman.

Frank Maloney, who made Lennox Lewis World Champion, is to undergo a sex change and is now living as woman called Kellie.

Maloney was a hard-nosed boxing promoter and manager for more than 30 years. He revealed in a national newspaper this weekend that she will undergo a sex change.

The 61-year-old was Medway boxer Tom Dallas’ promoter for about three years.

The Chatham heavyweight, said he was shocked to hear the news.

He said: “I could not believe it, my friend sent me the picture of him in the paper dressed as the woman and I just couldn’t believe it. I just thought, oh my god.

“If you picked a load of people and put them in a line and said which one was going to become a woman, the last person I would have picked was Frank.

“But if he wishes to be Kellie then whatever, I couldn’t care less.”

Boxing trainer, Charlie Rumble, who runs The Charlie Rumble Boxing and Sports Academy in Sittingbourne, posted his thoughts on Facebook this morning.

He said: “Well, I am in deep shock. My old pal Frank Maloney has had a sex change. It’s true I’m afraid its in the papers today."

According to national newspaper reports, Maloney says she felt trapped in the wrong body since childhood and fears a backlash from the boxing world which she retired from last year.

Kellie will now spend a year in the transition period before undergoing the operation and has secretly been having hormone therapy and voice coaching.

NHS guidelines state a transsexual must spend two years as a female before they are permitted to undergo corrective surgery.

Kellie is quoted as saying: “I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman.

“I can’t keep living in the shadows, that is why I am doing what I am today. Living with the burden any longer would have killed me.”