Mack Beggs, a transgender senior from Euless Trinity High School near Dallas, Texas, has won the Texas girls’ Class 6A 110-pound division for the second year in a row. Beggs was born female but is taking hormone supplements, including small doses of testosterone, to transition to male. Video showed a mix of cheering and boos from the crowd following Beggs’ win. The controversy aptly demonstrates one of the side-effects of the transgender issue — how kids compete in sports — and also shows an underlying inclination to favor traditional views of gender.
Last year, as Beggs has been taking steroid-therapy treatments while wrestling girls, the wrestler tried to opt out and wrestle against boys; to Beggs’ credit, the student seems to realize the competitive advantage of testosterone while wrestling girls. Beggs was not allowed to enter the boys’ tournament because the rules for Texas public high schools require athletes to compete under the gender on their birth certificate, and that still says “female.” So, for the last two years, Beggs’ very role in the tournaments has stirred debate about what transgender students are allowed to do in sports and what is fair to other students.
