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North Texas Transgender Wrestler Mack Beggs Joins Fight Against ‘Bathroom Bill'

Eric Schell
/
Handout via Reuters
High school athlete Mack Beggs, a transgender boy, competes in a state championship girls wrestling competition in Cypress, Texas on Feb. 24, 2017.

Five stories that have North Texas talking: Mack Beggs joins fight against “bathroom bill”; Dallas has a new police chief; that Spiral Diner pie in “A Ghost Story”; and more.

Mack Beggs, a transgender wrestler from North Texas, has joined a national LGBT rights organization to oppose the so-called "bathroom bill."

Beggs garnered attention for winning a state girls championship in February. He would have rather competed against male athletes, but state policy calls for students to wrestle against the gender listed on their birth certificates. State lawmakerstried to pass a new law this yearthat would have led to the disqualification of transgender athletes, the Dallas Morning News reports, but were unsuccessful.

 

In a video released by Athlete AllyWednesday, Beggs urges Texas lawmakers not to pass a bill that would mandate transgender people to use bathrooms and other sex-segregated public facilities that correspond to their gender at birth.

Bills in the House and Senate died during the regular session, but there’s a chance for a revival of a “bathroom bill” during the 30-day special session, which started Tuesday. [The Dallas Morning News, KERA News]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xuHNWy99bs

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  • Dallas has named its first female chief of police: Renee Hall of the Detroit Police Department. She's expected to start in September. [KERA News]
  • Laura and Alex Laywell spend most of their days working with refugee kids in Dallas’ Vickery Meadow neighborhood. At night, they open their home to them. [KERA News]
  • There's a plan tobuild a series of cricket stadiumsacross the country, including one in Dallas. It's part of an effort to bring a professional cricket league to the U.S. by 2020. [DMN]
  • Rooney Mara eats a vegan pie from Spiral Diner in a scene from Dallas director David Lowery’s new film, “A Ghost Story.” And everyone had a take. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

The High Five is KERA’s daily roundup of stories from Dallas-Fort Worth and across the state. Explore our archives here. And sign up forour weekly emailfor the North Texas news you need to know.