A judge in the Southern District of West Virginia has upheld that state's ban on transgender girls participating in school sports.
Judge Joseph R. Goodwin upheld H.B. 3293, known by proponents as the "Save Women's Sports Bill," a year and a half after issuing a temporary injunction of the law.
In June 2021, 11-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson and the ACLU of West Virginia sued the state's Department of Education, saying the bill violates both the Constitution and Title 9, the federal law that bans discrimination in education on the basis of sex. Pepper-Jackson had been denied the opportunity to run with the girls' cross-country team at her middle school.
"I recognize that being transgender is natural and is not a choice," Goodwin wrote in his decision. "But one's sex is also natural, and it dictates physical characteristics that are relevant to athletics."
There are "inherent physical differences" between females and males, Goodwin noted in his ruling, and despite Pepper-Jackson taking puberty-blocking medications, other transgender girls may not have access to those therapies or may begin gender-affirming care after puberty.
