Transgender athlete focuses on what may be her last track season as Supreme Court ruling looms
BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) — High school athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson takes her position in the throwing circle, tunes out any distractions, then pivots and tosses the discus into the evening twilight.
Her focus is simple. Whether it’s trying to improve on a third-place finish at last year’s West Virginia state track meet or ignoring naysayers who don’t want a transgender girl on a girls’ sports team, the Bridgeport High School sophomore just wants to enjoy time with her friends.
Anything else that might deflect her attention gets set aside. And, for now, that means not worrying about what the U.S. Supreme Court will decide by early summer in a case where she’s the centerpiece over whether trans girls can compete.
“I’m not here to get an advantage,” Pepper-Jackson said. “I’ve been like pushed down and have people that just look at me nasty my whole life. And I’ve learned that that’s just something I’m going to have to deal with.”
A plaintiff at age 11
In 2021, Pepper-Jackson took a stand by challenging a newly signed law in West Virginia banning trans athletes from competing in female sports in middle and high schools and colleges. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 allowed Pepper-Jackson to continue competing in middle school while the lawsuit continued.
Now she’s in high school, and the lawsuit is nearing the finish line. In January, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, signaled it would rule the state bans don’t violate either the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
The justices heard arguments in a second case from Idaho, where Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University. She didn’t make either squad.
Pepper-Jackson is the only trans person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia. If the court rules that state bans are legal, her current track season will be her farewell tour. It’s not something she thinks about.
“I can’t make their decisions for them, so I just have to wait and see what they’ll say,” she said. “I try not to look at it if this could be my last season.”
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey said he’s confident the state will prevail.
“West Virginia’s law does not exclude anyone; it simply says biological boys will compete against boys, and biological girls will compete against girls,” McCuskey said in a statement. “On the athletic field, biological sex matters — gender identity does not.”
She identified as a girl from an early age
Pepper-Jackson has publicly identified as a girl since she was 8 years old and long before that at home.
Her mother, Heather Jackson, said Becky wasn’t like her two older brothers.
“I noticed immediately that Becky was different,” Jackson said. “When she was old enough to say what she wanted, toys or clothing or anything, she was very profound in her opinion.”
It started with her asking for — and getting — a makeup kit for Christmas at age 3. She also started wearing her mom’s shirts as dresses.
“She would be very opinionated on what she wanted to wear,” Jackson said. “I just followed her lead from the very beginning.”
At the onset of puberty, Pepper-Jackson started taking puberty-blocking medication.
“Becky did not undergo male puberty,” said Aubrey Sparks, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s West Virginia chapter. “And so when you hear, ‘Well, this is unfair. Trans kids have an advantage.’ That’s just not the case here.”
In sixth grade, Pepper-Jackson heeded her girls’ track coach’s advice to switch from highly competitive distance running to field events. As a high school freshman last year, she took third place in the discus and eighth in the shot put at the state meet.
Detractors have followed her closely, including Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey.
In 2024, five athletes from a rival school refused to compete alongside Pepper-Jackson. The five received a standing ovation at a news conference a week later in Charleston, where Morrisey, then as the state’s attorney general, announced the state would challenge a federal appeals court ruling favoring Pepper-Jackson.
At the 2025 state meet, a female sprinter stood victorious on the podium wearing a T-shirt that read, “Men don’t belong in women’s sports.”
It’s been quieter so far this season. Pepper-Jackson has won both the discus and shot put in her first two meets and has cheered on teammates competing in other events.
“There’s a lot of core lessons you learn from being in sports that you don’t get anywhere else, like teamwork, sportsmanship,” she said.
Off the field, she plans to pursue music in college and a career as a band director.
Others before her
Pepper-Jackson has paid attention to other trans girls who have excelled nationally in high school track.
AB Hernandez won gold in the girls high jump and triple jump at last year’s California state high school meet. Hernandez is now a senior at Jurupa Valley High School. Verónica Garcia won back-to-back 400-meter titles in Washington state in 2024 and 2025, and Ada Gallagher won the 200 meters at the Oregon state meet in 2024.
“I think it’s very inspiring,” Pepper-Jackson said.
The success of Hernandez renewed calls by some parents’ groups and conservatives, including President Donald Trump, for the state to ban trans girls from competing against other female athletes. California has a law on the books allowing students to participate on sports teams consistent with their gender identity, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.
When Hernandez qualified for three events last year, it sparked backlash that led the meet’s governing body to let an additional girl compete and medal in events in which Hernandez was participating. It may have been the first of its kind rule-change in the nation.
A solid support system
Pepper-Jackson’s biggest supporter is, of course, her mom. After a recent practice, the pair danced together, and Heather Jackson scooted across the grass to retrieve the discus after some of the athlete’s throws.
Jackson said her daughter has handled the attention and scrutiny of her case “with astounding grace and intelligence and education, which is more than I would have been able to do at that age.”
Pepper-Jackson said others have told her they look up to her, a notion she doesn’t understand because “I don’t see the gravity of this court case. I think it’s just common knowledge: Transgender girls should be able to be on the girls’ sports team. I think that’s simple.”
___
Associated Press writer Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, and AP videojournalist Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos in Clarksburg, West Virginia, contributed to this report.