After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld West Virginia’s law preventing athletes born male from participating in girls sports, the organization that governs high school sports in West Virginia noted the matter is not yet fully concluded.
The Supreme Court remanded West Virginia v. B.P.J. for further proceedings consistent with the majority opinion. In practical terms, that just means the lower court must resolve the case in a way that aligns with the Supreme Court’s core legal holdings.
The West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission responded that it “will be looking for the District Court’s guidance as to implementing the Supreme Court’s directives for the State of West Virginia and, accordingly, the WVSSAC.”
The West Virginia case focuses on student athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson, who 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. Her federal lawsuit, where she is referred to as B.P.J., was aimed at being able to participate on the cross-country and track teams in Bridgeport.
The plaintiffs, 16-year-old Bridgeport resident Becky Pepper-Jackson and her mother, were challenging a law passed in 2021, when West Virginia joined dozens of states in placing restrictions on transgender athletes’ participation on sports teams. They lost in district court, won at appeals court and then lost at the Supreme Court.
Her mother, in testimony as the case wound through the federal court system, said the participation in sports has helped B. P. J. make close friends and gain a sense of belonging. Her mother recalled taking B. P. J. to practice after hours and on weekends, and often witnessing B. P. J. practicing her form in the backyard “by herself, for hours.”
Becky Pepper-Jackson has been allowed to compete as the case has gone through the federal court system, culminating with a win in West Virginia’s shot put championship at the state high school track meet just weeks ago with a personal-best throw of 38 feet, 11.75 inches.
The competitor’s final distance was recorded on the sixth and final throw of the competition, allowing a finish of just over two feet ahead of the runner-up.
(Becky Pepper-Jackson’s winning shot put throw in the 2026 Class AAA state meet)
Attorney General J.B. McCuskey, whose office argued the case for the State of West Virginia, said the ruling provides clarity for oversight bodies like the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission.
“What happens right now is that the Save Women’s Sports Act of West Virginia is good law,” McCuskey said on MetroNews Talkline.
“And so the SSAC and all the governing bodies can move forward confidently under the language of our Save Women’s Sports Act to make sure that women and girls are playing on playing fields that are safe, that are designed for them, and give them all of the opportunities that we know that they need in order to play competitive sports and feel confident that their efforts are going to be rewarded because they’re playing against people that don’t have an advantage physically over them.”
The 6-3 opinion was delivered by Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Kavanaugh described immeasurable benefits from participation in sports like teaching students about teamwork and resilience that empower young athletes to thrive.
He wrote that that not every athlete born male “is bigger, stronger, faster, or otherwise more athletically able” than every athlete born female. And he acknowledged that some percentage of athletes born male have physical capabilities that fall within or even below the range of typical female capabilities
Kavanaugh maintained, though, that schools generally maintain separate teams for males and females because of inherent physical differences that are enduring, such as height, weight, strength, speed and endurance.
“We are acutely aware of the difficulties sometimes faced by boys who identify as girls (and by girls who identify as boys) in middle school, high school, and beyond. And we greatly admire the desire of all students, including transgender students such as B. P. J., who want to participate in sports,” Kavanaugh wrote.
“But in conducting the equal protection inquiry, we must also account for the effects on girls who are forced to compete against biological males in sports.”
Because sports are “generally zero sum,” Kavanaugh wrote that every athlete born male who participates on a female team “necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete” by taking roster spots, reducing playing time or depriving female athletes of medals and championships.
The majority opinion expressed respect for the desire of all students to compete.
“No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in part and dissented in part, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor agreed with the majority that state bans on transgender athletes do not violate Title IX.
But on the equal rights question under the Constitution, Sotomayor described the need to further explore the specific circumstances of transgender girls who have never experienced male puberty and who receive gender-affirming treatment. Essentially, she said the Court’s majority prematurely ended the legal process for transgender student-athletes.
Sotomayor wrote that she shares the majority’s sympathy for “young cisgender girls and women who play sports” and acknowledged that many people are understandably invested in ensuring that athletic competition remains fair and safe.
But she described genuine dispute over whether transgender girls like B. P. J. who receive gender-affirming treatment and never experienced endogenous male puberty—actually possess any inherent athletic advantage.
“As the majority stresses and no one disputes, when it comes to sex identified at birth, males generally have an inherent athletic advantage over females in playing sports,” Sotomayor wrote.
“B. P. J., however, contends that this generalization does not hold true for a discrete, easily identifiable group: transgender girls who have never experienced an endogenous male puberty, who receive gender-affirming treatment, and who are, she says, thus similarly situated to cisgender girls. For that group, she argues, neither of West Virginia’s interests is furthered by excluding them from girls’ and women’s sports.”
She contended that because the issues are evolving and contentious, the lower court should have been directed to address the scientific and medical evidence.
“To be clear, B. P. J. ultimately may not be able to show that the science is sufficiently on her side; this dissent takes no position one way or another on B. P. J.’s odds of success,” Sotomayor wrote.
“In other words, West Virginia might be right that transgender girls retain some inherent athletic advantage over cisgender girls due to their sex identified at birth even after receiving the hormonal therapy B. P. J. identifies. All agree, moreover, that States do have some room to legislate around issues when there exists significant, and genuine, scientific debate.”