CBS- A 17-year-old transgender boy completed an undefeated season Saturday by winning a controversial Texas state girls wrestling title in an event clouded by criticism from those who believe the testosterone he’s taking as he transitions from female to male created an unfair advantage.
The family of Mack Beggs has said he would rather be wrestling boys, but state policy calls for students to wrestle against the gender listed on their birth certificates. So the junior from Euless Trinity beat Chelsea Sanchez 12-2 in the 110-pound weight class to improve to 56-0 and earn the championship. Beggs fell to his knees for a moment after the win as a mixture of cheers and boos rained down on him. He then hugged his coach and left the mat. Beggs, who reached the state tournament after two opponents forfeited, was dogged throughout the event by questions about whether his testosterone treatments made him too strong to wrestle fairly against girls. The University Interscholastic League, which oversees athletics in Texas public schools, enacted the birth certificate policy Aug. 1. And while Beggs’ family has said he wanted to compete against boys, UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison, who refused to address Beggs directly, said they had not received a request to change divisions from any athlete at this competition. “Nothing that has happened at this year’s wrestling championships has the UIL reconsidering its rules because quite frankly we don’t believe that any issues being reported on are really a product of UIL rules,” he said. And in Texas, lawmakers are considering a bill similar to HB2, the North Carolina law that prompted the NBA to move this year’s All-Star Game out of that state. If passed, the Texas version, called SB6, would require transgender people to use the bathroom of their “biological sex.” ---- Is there anything more "Texas" than booing a transgendered boy for dominating the girls he was forced to compete against by the antiquated rules of their own historically intolerant state? Calling something "perfectly clueless" seems oxymoronic, but it's the only accurate description of wrestling parents who directed their ire at a 17 year old who was strong-armed into bulldozing his opponents when pursuing sports in the gender of his choosing was shot down by higher ups. Oh well, fair is fair I guess. I mean, why criticize the committee that would rather restrict the rights of the LGBT community than employ common sense when those bigoted bastards aren't the person strapping on a onesie and summoning his unfair advantage to suplex the will out of teenage girls that don't have male hormones coursing throughout their veins? Makes way more sense to publicly crap on a kid for not giving up wrestling when he was blocked from doing so against people with a similar chemical makeup. Surely he's not already dealing with enough backlash while growing up in a region that doesn't seem too keen on viewing him the same way he views himself, so might as well pile on while he plays the only hand he was dealt and royally flushes the spirit of a couple broads along the way. After all, you can't expect a significant portion of the all-too-progressive Houston population to just quit on their "you are what you were born as, gosh darnit" philosophy after the very first time the results didn't work in their favor. True prejudice requires blissful ignorance, so the UIL and the boo-birds in stands almost had to ignore that the obvious competitive injustice was a problem of their own creation. The only other alternative would have been to let Mack Beggs (great name, BTW) identify as himself, and that would require the admittance that there is more than two genders and potentially cause an awkward, "daddy, what is he doing?" bathroom interaction or two. P.S. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that it's tough to put instances like this in a box. For instance, a transgender girl taking estrogen pills probably also has a significant physical advantage over her female peers. I know it's damn near impossible for states like Texas to wrap their minds around this but these situations need to be looked at on a case by case basis, and the UIL apparently handles these cases worse than the person forced to settle for double digit earnings on 'Deal Or No Deal?'.
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