Transgender Wrestler Fights Against Texas State Ban

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Wednesday, June 2, 2021
Transgender wrestler fights on and off the mat
Mack Beggs made history by becoming the first transgender male wrestler in America. But his journey was far from easy.Mack Beggs made history by becoming the first transgender male wrestler in America.

EULESS, TX. -- Mack Beggs loved wrestling from the moment he stepped on the mat. But because his birth certificate said female, he was banned from competing against other male athletes.

When he started competing against women and winning, controversy boiled, especially because of how open he was about taking testosterone. "I put my testosterone shots, like, up on my Instagram. And so that was like, oh, you're beating all these girls because you're taking testosterone...things kind of exploded after that."

But after years of fighting to compete against men, Mack was the first transgender wrestler to be recruited by a men's collegiate team.

What's Mack's message for others? "In order to, like, be OK with yourself, you have to love yourself first. You got to, like, do what you can every single day to be the best possible person you can be versus what you were yesterday." He continues to be a prominent voice for transgender rights and an activist in the LGBTQ+ community to this day.