Former wrestler Mack Beggs speaks out on anti-trans bills

The former high school Texas state wrestling champion Mack Beggs, who gained national media attention throughout 2017 and 2018 for competing in the women's competition as a transgender man, spoke to Yahoo News about a new wave of anti-trans bills.

Video Transcript

MACK BEGGS: Well, my-- this is Mack Beggs. I go by he/him pronouns. I'm 21, about to turn 22 on April 6-- an Aries, baby-- and currently retired from collegiate wrestling. But I have done college wrestling for three years and been in high school for four years, so I have seven years under my belt. And now I'm training for MMA jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai.

There was a lawyer who filed a petition against me saying-- and barring me from competing in the female division. Texas has laws implemented. I mean, besides law that they're trying to implement now, which is the anti-trans bill basically only targeting women, but also targeting men, but basically their whole argument is around women and transgender women.

But, yeah, they tried to file a lawsuit against me. They lost. So I compete against the females because what the gender is on my birth certificate, that's what I had to compete as. I mean, I competed against women my entire life, and it's kind of like, you know, just a battle within itself. Because like all my life I wanted to be great at whatever I did, and to be told that, you know, it doesn't really count.

And to know that it doesn't count within yourself because, you know, that internal struggle of, you know, you have to wrestle against girls, but you really want to wrestle against guys. You beat girls, but technically you are a girl, but technically, you're not. [LAUGHS] so it was just like kind of like a no-win situation. I just had to eventually just be like, you know what, it was just a part of my life that I had to go through. It was just a struggle that I hope nobody else has to go through.

And eventually, the laws are gonna, the rules are gonna change. Like times are changing and people got to get with it. And, I mean, it sucks. I mean life sucks. And it's tough as a kid. And especially like I do think that I didn't as well handle the situation, especially when I got older and got to college. Mentally, it took a toll on me. But I think we need to have resources in place for kids like this who are in those positions. And that's why I'm continuing to use my story as a teaching tool for others, to show them that it's possible to go through these trials and these struggles and come out persevering.