WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in two cases that ask whether state bans restricting transgender girls and women from participating in sports violate the Constitution or Title IX, the landmark federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education. Decisions are expected by early summer.
One of the cases involves West Virginia, where the state has banned transgender girls like Becky Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. The article said the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, but noted that the outcome could change at the Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The second case comes from Idaho and challenges that state’s law, which is being contested by college student Lindsay Hecox. Both cases are set against a broader policy backdrop described in the article as part of targeting transgender Americans during President Donald Trump’s second term, including actions affecting the military and statements that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old sophomore in West Virginia, is aware that the upcoming sports season could be her last, the article reported. It said she finished third in the discus throw last year during her first year of high school, and placed eighth among shot putters.
The article said Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since the third grade. It also said a June Supreme Court decision upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Pepper-Jackson’s improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls, the article said. West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, who spoke in an interview with the Associated Press, said, “There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” and added that he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state competing—or trying to compete—in girls’ or women’s sports.
The legal dispute, as described in the article, centers on whether the Constitution’s equal protection clause or Title IX protects transgender people. It said the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but declined to extend that reasoning to a case over health care for transgender minors. The justices have received dueling briefs, the article said, from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
While the court weighs the competing arguments, the article said public support for limits appears widespread. It cited an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 finding that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter had no opinion. It also cited estimates from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law that about 2.1 million adults (0.8%) and 724,000 people age 13 to 17 (3.3%) identify as transgender in the United States.
In the article, conservative advocates described the issue beyond sports. John Bursch, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom who has led the legal campaign against transgender people, said, “I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman.” The article also included a response from Pepper-Jackson’s mother, Heather Jackson, who said, “Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” adding, “This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
In an interview conducted over Zoom, Pepper-Jackson sat with her mother on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, the article said. She said, “I think it’s something that needs to be done,” adding, “It’s something I’m here to do because … this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
The article said Pepper-Jackson trains for track and field by practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. It also said she has faced hostile moments at meets, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt reading, “Men Don’t Belong in Women’s Sports,” and that Pepper-Jackson told the Associated Press, “I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off.”
The article reported that Pepper-Jackson has also been the subject of an allegation by a schoolmate identified as A.C. in court papers, who claimed Pepper-Jackson used graphic language in sexually bullying teammates. It said Pepper-Jackson denied the allegation and that the school ruled there was no evidence to prove it was true.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she would still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in school concert and jazz bands. She told the Associated Press, “It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do.”