On April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped West Virginia from enforcing a sports ban against a transgender girl, NBC News reported.
As a result, a 2021 law called the Save Women’s Sports Act cannot be enforced against 12-year-old trans girl Becky Pepper-Jackson—at least while litigation continues. The state law says gender is “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” As such, it says, a female is a person “whose biological sex determined at birth as female.”
Pepper-Jackson’s attorneys said the law violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the law apply equally to everyone, as well as Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education. She is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the LGBTQ+ group Lambda Legal.
Last month, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked West Virginia from applying the statute, following a federal judge who initially ruled in the trans girl’s favor.
West Virginia is one of 20 states with similar transgender sports bans, most of which are in effect.
—Andrew Davis