Category: whimsy

by Cary Gabriel Costello

What a remarkable thing: compassion without understanding, without needing an explanation, without fear. Just one man, looking at the situation, and trying to see this young man for who he is while also seeing how unfair it is for the young women he was forced to compete against.

But the way it ends is so simply put, so kind:

But Mack Beggs is not the problem so many people make him out to be. He’s a child simply looking for his place in the world, and a chance to compete in the world.

Do we really not have the simple decency to allow him at least that? Because it seems to me it’s the very least we can do.

Here’s the full transcript:

I would have thought in 2017 – or maybe I just hoped in 2017 – we would be done arguing about birth certificates… but obviously we’re not.

Seventeen-year old Mack Beggs, a junior at Euless Trinity who was born a girl and is now in the process of becoming a boy, wins the girls’ state wrestling tournament Saturday. So the argument has started again.

Mack wanted to wrestle against the boys. The UIL says he had to wrestle the girls. And that’s not fair for anybody involved in this argument.

Mack has been taking testosterone and it shows. There’s a reason we have rules in sports against steroids, and it was an incredibly unfair advantage for him. It was also unfair to the girls who had to wrestle him.

The question is, “When does a girl become a boy, and when does a boy become a girl?” or “When can you play games against those you identify with and not what a piece of paper says you are?”

That answer is way above my pay grade. But someone has to find a better answer than what we’re being given now.

As I said when I wrote about Missouri football player Michael Sam, I’m not always comfortable when a man tells me he’s gay. I don’t understand his world. But I do understand he’s a part of mine. And I am saying the same thing now about Mack Beggs.

Transitioning is a struggle I cannot imagine. It is a journey I could not make… and it is a life that too many cannot live.

The problems that Mack Beggs is facing and dealing with now remind me again that I don’t have any problems. He needs our support, and he does not need a group of old men in Austin telling him who to wrestle because of a genetic mix-up at birth.

We have argued long enough about birth certificates. It’s an argument that needs to end. You don’t have to understand – I myself don’t understand. But Mack Beggs is not the problem so many people make him out to be. He’s a child simply looking for his place in the world, and a chance to compete in the world.

Do we really not have the simple decency to allow him at least that? Because it seems to me it’s the very least we can do.

More of this.

Such a gorgeous way to mourn and celebrate those we’ve lost.

(The x is there as it’s being used to degender the heavily gendered romance languages. You’ll see Latinxs a lot, too.)

Students are back, and the incoming class (of 2018) has moved in. Lawrence starts another fall term tomorrow.

& Really, it is always nice when the campus goes from being a ghost town to feeling vibrant and busy again.

I hope we all have an amazing, productive, fun year.

“You just do that now. That’s just a new thing you do. Until you & your shitty ankle both die.”

(I’ve never heard anything more true about aging.)

So this is a really cool thing: HuffPo asked people to upload photos of their trans selves with the hashtag #WhatTransLooksLike and they’ve got a ton of them up.

Here’s a single image of 400 of these photos.

It’s the kind of project I wish I’d thought of myself: I have had the amazing luck to meet more trans people than most, & I’ve often thought that if most people met more trans people, they would be as engaged in fighting for trans rights as I am. Do look at these faces – all of this beauty & self respect & pride & cool. How could you not?