CYPRESS, Texas (AP) – Mack Beggs won two matches at the Texas state championships Friday. But the larger conflict – over whether a 17-year-old transgender boy should be wrestling girls – remained unsettled.
Beggs’ family has said he would rather be wrestling boys. Some girls and their advocates agree, arguing that the testosterone treatments Beggs has been taking while in transition from female to male have made him too strong to wrestle fairly against women. But under the state’s governing policy for athletics, students must wrestle against the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Beggs beat Taylor Latham in the 110-pound class Friday. The score was 18-7.
It was a match Latham’s mother didn’t want to happen. Her daughter, she said, was wrestling someone whose body was chemically toned for strength.
“I wanted her to forfeit as a protective mom,” Lisa Latham said. “She’s a fighter. She’s not a quitter. She’s a senior. She’s fought for the last three years to get here. She was going to see it through even though I wasn’t sharing the same opinion.”