Former Transgender Winner of Texas State Girl's High School Wrestling Championship

Mack Beggs | Biography 2021

Member of Men's Wrestling Team for Life University, Transgender Rights Activist

• By Ashna Tamrakar
• Update : July 02, 2021

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Mack Beggs is an American transgender wrestler and mixed martial artist from Euless, Texas. 

Who Is Mack Beggs?

Mack Beggs became popular in 2017 and 2018 after winning the Texas girl's high school state wrestling title with an undefeated record. Beggs is a transgender man and had been forced to compete in the girls' state tournament for years.

In 2017, ze won the 'Texas girls' 110 lb championship' by defeating Chelsea Sanchez in the girls' tournament. Ze won the state title for the second year in a row in 2018, defeating Sanchez for the second time.

Beggs, a transgender, had been forced to play in the state competition for females for years. Because the University Interscholastic League, which supervised the rules and administration of Texas high school athletic events, determined an athlete's gender based on his or her birth certificate, and all hir sports participation was based accordingly.

 Presently, the athlete is a member of the Life University men's wrestling team, which competes in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Wrestling Championship. Ze is an outspoken supporter of transgender youngsters. Ze also talks about mental health issues. 

In 2019, Beggs also featured in Hulu's documentary titled, Changing the Game and ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary -  Mack Wrestles.

Early Life 

Mack Beggs was born on 6 April 1999, as a girl, in a small suburb in Texas. Hir birth name was Mackenzie Beggs. 

Hir mother, Angela McNew, in a 2017 interview with Dallas News, recalled how Beggs was unhappy when ze was three years old and no longer wanted to wear dresses. 

She also remembered when she picked hir up from the church in hir kindergarten days. They talked about the differences between men and women, and McNew was perplexed when Beggs inquired why God made hir a girl and why ze was in the wrong body? 

McNew understood it wasn't just Beggs being a tomboy, but had she known what to do about it.

"I was like, 'OK, I think we just take a different journey now,'" McNew stated. "It all started there."

Talking about hir educational journey, Beggs attended Euless Trinity High School in Texas. Ze then joined Life University in Marietta, Georgia, with a major in Health Science. According to Beggs, the college environment was very LGBT-friendly.

The professional athlete has always been very active in sports. While ze started wrestling in hir freshman year of high school, ze played a variety of other sports, including pole vault, soccer team, basketball, and volleyball.

Career

Beggs got interested in wrestling when ze was in eighth grade in Euless, Texas. As an athlete, ze always wanted to try mixed martial arts and eventually opted for wrestling.

Career Highlights 

Former Texas high school state wrestling champion earned national notoriety in 2017 and 2018 for competing in the women's division as a transgender guy.

Beggs won the Class 6A girls' state wrestling championship in high school, making hir the first transgender athlete to do so. In the Texas girls' 110-pound class, Beggs went 57-0 against female opponents. In the state final, ze won over Sanchez, becoming the first state title as a wrestler for Trinity High School in 2017. Ze was also voted Outsports Male Hero of the Year for both hir victory and resilience. 

In 2018, ze won the Texas state wrestling title with an impeccable record. Beggs won 36 consecutive matches in the 110-pound weight category at Trinity High School in Euless. Ze repeated the feat, going 36-0 and defeating Sanchez 15-3 to win back-to-back state titles. Ze was named the winner and was greeted with a mix of applause and boos from the audience.

"I just heard the boos, but I heard more cheering," Beggs said to ESPN's Outside the Lines. "Honestly, I was like, 'You know what? Boo all you want, because you're just hating. You hating ain't going to get me and you nowhere, and I'm just going to keep on doing what I've got to do."

In 2018, Beggs was allowed to wrestle at the collegiate level as a walk-on for an NAIA institution in the men's division. Beggs revealed on hir Instagram that ze would wrestle for Life University.

By 2019, ze underwent top surgery, had hir birth certificate updated to reflect hir true gender, and has been wrestling against males since then at the Life University.

Gender Controversy at Game

Beggs, who was born as a girl, was forced to compete on the squad that corresponded to hir birth certificate's gender as per the rule by the University Interscholastic League (UIL) in Texas. 

In 2017, when ze was a high school junior, a major controversy raged, culminating in a lawsuit by a parent. The parents sought to stop hir from competing as ze had been undergoing routine low-dose testosterone injections as part of hir transition.

Beggs wanted to participate in men's competitions, but a state ban restricted transgender athletes to teams that matched their birth certificate gender. 

The debate heated when a bill was filed in the Texas state legislature that would have effectively barred hir from games. The Texas Senate passed the bill but never brought it up for a vote in the Texas House of Representatives. The case was thrown out.

During the 45-minute discussion on SB 2095, state legislators mentioned Beggs' name 27 times. The measure would allow the University Interscholastic League (UIL) greater flexibility in regulating steroid usage among high school athletes. However, the opposition interpreted it as an attempt to exclude transgender athletes from Hormone Replacement Therapy.

"I always knew, deep down, that with all these policies in place, [UIL officials] weren't even going to consider allowing me to be on the guys' team, even though when I first started wrestling, I was wrestling Greco against the guys, and was beating the guys in the room. I was like, 'I don't want to compete against girls but what can I do?' I've completed all my life. I'm an athlete. That's what I do, I compete. So I just tried to make the best out of the situation that I could," Beggs said.

In 2018, Beggs publicly urged the UIL to update its outdated rules for other transgender athletes. Ze also continues to use social media to advocate for open discussions about transgender issues, and ze has never shied away from discussing hir transition.

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