The state of West Virginia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a lower court’s ruling against banning transgender sports.
The state’s Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, along with the State of Idaho and the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a statement before the Supreme Court and asked This is the April decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on the Save Women’s Sports Act.
The Appeal court blocked the lawand concluded that it violated the rights of transgender students under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs.
Morrisey, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, announced the filing during a press conference together with Lainey Armisteada graduate of the West Virginia State University women’s soccer program.
“The appeals court … completely misread this case,” Morrisey said. “The Save Women’s Sports Act does not discriminate against boys who identify as transgender. The law simply recognizes basic scientific truths and recognizes the segregation of the sexes in sports, something that has been done at least my entire life and throughout the Title IX law.”
“If participation in school sports depends on gender identity, separate boys’ and girls’ sports become meaningless,” Morrisey said.
The case, BPJ v. West Virginia Board of Educationwas filed in May 2021 on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a now 14-year-old track and field athlete who would be barred from participating if the ban were upheld. Pepper will enter ninth grade this fall. She is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, Lambda Legal and Cooley Law Firm.
“As the Fourth Circuit has made clear, our client deserves the opportunity to participate on sports teams without discrimination,” the organizations said in a joint statement Thursday. “We will make our position clear to the court and continue to defend the right of all students to play as they are.”
In February 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals barred the state from removing Pepper-Jackson from her school’s track and field team while lawyers appealed a decision by the Southern District of West Virginia that upheld the ban.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice signed the bill in April 2021. It prohibits trans women and girls in the state from participating in sports that correspond with their gender identity, but does not prohibit trans boys and men from participating in boys’ and men’s sports.
