In the wake of winning a controversial Texas state girls’ wrestling title over the weekend, Mack Beggs, a 17-year-old transgender wrestler, spoke to the need to “stay strong” while also calling on state policymakers to “change the laws and then watch me wrestle the boys.”
Beggs, who identifies as male, was dogged throughout the tournament by questions about whether his testosterone treatments made him too strong to wrestle fairly against girls. In an interview with ESPN’s Outside the Lines on Wednesday, Beggs said he was unfazed by the boos that rained down on him en route to the 110-pound championship, which capped an undefeated season for the Euless Trinity junior.
“I just heard the boos, but I heard more cheering,” Beggs told OTL. “Honestly, I was like, ‘You know what? Boo all you want, because you’re just hating. You hating ain’t going to get me and you nowhere, and I’m just going to keep on doing what I’ve got to do.’
“That’s why I’ve always had that mentality. If you’re going to be negative, you know, whatever, that’s not going to faze me.”
Beggs, who says he has been taunted with slurs such as “f—-t” and “it,” cited the testosterone as a reason for the boos, as well as ignorance and a lack of understanding on the part of his critics.
“I mean, I’ve been winning before when I didn’t have testosterone, but now that, you know, I’m actually winning winning, people want to go crazy,” Beggs said. He added that some people “just automatically want to call me a cheater.”
“Like that kind of makes me feel like they don’t care about my training or the work that I put in,” he continued. “Because I’ve been to [state] twice. And it’s not like I’m just doing this because I want to like call myself a boy and just dominate all these girls. What do I get out of that? I don’t get anything out of that.”
Given the choice, Beggs said he would “definitely” want to wrestle boys, “because I’m a guy. It just makes more sense.”
See here for the background. Maybe someone should ask Dan Patrick why he wants to make Mack Beggs use the girls’ bathroom, as would be required under SB6. Of course, we know what a coward Patrick is, so there’s no chance he’d ever consent to speaking with Mack Beggs. But make no mistake, this is what Dan Patrick wants.
ThinkProgress adds an interesting wrinkle.
In Beggs’ home state of Texas, a bill that would ban transgender Texans from using the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity is being heard this week. Nationally, President Trump rescinded the Obama administration’s guidance about trans rights, allowing states more flexibility in how much—or how little—they accommodate transgender students.
On Sunday, Beggs addressed Trump’s actions in an exclusive interview with ESPN’s Outside the Lines.
“You know, people thought he was going to be an LGBT activist,” Beggs told ESPN. “That backfired on them. It just [sets] trans rights 10 times backwards. We’re just going to come back 20 times harder.”
Trump’s actions are particularly personal for Beggs, not only because of his own identity as a transgender boy, but also because his mother, Angela McNew, voted for Trump.
McNew has been supportive of her son’s transition, and in the past couple of weeks, has reportedly begun to wonder if voting for Trump was the right thing to do.
“I think on this journey [Trump] probably should step outside the box and think about all of these children and all of these people, that if you really look at them and the journey they’re taking, would you really put them in their birth certificate?” McNew told OTL reporter Tisha Thompson. “And honestly, who is going to be going by the bathrooms and checking I.D.?”
Beggs grew up attending an evangelical Christian church, and has been struggling to reconcile his upbringing with his current reality. His mother has defended her son to people in the church, some of whom have said she should go to jail for child abuse because God doesn’t make mistakes.
McNew is insistent that God didn’t make a mistake with Beggs — in fact, she believes that Beggs is fulfilling his purpose right now, as he fights for transgender rights on a national stage.
Yes, Dear Leader Trump is definitely a foe for transgender people. I hope Ms. McNew comes to recognize that, and that Dan Patrick is bad news for her and her son as well.
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