Supreme Court rules in favor of trans athlete in West Virginia

The United States Supreme Court on April 6 ruled that a 12-year-old transgender girl in West Virginia can continue playing middle school girls’ sports while a lawsuit over the state’s anti-trans sports law works its way through the courts.

The Supreme Court’s ruling was 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting, leaving in place an appeals court order allowing Becky Pepper-Jackson to play track and cross country. Pepper-Jackson sued the state in response to the 2021 Save Women’s Sports Act, one of multiple anti-trans laws emerging in a state that also barred gender-affirming care this year.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that there was no emergency and that Becky should be allowed to continue to participate with her teammates on her middle school track team, which she has been doing without incident for three going on four seasons, as our challenge to West Virginia’s onerous trans youth sports ban makes its way through the courts,” American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Lambda Legal said in a joint statement. “This was a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from where she belongs–playing alongside her peers as a teammate and as a friend.”

West Virginia’s anti-trans sports bill was signed into law by Governor Jim Justice in April of 2021, prompting the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Lambda Legal to file a lawsuit on Jackson’s behalf the following month.

Two months ago, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit blocked the state from removing the child from the team while the law was appealed, but in March of this year, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey called on the Supreme Court to advance an emergency motion to give the state the right to enforce the law and remove the child from her team. The three legal groups representing the child fired back by requesting that the Supreme Court reject the call for an emergency motion.