She's gonna knock you out: National Golden Gloves Champion Thaddine Johnson is out of the closet and ready to take on the world.

It took years of training for Thaddine Johnson to reach the pinnacle of amateur boxing in the United States. Now, as she reaches for greater heights as a pro, she expects to spend the rest of her career winning the industry's respect as a woman and an out lesbian fighter.

In August, 27-year-old Johnson climbed through the ropes at the National Golden Gloves Championship in Chicago, hoping to follow in the footsteps of boxing greats like Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, who launched their professional careers there.

Under the watchful eyes of promoters and fans, she moved nimbly around semifinal competitor Stephanie Thomas and scouted for an opening. She then unleashed a barrage of punches, delivering a decisive straight right and lightning-quick uppercut to Thomas's head.

Forty-five seconds after the opening bell rang, the referee declared Johnson the winner. With no one to challenge her in the tournament's finals, Johnson continued her undefeated (10-0) career record and became the top amateur nationally in the 95-pound category.

"It felt good, but the part that was the best was thinking about all those knuckleheads who told me to quit," she recalls. "You said I was nothing, that I suck; now look. The best revenge is success."

It has been a long road to the top for Johnson, not ]east because of the unrelenting training schedule. Six mornings a week Johnson takes the subway from her home in New York City's Queens borough to Gleason's, the legendary Brooklyn gym that has produced world champions and Olympic gold medalists. There, in a large room heavy with the smell of sweat, Johnson alternates for several hours between punching bags, a torso mannequin, and the sparring ring. "She's a tough boxer," says her former trainer, Lennox Blackmoore, in between rounds. "She's a natural. All she needs now is to get more fights."

But the near-constant sexual digs from male boxers don't make things very easy for Johnson. She says several men have insisted she was "too cute" for the sport, while one former trainer invited her to his home because he said he liked to watch lesbian sex. "The right starts when you walk in that door," she says, gesturing with her blue boxing gloves.

Johnson does her best to ignore the harassment and says she avoids socializing at the gym. She's unsure if other boxers in the gym know that she's a lesbian. Still, she does have a tattoo of intertwined female sex signs on her ankle that she says other boxers may notice.

The youngest of four children, Johnson grew up in the same working-class Queens home that she currently lives in with her parents. She first realized she was gay when she was a teenager and says she has had a few relationships; the longest, lasting three years, ended about a year ago. But she has not had a chance to get into the dating scene since then--mostly because when she's not boxing she's either working as a personal trainer or caring for her ailing parents. "It's not easy, because my dad had a stroke and my mom is in a wheelchair," she says.

Johnson is hardly the first woman to battle sexism and homophobia in the ring. For centuries boxing was considered the exclusive domain of men; female fights were staged as early as the 1720s in London, but the first boxing license issued to a woman in the United States dates only to 1975. USA Boxing, the national governing body for amateurs, didn't sanction female bouts until 1993, and that was only because of a lawsuit.

Much of boxing's overt sexism has dissipated since then, and the sport's popularity in the past decade has grown. Still, relatively few female matches make it to HBO or ESPN, and the purse for the top women is just a fraction of what their male counterparts get. "Women's boxing compared to men's is in its infancy," says Sue "Tiger Lilly" Fox, who boxed professionally in the 1970s and now runs the Women Boxing Archive Network. "We till don't get the same amount of competitions."

Being an out lesbian fighter can be that much more of a challenge when compounded by these inequalities. Some promoters have been lukewarm to lesbian boxers who display their affections ringside or don't fit the pretty "foxy boxing" mold, while some advertisers have also reportedly shied away from extending lucrative endorsement deals. "She picked boxing, mid boxing is not an easy sport," says Gina Guidi, a former middleweight world champion and one of the few visible out lesbian boxers. "If she's lesbian, she's going to have an even harder time--unless she does the Barbie routine."

But Johnson, who has an equipment deal with Everlast, doesn't see her sexual orientation getting in the way of her career. "Maybe some of the bigger promoters out there want Playboy models to warm up the crowd, with their big implants and big asses," she says. "But can they box? It all comes down to the skills."

Observers say the paucity of out lesbian boxers may have less to do with homophobia than that sexual orientation isn't a big deal among women fighters. "We do have fighters who are lesbian, and we have fighters who are straight," says Fox, whose Web site carries information on more than 1,300 pro and amateur female boxers across the country. "They bring their girlfriends to the fights, and I don't think anyone cares."

Johnson agrees. "Most girls are too competitive and not really interested in getting to know me," she says.

Still, she's very sure that other people will want to know her. And her success in the ring could be very much tied to the image she projects as a boxer, as a woman, and as a lesbian.

"Look at [tennis's] Williams sisters," she says. "Serena looks more butch than anyone else, but look what she's done. Nobody's telling them anything about their appearance. It's the same way with me. Take it or leave it."

Hendrick is assistant managing editor at The Queens Chronicle.