Washington– Washington (AFP) – Becky Pepper Jackson She placed third in the discus at West Virginia last year even though she was in her first year of high school. Pepper Jackson, now a 15-year-old sophomore, knows her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper Jackson from competing in female and male sports, and is among more than two dozen states with similar laws. Although the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome may be different in conservative-dominated courts. supreme courtwho allowed Multiple restrictions On transgender people it will be applied last year.
The justices will hear arguments Tuesday in two cases on whether the sports ban violates the Constitution or a landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where she is a college student Lindsay Hickox He challenged that state’s law.
Decisions are expected to be made by early summer.
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration has done so Targeted transgender Americans From the first day of his second term, including Expel transgender people From the military and declaring that sex is unchangeable and is determined at birth.
Pepper Jackson has become the face of the national battle over transgender girls’ participation in athletics that has been fought at the state and federal levels as Republicans have seized on the issue as a fight for sports justice for women and girls.
“I think this is something that needs to be done,” Pepper Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press conducted via Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because…it’s important to me. I know it’s important to others. So, I’m here for it.”
She sat next to her mother, Heather Jackson, on a couch in their home outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal battle that began when she was a middle schooler and ended near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson grew up to be a competitive discus thrower and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she placed eighth among the shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, playing sports in school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Bieber Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medications and it has been publicly revealed As a girl Since she was in third grade, though Supreme Court decision in June Supporting the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors forced her to go out of state to get care.
Her improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason for not allowing her to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and places available to women in these sports that we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCosky said in an interview with the AP. Makowski said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in women’s or girls’ sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, this issue has gained great importance. NCAA and US Olympic and Paralympic Committees Transgender women banned Of women’s sports after Trump signed the… Executive order In order to prevent their participation
The public generally supports the border. that Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll An October 2025 study found that about 6 in 10 American adults “strongly” or “somewhat” supported requiring transgender children and teens to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identified with, while about 2 in 10 “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about a quarter had no opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the United States, according to Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Those aligned with the administration on the issue paint the issue in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
“I think there are cultural, political and legal headwinds that all support this idea that saying a man can be a woman is just a lie,” said John Burch, an attorney at the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, which has led the legal push against transgender people. “If we want a society that respects women and girls, we must come to terms with this reality. The sooner we do this, the better for women everywhere, whether it is on high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and bathrooms, abused women’s shelters, or women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the efforts to keep her daughter off West Virginia’s playgrounds.
“Hate. It’s just hate,” she said. “This society is today’s society. We have a long history of alienating marginalized parts of society.”
Pepper Jackson has seen some of the ugly side of this debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt to a championship meet that read: “Men don’t belong in women’s sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they know I’m just there to have a good time. That’s all. But it hurts sometimes, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to shake it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified in court papers as AC, said Pepper Jackson used graphic language to sexually bully her teammates.
When asked if she said any of what was alleged, Pepper-Jackson said: “I did not do that. The school determined that there was no evidence to prove that was true.”
The legal battle will turn on whether the Constitution’s equal protection clause or Title IX’s anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but declined to extend the reasoning for that decision to include the issue related to health care for transgender minors.
The court has been flooded with competing legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scientists.
The outcome could also impact separate legal efforts seeking to ban transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper Jackson had to stop competing, she said she would still be able to lift weights and continue playing the trumpet in school concerts and jazz bands.
“It’s going to hurt a lot, and I know it will, but this is what I have to do,” she said.