Federal appeals court overturns West Virginia transgender sports ban

A federal appeals court has overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, finding that the law violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

The ruling Tuesday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks a West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.

The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a 13-year-old girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade.

In February 2023, the court had blocked the state’s bid to kick Becky Pepper Jackson off her middle school track and field team if the law were enforced.

Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering her a “choice” between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams “is no real choice at all.”

“The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy,” Heytens wrote.

The court Tuesday ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal, which filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the state and county boards of education and their superintendents as defendants. Republican Gov. Jim Justice had signed a bill into law earlier that year.