CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Several West Virginia middle school girls are part of a coast-to-coast tour focusing on competition between biological girls and transgender students.
That tour, ”Our Bodies, Our Sports ‘Take Back Title IX,” came to Charleston Wednesday night.
An athlete for Lincoln Middle School’s Track and Field Team, Sabrina Shriver, who protested when transgender student Becky Pepper-Jackson was allowed to compete in Harrison County track meet, made an appearance Wednesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
“I feel that it’s not right that the opposite gender, a male gets to compete in the same category as women, it’s not fair,” Shriver said.
Pepper-Jackson, according to filings in a court case, was born male but identified as a girl from a very young age. By third grade, she was living as a girl at home and told her mother and father she did not want to keep going to school dressed as a boy.
More recently, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and had been receiving puberty-delaying treatment for almost a year when West Virginia passed a bill affecting transgender athletes.
In 2021, West Virginia joined dozens of states placing restrictions on transgender athletes’ participation on sports teams.
Shriver said she and many other of her fellow track members felt that Pepper-Jackson had a distinct advantage over them simply because they were biologically male.
“It has been proven that men and boys are stronger than women, always have been,” she said.
Shriver said her and her fellow athletes felt that something needed to be done about the issue, hence why they decided to stage the protest in April.
Women and girl coaches and athletes assert that their equal athletic opportunity, privacy, and safety are now under threat following President Joe Biden’s proposed new Title IX regulations which take affect Aug. 1.
Shriver said she hopes Wednesday’s rally would shed more light on the issue and what’s about to change following the new Title IX.