Bridgeport, West Virginia – High school athlete Becky Pepper Jackson She takes her position in the throwing circle, eliminates any distractions, then pivots and throws the disc into the evening twilight.
Its focus is simple. Whether it’s trying to improve on her third-place finish in last year’s West Virginia state race or ignoring naysayers who don’t want a transgender girl on a girls’ sports team, the Bridgeport High School sophomore just wants to enjoy time with her friends.
Anything else that might distract her is put aside. For now, that means not worrying about what will happen US Supreme Court It will be decided by early summer in a case that will be at the center of the debate over whether trans girls can compete.
“I’m not here to get an advantage,” Pepper Jackson said. “I’ve been pushed down and had people look up to me my whole life. And I’ve learned that this is just something I’m going to have to deal with.”
In 2021, Bieber Jackson has taken a stand-in Challenging the newly signed law In West Virginia, transgender athletes were banned from competing in women’s sports in middle school, high school and college. US Supreme Court in 2023 Pepper-Jackson was allowed to continue The rivalry in middle school while the lawsuit continued.
Now she’s in high school, the lawsuit is nearing the finish line. In January, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which Rule over and over again The Campaign Against Transgender Americans indicated last year that it would rule that the state ban does not violate the Constitution or a federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education.
The justices heard arguments in a second case from Idaho, where… Lindsay Hickox A lawsuit has been filed over the state’s first-ever nationwide ban on the opportunity to try out for the women’s track and cross country teams at Boise State University. Didn’t make either team.
Pepper Jackson is the only trans person who has sought to compete in women’s sports in the state of West Virginia. If the court rules the state ban is legal, her current track season will be her farewell tour. It’s not something you think about.
“I can’t make their decisions for them, so I just have to wait and see what they have to say,” she said. “I try not to look at it if this is my last season.”
West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCosky said he was confident the state would prevail.
“The West Virginia law does not exclude anyone; it simply says that biological boys will compete against boys, and biological girls will compete against girls,” McCosky said in a statement. “In sports, biological sex is important, but gender identity is not.”
Pepper-Jackson has been publicly identified As a girl Since she was 8 years old and long before that at home.
Her mother, Heather Jackson, said Becky was not like her two older brothers.
“I noticed right away that Becky was different,” Jackson said. “When she was old enough to say what she wanted, toys or clothes or anything, she was very deep in her opinion.”
It started when I asked for and got a makeup kit for Christmas at the age of three. She also started wearing her mother’s shirts as dresses.
“She would be very stubborn about what she wanted to wear,” Jackson said. “I followed in her footsteps from the beginning.”
At the beginning of puberty, Pepper Jackson began taking puberty-blocking medications.
“Becky has not yet reached male puberty,” said Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the West Virginia chapter of the ACLU. So when you hear, “Well, that’s not fair. Transgender kids have an advantage.’ That’s not the case here.”
In sixth grade, Pepper Jackson heeded her girls’ track coach’s advice to switch from highly competitive long-distance running to field events. As a high school senior last year, she placed third in the discus and eighth in the shot put at the state meet.
Critics have followed it closely, including Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey.
In 2024, five athletes from a rival school refused to compete alongside Pepper Jackson. The five received a standing ovation at a news conference a week later in Charleston, where Morrissey, then the state’s attorney general, She announced that the state would challenge Federal appeals court rules in favor of Pepper Jackson.
At the 2025 state meet, a female runner stood triumphantly on the podium wearing a T-shirt that said “Men Don’t Belong in Women’s Sports.”
It’s been a lot quieter so far this season. Pepper-Jackson won both the discus and shot put in her first two meets and cheered on her fellow competitors in other events.
“There are a lot of key lessons you learn from playing sports that you can’t get anywhere else, like teamwork and sportsmanship,” she said.
Off the field, she plans to pursue music in college and work as a band director.
Pepper Jackson has taken an interest in other trans girls who have excelled at the national level in high school track.
A.P. Hernandez She won gold in the girls’ high jump and triple jump last year California State High School Meet. Hernandez is now a student at Jurupa Valley High School. Veronica Garcia won back-to-back 400 IM titles at the Washington State meet in 2024 and 2025, and Ada Gallagher won the 200 IM at the Oregon State meet in 2024.
“I think it’s very inspiring,” Pepper Jackson said.
Hernandez’s success has renewed calls from some parent groups and governors, Including President Donald Trumpin order for the state to prevent trans girls from competing against other female athletes. California has a law that allows students to participate in sports teams that match their gender identity, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.
When Hernandez qualified for three events last year, it sparked a backlash that prompted the meet’s governing body to allow an additional girl to compete and medal in the events Hernandez was competing in. This was perhaps the first such rule change in the country.
Pepper Jackson’s biggest supporter is of course her mother. After a recent practice, the pair danced together, and Heather Jackson raced across the lawn to retrieve the puck after some of the athlete’s throws.
Jackson said her daughter handled the attention and scrutiny in her case “with amazing intelligence and education, which is more than I would have been able to do at that age.”
Pepper-Jackson said others told her they looked up to her, an idea she doesn’t understand because “I don’t see how serious this case is in court. I think it’s just common knowledge: Trans girls should be able to join a girls’ sports team. I think that’s simple.”
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Associated Press writer Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, and AP videographer Patrick Avtura-Orsagos in Clarksburg, West Virginia, contributed to this report.