West Virginia transgender athlete wins girls’ track and field state championship

Bridgeport High School sophomore Becky Pepper-Jackson won the West Virginia Class AAA girls shot put state championship this past weekend while awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case challenging the state’s girls’ sports law.

The biological male won the event with a personal-best throw of 38 feet, 11.75 inches. He also finished fourth in discus with a throw of 112 feet.

Pepper-Jackson is the lead plaintiff in West Virginia v. B.P.J., a Supreme Court case addressing whether states may bar males who identify as transgender from competing in girls’ sports.

West Virginia lawmakers passed the Save Women’s Sports Act in 2021. The law requires sports teams in middle school, high school and college to be separated based on biological sex.

Pepper-Jackson sued the state after seeking to compete in girls’ cross country and track. Lower courts allowed him to continue competing while the case moved through the legal system.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this year and is expected to issue a ruling by the end of its term next month.

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey has defended the law as necessary to protect fairness in girls’ athletics.

“West Virginia’s law does not exclude anyone; it simply says biological boys will compete against boys, and biological girls will compete against girls,” McCuskey said in a statement earlier this year. “On the athletic field, biological sex matters – gender identity does not.”

The case has become one of the nation’s highest-profile legal disputes involving transgender-identifying athletes and girls sports.

Supporters of laws such as West Virginia’s argue that biological differences matter in athletics and that female athletes can lose roster spots, titles and scholarship opportunities when males compete in girls’ divisions.

Pepper-Jackson has rejected claims of unfairness.

“I’m not here to get an advantage,” he told The Associated Press last month. “I’ve been like pushed down and have people that just look at me nasty my whole life. And I’ve learned that that’s just something I’m going to have to deal with.”

He also competed in the state track meet last year in shot put and discus before winning this year’s shot put title.

During oral arguments, several conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of arguments claiming states may not separate athletic teams based on biological sex.

If the court upholds West Virginia’s law, this could be Pepper-Jackson’s final season competing in girls’ high school sports.

The ruling could shape policies nationwide as more states adopt sports participation rules based on biological sex rather than gender identity.