CNN —
West Virginia’s anti-transgender sporting ban against a 13-year-old woman was upheld by a federal appeals court on Tuesday, striking a blow to one of nearly 20 similar laws passed by GOP-led states in recent years.
The state cannot “lawfully” enforce its law against Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender athlete who has been challenging the ban since it was enacted in 2021, according to a 2-1 decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A 13-year-old transgender woman who has been identified as a lady since the third grade is being asked whether the Act does legitimately be used to prevent her from competing in her school’s cross-country and monitor teams. We hold it cannot,” Circuit Judge Toby Heytens wrote in the decision, which was joined by Judge Pamela Harris.
The decision is a big win for Transgender activists, who have brought problems against a slew of anti-trans legislation enacted by Republican-led claims over the past several decades, including ones prohibiting minors from accessing gender-affirming treatment.
Signed into law by the Republican governor of West Virginia. The “Save Women’s Sports Act” by Jim Justice prohibits transgender women and girls from playing on public school sports teams that reflect their gender identity in 2021.
The majority of the court’s members argued that the law violated Pepper-Jackson’s freedom under Title IX, a federal law that forbids discrimination against students who receive federal aid.
“B.P.J. has demonstrated that applying the Act to her would cure her differently than people with similar backgrounds, rob her of any worthwhile sport opportunities, and do so in accordance with her sex, according to Heytens.
In a partial dissent, Judge Steven Agee wrote that Title IX is turned on its head and reversed the monumental efforts that Title IX has made to promote girls’ sports since its inception by allowing transgender girls – regardless of any advantage – as participants in biological girls’ sports.”
Agee stated that he would have allowed the state to carry out the laws against Pepper-Jackson and that he could only promise that the Supreme Court will take the opportunity to resolve these issues of national importance with all the necessary urgency.”
Instead of declaring the law completely irrelevant, West Virginia temporarily blocked Pepper-Jackson’s lawsuit, which demanded that the condition remain prohibited from enforcing it against her. The federal judge who immediately stifled the 2021 law reversed program last year and sided with state officials.
West Virginia requested last year that the US Supreme Court allow it to carry out the rules while the lower judges considered the case, but the judges in an anonymous order declined. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both traditional, said they would have accepted the request.
The appeals court decision, according to Joe Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Pepper-Jackson, is a “heroic success for our customer, transgender West Virginians, and the flexibility of all children to sing as who they are,” according to a statement released on Tuesday.”
Additionally, it follows a number of federal court decisions that favor trans athletes’ similar contribution as the female they know themselves to be, according to Block.
Republican attorney general of West Virginia Patrick Morrisey said he supports the law and that the condition will use every means at its disposal to support it.”
“I am deeply disappointed in the court’s divided decision today,” he said in a statement, going on to argue that the law “is ‘constitutionally permissible’ and the law complies with Title IX.”
