Trans athlete debate reaches high court
Advocates hope to build on 2020 legal victory
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - Becky Pepper-Jackson was in elementary school, already sure she was a girl despite being designated male at birth, when the nation took notice of two transgender athletes.
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The debate over whether the high school runner in Connecticut had an unfair advantage ricocheted around the country, prompting more than half the state to block transgender girls from competing on female teams.
..... In Pepper-Jackson's home state of West Virginia, lawmakers "reasonably expected that the mounting stores" of transgender athletes outperforming competitors because they;re bigger, faster and stronger would soon reach their communities, state officials said.
..... In reality, Pepper-Jackson;s lawyers said, the law enacted in 2021 banned exactly one transgender girl - who hadn't experienced typical male puberty - from participating on her school's cross-country and track and field teams.
..... "Rarely, has there been such a disconnect between a law's actual operation and the claimed justification for it," lawyers for the now 15-year-old told the Supreme Court in advance of the January 13 [2026] oral arguments about her case challenging the law.
..... The two sides may disagree over the phenomenon that West Virginia and 26 other states say they are addressing, but there's no question that the issue has seized national attention. Pepper-Jackson's lawsuit and another student's challenge to Idaho's ban are among the most significant cases the high court will be deciding in 2026.
..... President Donald Trump;s opposition to transgender women competing on female teams was a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and he's counting on the policy stance as a key issue in helping Republicans maintain control of Congress in November's [2026] midterm election.
..... "The whole thing is ridiculous ... and it's so demeaning to women," Trump said when he mocked transgender athletes during a recent speech to House Republicans.
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After returning to office for his second term in 2025, Trump quickly moved to cut off federal funding from schools that allow transgender athletes to compete on female teams.
..... As part of an agreement with the Department of Education, the University of Pennsylvania stripped the record of former swimmer Lia Thomas, the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAAZ Division title.
..... The Justice Department received permission from the Supreme Court to help West Virginia and Idaho defend their laws during oral arguments scheduled for January 13. [2026]
..... Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University who persuaded lower courts to temporarily block enforcement of Idaho's ban, now wants to abandon her case.
..... In September 2025, Hecox said she is no longer playing sports and asked the Supreme Court to let her drop her challenge. Hecox said she's afraid she will be harassed and have trouble graduating if the high-profile lawsuit continues.
..... "From the beginning of this case, I have come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters," Hecox told the court. "I also have observed increased intolerance generally for people who are transgender and specifically for transgender women who participate in sports."
..... Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador - who refers in legal filings to Hecox as a "male who identifies as a Woman" - said it's too late for Hecox to back out. The court said it wouldn't rule on Hecox's request until after oral arguments.
..... Despite the headwinds, transgender rights advocates hope to build on their surprise 2020 legal victory when the court sided with three employees who were fired because they were gay or transgender.
..... A 6-3 majority ruled that when Civil Rights Act of 1964's prohibition on workplace discrimination on the base of "Sex" also covered sexual orientation and gender identity.
..... Pepper-Jackson's lawyers argue the same reasoning should be applied to the section of the Civil Rights Act barring sex discrimination in educational programs, Title IX. But West Virginia says the situations are different. While an employee;s sex is generally irrelevant in the workplace, biological differences are critical to fairness on the athletic field, the state argues.
..... "Sex affects athletic performance; gender identity does not," West Virginia's lawyers wrote in a filing.
..... The justices will also debate whether Idaho's and West Virginia;s laws violate the 14th Amendment;s guarantee that laws will be applied equally to people in similar situations. State officials argue that transgender women are not the same as babies assigned female at birth, so it's reasonable to treat them differently in athletic programs.
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"We need to look at common sense," Labrador said. "I just think about 10 years ago, if anybody would have told the vast majority of Americans that we were going to have a U.S. Supreme Court case where we're going to debate whether boys should be participating in girls sports, everyone would have through it was preposterous."
..... Lawyers for the transgender students say the lower courts didn't get to fully test the disputed facts about what physical advantages may remain for someone like Hecox - who takes cross-sex hormones - or for Pepper-Jackson - who took medication to block the onset of puberty and secondary sex characteristics - before the case were appealed to the high court.
..... Idaho and West Virgina argue elected legislators, not courts, should assess the evidence. That's the route the Supreme Court took in 2025 when a majority said states could resolve the "fierce scientific and policy debates" surrounding the issue of gender-affirming care for minors.
..... Still, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the Supreme Court could agree with Pepper-Jackson's attorney that more fact-finding is needed.
..... "There's expert testimony in the record from both sides, so they would have a very hard time deciding., 'Yes, this discrimination is justified because of unfair advantage' without letting the lower courts decide whether there is, in fact, evidence of unfair advantage," he said.
..... But Kate Redburn, an expert on trans rights at Columbia Law School, said the students are facing an uphill battle.
....."A majority on the court has not seemed particularly friendly towards transgender rights cases," she said. "I don't think there's a lot of optimism about the outcome, but there are some questions about the extent of potential damage."