In 2017, Mack Beggs, a 17-year-old teenager from Texas, found himself at the center of one of the most talked-about sports controversies in the United States.
Beggs identified as male and was taking testosterone as part of his transition. However, the rules of the UIL, the organization that regulated public school sports in Texas, stated that students had to compete according to the sex listed on their birth certificate.
That is why, although he wanted to wrestle against men, he ended up competing in the women’s division.
And his results were hard to ignore: Beggs reached the state championship with a record of 56 wins and no losses. In the final of the 110-pound division, he defeated Chelsea Sanchez 12-2 and claimed the state title.
The victory sparked intense debate. Some parents and opponents questioned Beggs competing while receiving testosterone and believed it could give him a physical advantage. The father of one of his opponents even filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent him from competing in the women’s division.
Beggs, for his part, maintained that he had not chosen to compete against women and that what he wanted was to face other men. His family also argued that the rules had left him in a situation he had not chosen.
But the case had a second chapter: in 2018 he won the state championship again, once more in the women’s division.
The story opened a debate that remains extremely controversial: what should determine a person’s sports category: their biological sex, their gender identity, or the specific rules of each competition?
And in Beggs’s case, there is a paradox that made the story even more controversial: he wanted to compete against men, but the rules meant to protect the women’s division were precisely the ones that ended up forcing him to compete against women.