Right before Becky Pepper-Jackson sets up to shot put, she always taps her left foot on a board at the edge of the throwing circle.
The ritual helps her focus on her form amid the pressure of the track and field competition — not to mention the additional pressure of spectators wearing T-shirts that say things like “Protect Women’s Sports,” which Pepper-Jackson says are worn specifically for her.
The 15-year-old is the sole transgender student-athlete in West Virginia, according to her attorneys, and her bid to continue playing competitive sports is in the hands of the Supreme Court.
The justices are scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday about whether Pepper-Jackson should continue competing, considering that a state law bans transgender women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams.
“I’m really nervous, obviously,” she said in an interview. “Hopeful — but still nervous.”
Pepper-Jackson’s lawyers argue that the ban discriminates against her for being transgender and violates her constitutional equal-protection rights.
The state counters that the ban is necessary to preserve fairness in women’s sports and that Pepper-Jackson should receive no exceptions. Trans women have an unfair physical advantage, no matter their age, because the athletes were designated male at birth, the state argues, adding in its brief that “biological males are, on average, bigger, stronger, and faster than biological females.”
Although the Supreme Court in 2020 found that trans workers were covered by federal antidiscrimination laws, it has recently handed defeats to advocates for transgender rights. Last year, the high court’s conservatives upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender transition care for minors. They also sided with a group of parents who sued to opt their kids out of lessons featuring LGBTQ storybooks.
Polls show that two-thirds of Americans agree with bans on trans women playing on women’s sports teams. The science concerning the biological advantages of trans female athletes remains hotly debated.
While there’s no comprehensive tally of trans athletes nationally, an estimated 300,100 transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 live in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, has estimated that 14 percent of trans boys and 12 percent of trans girls play on a sports team.
Pepper-Jackson was designated male at birth. Heather Jackson, Pepper-Jackson’s mother, has testified that she noticed early that there was a difference between her youngest child and two older sons.
Pepper-Jackson had typically feminine preferences, gravitating toward dresses and asking her mother why their bodies were not alike. Eventually, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the medical term for the distress a person feels when their gender identity and their assigned sex are misaligned.
“I knew this was not a ‘phase’ for her, and that there was something different happening,” Jackson wrote in a 2021 declaration, recounting her daughter’s early years.
In the third grade, Pepper-Jackson began to socially transition, taking her current name. She later began taking puberty-delaying medication so she would not undergo male puberty. And at the end of the sixth grade, she started taking estrogen to undergo female puberty. Because of her treatment, Pepper-Jackson never underwent male puberty, according to her legal brief.
Pepper-Jackson’s lawyers argue that this fact is crucial. She has “physiological musculoskeletal characteristics of cisgender girls and none of the testosterone-induced characteristics of cisgender boys,” they wrote in a brief to the court.
Being from a family of runners, Pepper-Jackson wanted to run cross-country, but in 2021 her middle school principal told her mom that Pepper-Jackson couldn’t join the team. Only months earlier, West Virginia had passed a ban on trans women playing on women’s sports teams. Pepper-Jackson and her mother sued, and lower-court rulings have allowed her to compete as her case plays out.
The Supreme Court plans to hear Pepper-Jackson’s case at a time when 29 states ban trans women from playing on women’s sports teams.
Pepper-Jackson says West Virginia’s ban violates her equal-protection rights. She also contends that the ban violates Title IX, a federal civil rights statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.
The state argues that the ban honors the intent of Title IX, which was enacted to give women equal opportunity in education and scholastic sports. In the case of athletics, sex must be taken into account — and sports competitions must be separate by sex — to preserve fairness and safety, the state’s lawyers say.
The justices will hear the Pepper-Jackson case alongside a separate case brought by Lindsay Hecox, a 25-year-old Boise State University student who says a similar ban in Idaho violates the Constitution’s equal-protection clause. But Hecox has asked the high court to dismiss her case, saying she’s stopped playing sports and wants to graduate free of the “extraordinary pressures” of litigation. The justices have nonetheless ordered arguments to proceed.
There’s scientific consensus that the high levels of circulating testosterone in cisgender men primarily give them an advantage in sports, according to Joshua D. Safer, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery and a key witness for Pepper-Jackson.
Before puberty, there’s “minimal or no differences in athletic performance” between cisgender boys and girls, largely because of low levels testosterone in both groups, Safer testified in 2021.
The state of West Virginia counters by saying transgender girls have inherent physical advantages, no matter their age. Attorneys for the state cite a 2024 study that concluded non-transgender men perform better at all ages. The study found that boys between the ages of 7 and 12 ran about 4 percent faster and jumped about 7 percent farther than girls in the same age group.
But during middle school, Pepper-Jackson ran near the “back of the pack” in cross-country, according to her brief. Her track and field coach told her she would not make the team as a runner, so the coach suggested she try shot put and discus.
“I was not the best, obviously, but I fell in love because of the community around it,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview. “Everybody was just so kind and really supportive. Everybody just wanted everybody else to do their best.”
At her first meet in 2022, Pepper-Jackson placed 36th out of 45 in shot put, according to a legal brief. At a subsequent meet, she placed 15th out of 25 in discus. She gradually improved. During the 2024 season, she placed first in shot put in six consecutive meets, often outdistancing her closest competitors by several feet, according to her athletic records.
Pepper-Jackson says her success was a result of hard work and practice. But lawyers for West Virginia say she “improved faster” than her teammates because she has an unfair physical advantage. Her “participation displaced hundreds of girls and prevented some from competing in end-of-season championship meets,” lawyers for the state wrote.
Now a sophomore in high school, Pepper-Jackson continues to perform well in both discus and shot put on the varsity team. Though she placed first several times during the 2025 season, she also was frequently beaten by other girls. In April, she placed ninth in shot put at an invitational event, finishing behind a mix of seniors, juniors and a freshman competitor.
She says competing — and even winning — can be a bittersweet experience. She says she sees protesters at every track meet. During a 2024 meet, students from a rival school declined to participate in a match against Pepper-Jackson after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit allowed her to continue competing. During a West Virginia meet in May, a high school senior who won a running event wore a shirt that read, “Men don’t belong in women’s sports.”
“It’s really hard to get used to being constantly judged and silently looked at like you’re a monster,” Pepper-Jackson said. “I try not to let it bother me, but it’s a shock every time.”
Win or lose, she said, bringing a case to the Supreme Court “starts conversations, and it brings more of these issues to the public eye.”
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