Feb 28, 2017 09:45 PM
http://breaking911.com/transgender-wrest...tle-texas/
EXCERPT: [...] In this time and place, with [Mack] Beggs cruising to a state championship, the hundreds here had no choice but to confront one of the nation’s most divisive and highly charged issues.
“She’s standing there holding her head high like she’s the winner,” said Patti Overstreet, a mother of a wrestler in the boys’ division. “She’s not winning. She’s cheating.”
Overstreet, upset Friday in the moments after Beggs’s opening-round victory, went on. “It’s not equal,” she said. “It’s never going to be equal.”
Other parents tiptoed around the discussion, wondering what to say and how to say it. Kids confronted coaches about topics as complicated as gender identity and as simple as fairness, leading some to squirm and others to attempt explanations.
“Everybody has been talking about it. It’s in the ether everywhere,” said one longtime Texas high school wrestling coach, who requested anonymity because his school district prohibited its employees from publicly discussing Beggs’s situation. “All this week I’m in school and kids are coming up and talking about it. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
[...]
He cut his hair and told his grandmother that he wanted to be a boy. Nancy Beggs said Saturday that her grandson felt relief after identifying as transgender, like a longtime affliction had finally been diagnosed.
Two years ago, Mack Beggs began taking supplements to begin his physical transition. In the video, he predicted a complicated future regarding UIL rules but nonetheless declared that he wanted to go on participating in the sport he had fallen in love with. He began taking testosterone in 2015.
“Everything is great,” Beggs said in the video. “The message I’m trying to send, the overall universal message I would say to y’all is don’t give up and don’t give up on yourself, because you don’t know when you’ll find yourself.”
As time passed, attorney Baudhuin said, Beggs requested to wrestle against boys, though because UIL guidelines determine athletes’ gender based on their birth certificate, that request was declined (citing privacy, the UIL would not discuss that request or Beggs’s specific case); in a brief interview before the championship final, Nancy Beggs would not comment on whether her grandson hoped to eventually participate in the boys’ division.
Last year, coaches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area began hearing about changes in Beggs’s physique. He was strong and lean, and coaches noticed an unmistakable strength advantage that hadn’t been there even a year earlier.
A few coaches and parents became concerned their girls wouldn’t compete on equal terrain. Other coaches disagreed, more impressed by Beggs’s commitment to improvement and his mental preparation. Sides were established. Discussions became increasingly tense. Questions became more difficult to answer.
Why, several girls asked the wrestling coach who had asked to remain anonymous, was it okay for Beggs to receive hormones but not them? Why endure training and risk injury if there was no discernible path to victory?
“It’s a dominant American value: fairness, the equality of the pursuit of something,” the coach said. “. . . There’s no doubt that coaches are troubled by this; kids are troubled by it.”
In December, Baudhuin said, parents began asking him to do something about this. They viewed social media posts documenting the changes to Beggs’s body, and Beggs made quick work of every opponent he faced. During the state regional tournament, Beggs’s two opponents forfeited rather than face him.
On behalf of the father of one opponent, Baudhuin sent a certified letter in January petitioning the UIL to move Beggs to the boys’ division. This month he filed a lawsuit that asked for Beggs to be allowed to wrestle boys or removed from the championship tournament. For now, he said, the court has made no decision. The UIL issued a statement Friday that said the birth-certificate rule could change in the future (its legislative council meets in June), and Beggs’s school district determined his testosterone was “well below the allowed level.”
Beggs has one year of high school eligibility remaining and could face additional scrutiny and potential courtroom battles next season....
“You’ve got a kid who’s either going to quit the sport entirely or she has got to wrestle against girls, which she doesn’t want to do,” said Baudhuin, who said he still refers to Beggs by the female pronoun because he struggles to see his daughter’s old friend as a boy. “She’s in a no-win situation....”
EXCERPT: [...] In this time and place, with [Mack] Beggs cruising to a state championship, the hundreds here had no choice but to confront one of the nation’s most divisive and highly charged issues.
“She’s standing there holding her head high like she’s the winner,” said Patti Overstreet, a mother of a wrestler in the boys’ division. “She’s not winning. She’s cheating.”
Overstreet, upset Friday in the moments after Beggs’s opening-round victory, went on. “It’s not equal,” she said. “It’s never going to be equal.”
Other parents tiptoed around the discussion, wondering what to say and how to say it. Kids confronted coaches about topics as complicated as gender identity and as simple as fairness, leading some to squirm and others to attempt explanations.
“Everybody has been talking about it. It’s in the ether everywhere,” said one longtime Texas high school wrestling coach, who requested anonymity because his school district prohibited its employees from publicly discussing Beggs’s situation. “All this week I’m in school and kids are coming up and talking about it. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
[...]
He cut his hair and told his grandmother that he wanted to be a boy. Nancy Beggs said Saturday that her grandson felt relief after identifying as transgender, like a longtime affliction had finally been diagnosed.
Two years ago, Mack Beggs began taking supplements to begin his physical transition. In the video, he predicted a complicated future regarding UIL rules but nonetheless declared that he wanted to go on participating in the sport he had fallen in love with. He began taking testosterone in 2015.
“Everything is great,” Beggs said in the video. “The message I’m trying to send, the overall universal message I would say to y’all is don’t give up and don’t give up on yourself, because you don’t know when you’ll find yourself.”
As time passed, attorney Baudhuin said, Beggs requested to wrestle against boys, though because UIL guidelines determine athletes’ gender based on their birth certificate, that request was declined (citing privacy, the UIL would not discuss that request or Beggs’s specific case); in a brief interview before the championship final, Nancy Beggs would not comment on whether her grandson hoped to eventually participate in the boys’ division.
Last year, coaches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area began hearing about changes in Beggs’s physique. He was strong and lean, and coaches noticed an unmistakable strength advantage that hadn’t been there even a year earlier.
A few coaches and parents became concerned their girls wouldn’t compete on equal terrain. Other coaches disagreed, more impressed by Beggs’s commitment to improvement and his mental preparation. Sides were established. Discussions became increasingly tense. Questions became more difficult to answer.
Why, several girls asked the wrestling coach who had asked to remain anonymous, was it okay for Beggs to receive hormones but not them? Why endure training and risk injury if there was no discernible path to victory?
“It’s a dominant American value: fairness, the equality of the pursuit of something,” the coach said. “. . . There’s no doubt that coaches are troubled by this; kids are troubled by it.”
In December, Baudhuin said, parents began asking him to do something about this. They viewed social media posts documenting the changes to Beggs’s body, and Beggs made quick work of every opponent he faced. During the state regional tournament, Beggs’s two opponents forfeited rather than face him.
On behalf of the father of one opponent, Baudhuin sent a certified letter in January petitioning the UIL to move Beggs to the boys’ division. This month he filed a lawsuit that asked for Beggs to be allowed to wrestle boys or removed from the championship tournament. For now, he said, the court has made no decision. The UIL issued a statement Friday that said the birth-certificate rule could change in the future (its legislative council meets in June), and Beggs’s school district determined his testosterone was “well below the allowed level.”
Beggs has one year of high school eligibility remaining and could face additional scrutiny and potential courtroom battles next season....
“You’ve got a kid who’s either going to quit the sport entirely or she has got to wrestle against girls, which she doesn’t want to do,” said Baudhuin, who said he still refers to Beggs by the female pronoun because he struggles to see his daughter’s old friend as a boy. “She’s in a no-win situation....”
