Federal Court Overturns West Virginia’s Ban on Transgender Girls in School Sports

According to the Associated Press, a federal appellate court ruled on Tuesday to overturn a West Virginia statute that prohibited transgender girls from participating in school sports. The 4th United States Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to invalidate legislation signed into law by Governor Jim Justice in 2021.

The court held that the provision violated Title IX, which bars discrimination “based on sex” in federally funded educational programs. The 2021 rule claimed that it was important to classify teams by “biological sex,” rather than “gender identity,” in order “to promote equal athletic opportunities for the female sex.”

According to the ACLU of West Virginia, the complaint included middle schooler Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender girl who wanted to join her school’s girls’ cross-country team. Circuit Judge Toby Heytens ruled that the 2021 legislation could not be legitimately applied to Pepper-Jackson, whom he described as “a 13-year-old transgender girl who takes puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since the third grade.”

Heytens noted that if Pepper-Jackson played on a boys’ team, she would face players who were “larger, stronger, and faster than her.”

Allowing the West Virginia legislation to continue would subject Pepper-Jackson “to the very harms Title IX is meant to prevent,” Heytens found. The verdict reverses an earlier district court decision against Pepper-Jackson, which had been put on hold by the appeal court.

The decision is the latest in a string of disputes over state regulations aimed at regulating how transgender student-athletes can participate in school sports. According to the Associated Press, at least 23 other states have passed legislation prohibiting transgender girls from playing in girls’ sports.

An additional ban will go into force in Ohio in late April, while three more have been stopped by courts in Arizona, Idaho, and Utah, according to the Associated Press. With appellate courts so divided on these concerns, the Supreme Court may finally rule on the issue. Last year, Justice Samuel Alito stated that the West Virginia case “concerns an important issue that this Court will likely be required to address in the near future.”