“I’m excited to know that I can try my hand at the girls’ cross-country team and follow suit in my family’s running shoes,” Pepper-Jackson said in a press release. She added that it “hurts” that the state “would try to stop me from pursuing my dreams”. Becky’s courage is reminiscent of another openly transgender young person, 10-year-old Kai Shappley, who bravely spoke before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs. Both girls are inspirations – and they shouldn’t worry about what adults are either. And most importantly, they shouldn’t be exposed to hatred, marginalization and discrimination in literally trying to enjoy their childhood.
US District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin halted enforcement of the law, which was signed by Republican Governor Jim Justice in April, with an injunction, which is why Pepper-Jackson will have the opportunity to test himself for the girls and participate in it. Team at least as long as the case is running in the legal system. Goodwin wrote in part: “Forcing a girl to compete on the boys team when a girls team is available would cause her unnecessary suffering and stigma.”
“I have received little evidence that this bill even addresses a problem,” Goodwin wrote in part in his 15-page order. “Let alone an important problem.” He added: “When the government distinguishes between different groups of people, these distinctions must be supported by compelling reasons.”
Goodwin also raised the point that to allow Pepper-Jackson to participate in the girls’ team, not to take advantage of opportunities from other girls, including cisgender girls. Pepper-Jackson, he wrote, “is the only transgender student at her school interested in school-sponsored athletics. Therefore, I cannot say that admitting BPJ to the girls’ cross country and track teams would, if at all, significantly prevent other girls from participating. “
In some context, the principal of Bridgeport Middle School (where Pepper-Jackson will attend school) first told her parents that the law would prevent her from participating in the girls’ team this year, as the ban went into effect on July 1st.
Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Cooley LLP filed lawsuits against the anti-trans ban on behalf of Pepper-Jackson. The lawsuit was filed against the Harrison County Board of Education and Harrison County Superintendent Dora Stutler, as well as the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, the Superintendent of State Schools Clayton Burch, and finally the State Board of Education.
“We hope courts will recognize and address discrimination when they see it,” Lambda Legal’s Avatara Smith-Carrington said in a statement. “And nowhere is it more visible than in these blatant attacks against trans young people.”
This year alone, Montana, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi have signed anti-trans-sports laws.
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