Mack Beggs is now legally a man, and there’s nothing anybody can do to change that.
The wrestler who won back-to-back Texas girls high school state championships, both capping undefeated seasons, had the sex on his birth certificate changed to “male” last month, according to a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Beggs competed in the girls division throughout his high school career because the University Interscholastic League, which oversees rules and administration for Texas high school athletic competitions, bases all sports participation on the gender listed on an athlete’s birth certificate.
Beggs had wanted to compete against boys in high school. Yet Texas makes it difficult to change the sex on a birth certificate, leaving the final decision up to judges who often refuse to allow the sex change.
The sex change on his birth certificate comes about 15 months too late for him to compete as a boy in Texas high school athletics. Even if it had transpired a year earlier, it would have been in the middle of his senior season. Best practices for trans athletes suggest an athlete does not switch gender categories in the middle of a school year, let alone the middle of a season. Though if the change had come in the middle of a season, it would have been fascinating to watch the UIL fall over itself in figuring out how to handle the situation.
Now Beggs is a redshirt freshman on the men’s wrestling team at Life University, in Georgia, where he has been welcomed onto the team. Life competes in the NAIA, which doesn’t mandate a change of birth certificate to compete.
