On Tuesday, six months after 15-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson sat before the highest court in the United States while the justices debated whether she should be allowed to participate on her West Virginia high-school girls’ track-and-field team, the Supreme Court ruled that states can ban trans athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams. It was the climax of a nearly five-year-long legal battle that Pepper-Jackson has been fighting since her home state passed HB 3293, which banned trans girls and women from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity. In practice, that law has affected exactly one known athlete: Pepper-Jackson.
For the most part, she’s still been able to throw shot put and discus — she placed third in the state last year — as her case has worked its way through the courts. But this spring may have marked Pepper-Jackson’s last season in high-school sports. During oral arguments in her case and the case of another trans student athlete in Idaho, the court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical of arguments that bans on trans athletes violate their rights and open to concerns that trans girls and women have an unfair advantage in sports. Part of the ACLU’s argument in the case hinged on Pepper-Jackson not having an advantage over other girls because she had undergone hormone therapy before hitting puberty.
