Trans wrestler Mack Beggs has important advice for the young trans community
A transgender wrestler who has made headlines over the last few weeks after being forced to compete in the women’s league has offered up his advice to young trans people.
Mack Beggs, 17, won the University Interscholastic League competition in the 110-pound weight class.
During the league, Beggs’ high school faced a lawsuit that demanded the wrestler be suspended from the game because he was on testosterone therapy.
The lawsuit claimed that the medically prescribed steroids Beggs was given caused a threat to the female athletes.
Speaking to Outside the Lines on ESPN, Beggs spoke about his own mental health issues and offered advice to other trans youth who may encounter what he has had to face in the future.
He said: “I’ve had negativity. People have called me f*ggot or ‘it’.
In 7th grade I would feel like I need to kill myself, there is going to be sucky days, but you just have to stay strong,” he explained. “There’s always going to be another day or another week, you just have to keep going.”
The wrestler said that he puts his success how to his persistence and hard work, not the testosterone treatment.
“People want to automatically call me a cheater. They don’t care about my training or what I put it.
“I mean, I’ve been winning before when I didn’t have testosterone, but now that, you know, I’m actually winning, winning, people want to go crazy,” he said.
Beggs criticised Trump’s recent decision to overturn trans protection laws, deeming it “ridiculous and dangerous”.
“Trump is leaving so many variables out,” he said. “Who is going to protect these kids in school who have to watch their back every single day?”
The wrestler left other trans youth with a parting message: “anyone who is struggling, ‘do you’.”
