It’s not often that local Texas sports anchors—or any sports anchors, really—come to the defense of trans community.
Dale Hansen of WFAA-TV is a rare exception. Earlier this week, the reporter decided to address the case of Mack Beggs, a transgender wrestler who recently won his state girls’ wrestling title. Though Mack identifies as a boy, state regulations require that he competes according to the sex assigned to him on his birth certificate.
Hansen thought this this was, frankly, ridiculous.
“Transitioning is a struggle I cannot imagine. It is a journey I could not make,” Hansen said. “He needs our support, and he does not a group of old men in Austin telling him who to wrestle because of a genetic mixup at birth . . . He’s a child, simply looking for his place in the world and a chance to compete in the world.”
In 2014, Hansen came to the defense of gay players in the NFL with a similarly elegantly-worded, poignant statement: “I’m not always comfortable when a man tells me he’s gay; I don’t understand his world,” Hansen said. “But I do understand that he’s part of mine.”
Watch and cry here:
The video has already received over one million views in less than a week.
