When are Paseo ramps due for repair?
Mack Beggs says he wants to wrestle boys, but state sports body won’t let him
PASEO RAMPS NEED SOME WORK: A North Valley resident says in an email “the repaving work that was done on Paseo del Norte last fall turned out so well, it’s a pleasure to drive on the road now.”
And nothing makes drivers want more roadwork than roadwork success. The email continues, “a number of us in the North Valley ... would like to know if there are spring plans in place for resurfacing the on-ramps from Second Street onto Paseo del Norte? The eastbound ramp, especially, is quite uneven and bumpy at the curve from northbound Second Street. The westbound ramp, while not as uneven, is quite cracked and probably not far from becoming uneven.”
Bernadette Bell, public relations officer for the New Mexico Department of Transportation’s District Three office, says “a project to reconstruct the concrete portion only of the intersection from Second Street to Paseo del Norte — to include the east- and westbound ramps — is currently in the design phase. Preliminary work is now being conducted related to obtaining certifications. At the earliest, we don’t anticipate construction to begin until late 2018 to early 2019, depending on
DALLAS — A transgender boy who won a girls wrestling state title in Texas says he would compete against boys if allowed and is taking lower doses of testosterone to try to be fair to his opponents.
Mack Beggs said in an interview Sunday on ESPN that he competes against girls only because the state’s governing body for public high school sports requires him to wrestle under his birth certificate gender.
Asked if he was taking the amount of testosterone he wanted while transitioning to male, Beggs said he was “holding back because of wrestling.”
“I want to do it fairly,” he said. “I don’t want to cheat. That’s not something I do. I don’t cheat.”
The 17-year-old Beggs won the 110-pound girls title as a junior at Euless Trinity High School in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He could face a legal challenge during his senior wrestling season.
University Interscholastic League rules allow Beggs to compete while taking testosterone, but school superintendents and athletic directors voted overwhelmingly last year on the gender requirement.
“We asked them is it OK if this transgender, this trans male were to take testosterone while transitioning and that’s what we got, ‘They can take it, but they can only compete on what’s on their birth certificate,’” Beggs said. “That’s when we were like, ‘Well, then, there goes us asking if I can compete on the males.’”
Jim Baudhuin, an attorney and Dallas-area wrestling parent, has filed a lawsuit seeking to keep Beggs from competing against girls. The lawsuit mostly takes aim at the UIL for allowing Beggs to face girls while on testosterone.
After the lawsuit was filed, two girls forfeited their matches against Beggs at the regional tournament leading to the state meet. All four opponents wrestled Beggs at state, but some parents complained it wasn’t fair. There were boos in the crowd after Beggs won the state title.
“It’s not like I’m doing this because I want to, like, call myself a boy and just dominate all these girls,” Beggs said. “What do I get out of that? I don’t get anything out of that. I was put in this position. Change the laws and then watch me wrestle boys.”
Beggs said wrestling became an outlet for him as he struggled with gender identity.
“I want to wrestle,” he said. “Doesn’t matter who you put in front of me, you come in front of me, want to wrestle, all right, let’s wrestle. Let’s go. That’s all I want to do.”