Supreme Court refuses to reinstate West Virginia’s trans youth sports ban

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked an attempt by West Virginia’s attorney general to reinforce a ban that would prohibit a trans girl from running on her middle school girls’ cross-country team.

In its first examination of restrictions on transgender athletes, the high court voted 7-2 to allow 12-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson to continue competing alongside her peers.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have allowed the state to enforce its law against the young athlete.

Pepper-Jackson said she competed on girls’ sports teams throughout elementary school, according to court records. But a bill signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in April 2021 — which bars trans women and girls from participating at the elementary, secondary or post-secondary level on sports teams consistent with their gender identity — would stop her from taking part in the sport she loves alongside her peers.

The following month, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia, and the legal LGBTQ nonprofit Lambda Legal challenged the law on behalf of the teen.

A federal appeals court allowed Pepper-Jackson to compete while she appealed a lower court ruling that upheld the ban, but last month, Attorney General Patrick Morrissey asked the Supreme Court for an emergency motion, which would allow the state to enforce the ban.

“I just want to run, and the state wants to stop me from running as part of a team at my school,” Pepper-Jackson said in a statement in December 2021. “I love running, and being part of a team, and the State of West Virginia should explain in court why they won’t let me.”

Thursday’s announcement means the lower court’s order remains in place, though it’s not a decision on the merits of the case.

In a joint statement released following the announcement of the decision, Pepper-Jackson’s defense team said they were “grateful” that the justices acknowledged 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.”

“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,” the group added.

West Virginia is one of 19 states to have enacted similar bans in the past three years, as part of an escalating attack on the rights of transgender youth. Similar federal lawsuits are pending in Idaho and Tennessee.