Tag: Mack Beggs

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News Round-Up: March 15, 2019

Happy birthday, Russell Todd! (photo: James Franklin)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Belated birthday wishes to my longtime buddy, Russell Todd! I’ve known Russell since the 90s when I first moved to the west coast. Everywhere we’d go fans would remember him as ‘Dr. Jamie Frame’ from Another World, Friday the 13th Part 2, and other movie/TV projects. Totally the best guy, and yes – he is that handsome 🙂

• Traffic on the app Tumblr has dropped by 150 million page views since banning “photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples” on the site from December 17.

• Sadly, Netflix has announced the cancellation of its reboot of the Norman Lear sitcom, One Day at a Time. The new version, featuring a Cuban-American family, was about as good as a TV sitcom can get. The series tackled coming out, homophobia, depression, and many important topics with class and intelligence. If you have Netflix, I recommend you go catch up on the 3 seasons we did get.

• A once-a-month injection to treat HIV has now passed two important trials. #LookingGood

• A new documentary, Mack Wrestles, chronicles the story of Mack Beggs, the trans male Texas high school wrestler who won the state’s girls champion despite wanting to wrestle boys. The film just premiered at the 2019 SXSW Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas.

• Ray Mabus, the former Secretary of the Navy, blasted the Trump/Pence transgender military ban as a “stain on our country” saying the policy “tells our children that merit has no place, while prejudice does.”

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Texas: Trans Wrestler Forced To Compete As Girl Wins 2nd State Title

As I reported yesterday, transgender high school senior Mack Beggs returned to the state wrestling finals this weekend after winning his division last year.

Beggs has asked to compete in the boys division but the University Interscholastic League (UIL), which regulates high school athletics in Texas, made him compete in the girls division based on the gender listed on his birth certificate.

Beggs is undergoing hormone replacement therapy under the care of a doctor, which the UIL allows. Beggs said last year that he’s taking less than the recommended dosage of testosterone in order to stay within the “allowed level.”

Beggs’ weekly injection of .18 milliliters (36 milligrams) is medically prescribed and monitored for the primary purposes of stopping his menstrual cycles and allowing him to grow body and facial hair.

That dosage is tiny compared to what male body builders typically inject – 500 to 1,000 milligrams of testosterone per week.

Over the past years, parents of Beggs’ competitors have been vocal saying Beggs’ use of testosterone constituted an illegal advantage over girls calling the hormone treatment “steroid use.”

On Saturday evening, the transgender male wrestler ended his perfect 36-0 season by winning his second straight UIL girls Class 6A state title in the 110-pound weight class.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, there were a few boos last year but those cheering for Beggs drowned the haters out. This year the boos were back and more pronounced.

What I want to make absolutely clear is that Beggs’ won fair and square playing by the rules. Period.

Beggs’ focus moves now to “top surgery” in the next few months and then on college. He has already been offered a wrestling scholarship at an out of state college.

The NCAA, which regulates college athletics, allows transgender wrestlers to compete with their gender.

Watch video below of the last minute of Mack’s title-winning match.

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Texas: Undefeated Trans High School Wrestler Looks To Repeat State Title

High school wrestler Mack Beggs

One year ago, undefeated high school wrestler Mack Beggs won a Texas state wrestling title in his weight division.

The story was noteworthy not just because of the athletic achievement, but because Beggs is a transgender male who, due to state rules and laws covering scholastic athletics, is forced to compete as the gender assigned him at birth.

This year, Beggs is again undefeated going into the finals of state competition and, again, he will have to compete in the girls’ division.

Beggs would like to wrestle boys, but state law denies him that opportunity.

Although Beggs is aware of female wrestling opponents and their parents looking for evidence of “body-building” drug enhancement they might deem unfair, the truth is Beggs’ weekly injection of .18 milliliters (36 milligrams) is medically prescribed and monitored for the primary purposes of stopping his menstrual cycles and allowing him to grow body and facial hair.

Compare that dosage with what male body builders typically inject – 500 to 1,000 milligrams of testosterone per week.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Beggs shared that he plans to have “top surgery” in the coming months and apparently has at least one offer to join a college wrestling team.

No matter what, Beggs is confident that other people’s bigotry will not hold him back in life.

“People don’t realize that what happened during state, that was really, honestly, nothing,” Beggs said. “That didn’t stop me from competing. That didn’t stop me from being who I was. It sure as hell didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted to do in the past, and it won’t stop me from what I want to do in the future.”

Watch Beggs’ interview below:

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High School Wrestling Champ Mack Beggs On Challenges Of Being Transgender

Mack Beggs, a 17-year-old transgender high school wrestler in Texas who is transitioning to male, talks with ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” about the challenges he has faced in his controversial run to a girls’ wrestling state title.

For all the folks who have accused Beggs of “cheating” because he is on testosterone, the high schooler acknowledges he told his doctor he only wants to take the smallest dose he can and still transition. By staying under a 6 to 1 ratio with his testosterone, the state of Texas technically doesn’t view his medications as “steroids.”

Beggs also shares some of his darker moments like in 7th grade when he was referred to as “fag” or “it” in school.

I think Beggs is terrifically mature and thoughtful here. Very good interview for folks to see when it comes to the realities of trans youth.

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Texas Sportscaster Dale Hansen Takes On Transphobes Over Trans Wrestler Mack Beggs

Dale Hansen

Back in 2014, as sports pundits were having their yucks about newly out football player Michael Sam, WFAA’s venerable Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen spoke truth to power regarding the new landscape ahead for professional sports team owners and challenged them to be wise moving forward.

Last night, Hansen delivered an op-ed on his newscast regarding Texas teen Mack Beggs, a transgender high school student who won his weight class in the state wrestling competition. Beggs was forced to wrestle in the girls’ division due to University Interscholastic League (UIL) rules.

The UIL holds that athletes must compete according to the information on their birth certificate. In this case, that meant Beggs had to compete in the girls division.

But UIL rules also state that no athlete may use performance enhancing drugs – like testosterone – unless they are prescribed by a doctor. Obviously, as Beggs is transitioning, he is taking testosterone under the care of his doctor.

All of this comes together in that Mack Beggs is not to “blame” for any of the inconsistencies here. This is a high school athlete who just wants to compete. Beggs had requested to wrestle in the boy’s division,  but was denied.

But I’m not nearly as articulate as the ever-wise Hansen. Here’s the text via WFAA :

I would have thought in 2017 – or maybe I just hoped in 2017 – we would be done arguing about birth certificates… but obviously we’re not.

Seventeen-year old Mack Beggs, a junior at Euless Trinity who was born a girl and is now in the process of becoming a boy, wins the girls’ state wrestling tournament Saturday. So the argument has started again.

Mack wanted to wrestle against the boys. The UIL says he had to wrestle the girls. And that’s not fair for anybody involved in this argument.

Mack has been taking testosterone and it shows. There’s a reason we have rules in sports against steroids, and it was an incredibly unfair advantage for him. It was also unfair to the girls who had to wrestle him.

The question is, “When does a girl become a boy, and when does a boy become a girl?” or “When can you play games against those you identify with and not what a piece of paper says you are?”

That answer is way above my pay grade. But someone has to find a better answer than what we’re being given now.

As I said when I wrote about Missouri football player Michael Sam, I’m not always comfortable when a man tells me he’s gay. I don’t understand his world. But I do understand he’s a part of mine. And I am saying the same thing now about Mack Beggs.

Transitioning is a struggle I cannot imagine. It is a journey I could not make… and it is a life that too many cannot live.

The problems that Mack Beggs is facing and dealing with now remind me again that I don’t have any problems. He needs our support, and he does not need a group of old men in Austin telling him who to wrestle because of a genetic mix-up at birth.

We have argued long enough about birth certificates. It’s an argument that needs to end. You don’t have to understand – I myself don’t understand. But Mack Beggs is not the problem so many people make him out to be. He’s a child simply looking for his place in the world, and a chance to compete in the world.

Do we really not have the simple decency to allow him at least that? Because it seems to me it’s the very least we can do.

Watch below as Hansen reminds us how common sense and compassion come together.

A post shared by Bleacher Report (@bleacherreport) on Feb 28, 2017 at 3:51pm PST

(h/t Towleroad)