Fifteen-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson (right) spends Saturday with her mother Heather Jackson. Three years ago, as Pepper-Jackson was preparing to start middle school, West Virginia passed a law that categorically banned transgender girls from participating in all school sports. She sued, arguing that the West Virginia law violated the Constitution and Title IX that applied to her. (Photo courtesy of ACLU-WV)
As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in BPJ v. West Virginia this week, the weight of the world must rest on the shoulders of Harrison County teenager Becky Pepper-Jackson. Becky – who spent years fighting in court to be allowed to throw shot put and discus on her school’s track and field team – is now at the center of a media storm as her story reaches the court’s ears, and the stakes have never been higher. The decision in this case will have far-reaching implications for children across the United States as the court weighs whether to enshrine biological essentialism in law as part of its interpretation of Title IX.
In addition to admiring Becky’s bravery, I also felt overwhelming waves of disgust at the widespread direct and indirect harassment by adults online. In particular, the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office, in its obsessive coverage of the case, has portrayed a teenage girl’s life and freedom like a betrothal farm, made archaic arguments about gender disparities based on complaints from athletes not from West Virginia, and created a platform for the exchange of hatred against the one child currently enshrined in the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act.
As many West Virginians have pointed out in the comments on these posts, in a state where there are so many other problems, why is the AG devoting so much energy and attention to a girl who just wants to play? The answer is clear. Republicans have made trans girls — one of the most marginalized populations in the country — the topic of conversation, and it’s politically advantageous for both Attorney General JB McCuskey and Gov. Patrick Morrisey to curry favor with the MAGA wing of the party. This means that girls like Becky can become collateral damage in these men’s quest for power and influence.
I know what it feels like to be the girl caught in the middle of a conservative plot to seize power. I grew up in Elkview, West Virginia and attended George Washington High School (where I competed on the cross country team, by the way). In 2013, when I spoke out about my high school principal George Aulenbacher’s decision to bring faith-based, abstinence-only sex educator Pam Stenzel to campus, I survived a similar coordinated attempt to harass and discredit me.
In my case, what appeared to be a delicate and curable online posting actually had real-life consequences. At the height of the controversy, I was regularly physically threatened in public, received unmarked harassing mail at my family’s home, and was a constant target of threats and more general online bullying, all of which was accelerated by a few agitators who created an online funnel to send livid adults, as well as some of my own colleagues, my way. This experience had a lasting impact on my mental health and my relationship with my hometown in West Virginia. What I remember most from that time was the cruelty of the adults who were able to overlook my childhood and turn me into some kind of abstract left-wing villain for simply speaking out to defend myself and other girls.
Becky Pepper-Jackson is not a villain. She’s a second-year student who should be focusing on studying for her learner’s permit and hanging out with her friends at practice. Instead, she is forced to be very brave in the face of a nationwide movement that seeks to entrench discrimination against her and girls like her. West Virginians should not fall for McCuskey and Morrisey’s bullying baiting. Let children be children and let Becky play.
