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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Federal appeals court blocks West Virginia from enforcing anti-trans
sports ban against 13-year-old girl
By Devan Cole, CNN
Updated:
2:09 PM EDT, Tue April 16, 2024
Source: CNN
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that West Virginia cannot enforce
its anti-transgender sports ban against a 13-year-old girl, dealing a
blow to such laws enacted by GOP-led states in recent years.
The 4th Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 decision that 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.
“The question before us is whether the Act may lawfully be applied to
prevent a 13-year-old transgender girl who takes puberty blocking
medication and has publicly identified as a girl since the third grade
from participating in her school’s cross country and track teams. We
hold it cannot,” Circuit Judge Toby Heytens wrote in the decision,
which was joined by Judge Pamela Harris.
The ruling is a major win for LGBTQ advocates, who have brought
challenges against a slew of anti-trans laws enacted by Republican-led
states over the past several years, including ones
by West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, the “Save
Women’s Sports Act” bans transgender women and girls from
participating on public school sports teams consistent with their
gender identity.
The court’s majority said the law violates Pepper-Jackson’s rights
under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the
basis of sex at schools that receive federal aid.
“B.P.J. has shown that applying the Act to her would treat her worse
than people to whom she is similarly situated, deprive her of any
meaningful athletic opportunities, and do so on the basis of sex,”
Heytens wrote.
Judge Steven Agee wrote in a partial dissent that “allowing
transgender girls – regardless of any advantage – as participants
in biological girls’ sports turns Title IX on its head and reverses
the monumental work Title IX has done to promote girls’ sports from
its inception.”
Agee said he would have allowed the state to enforce the law against
Pepper-Jackson and concluded his dissenting opinion by writing: “One
can only hope that the Supreme Court will take the opportunity with all
deliberate speed to resolve these questions of national importance.”
Lower courts had against Pepper-Jackson, whose lawsuit against the
sports ban asked that the state be prohibited from enforcing it against
her, instead of declaring it totally invalid. The federal judge who
initially blocked the law in 2021 reversed course last year and sided
with state officials.
As the yearslong litigation played out, West Virginia last year asked
the US Supreme Court to let it enforce the law while the lower courts
considered the case, but the justices, in an unsigned order,
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would
have granted the request.
Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who
represents Pepper-Jackson, said in a statement Tuesday that the appeals
court ruling “is a tremendous victory for our client, transgender
West Virginians, and the freedom of all youth to play as who they
are.”
“It also continues a string of federal courts ruling against bans on
the participation of transgender athletes and in favor of their equal
participation as the gender they know themselves to be,” Block said.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, said he
stands by the law and that the state “will use every available tool
to defend 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.”
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