BRIDGEPORT, W.VA. — The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide by early summer whether Becky Pepper-Jackson, a sophomore at Bridgeport High School in West Virginia, can continue competing on girls' sports teams under a state law that bans transgender athletes from female competition. Pepper-Jackson, who competes in the discus for the girls' track team, is the central figure in the case.

Pepper-Jackson filed suit in 2021 to challenge the West Virginia law, which bars transgender athletes from competing in female sports in middle schools, high schools, and colleges. In 2023, the Supreme Court allowed her to continue competing in middle school while the lawsuit was pending. In January 2026, the court's conservative majority signaled it would rule that state bans on transgender athletes do not violate the U.S. Constitution or Title IX. If the court upholds those bans, the current track season will be her last.

"I can't make their decisions for them, so I just have to wait and see what they'll say. I try not to look at it if this could be my last season," Pepper-Jackson said. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls' sports in West Virginia.

"I'm not here to get an advantage. I've been like pushed down and have people that just look at me nasty my whole life. And I've learned that that's just something I'm going to have to deal with," Pepper-Jackson said. "There's a lot of core lessons you learn from being in sports that you don't get anywhere else, like teamwork, sportsmanship," she said.

Pepper-Jackson has publicly identified as a girl since she was 8 years old and identified as a girl at home even earlier. At the onset of puberty, she began taking puberty-blocking medication.

"Becky did not undergo male puberty. And so when you hear, 'Well, this is unfair. Trans kids have an advantage.' That's just not the case here," said Aubrey Sparks, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union's West Virginia chapter.

In sixth grade, Pepper-Jackson switched from distance running to field events on her coach's advice. As a high school freshman, she placed third in the discus and eighth in the shot put at the state meet. In the current season, she won both the discus and the shot put in her first two meets.

In 2024, five athletes from a rival high school refused to compete alongside Pepper-Jackson and received a standing ovation at a news conference in Charleston a week later, where then-Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced the state would challenge a federal appeals court ruling favoring her. At the 2025 state meet, a female sprinter won while wearing a T-shirt reading "Men don't belong in women's sports."

"West Virginia's law does not exclude anyone; it simply says biological boys will compete against boys, and biological girls will compete against girls. On the athletic field, biological sex matters — gender identity does not," West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey said.

Off the field, Pepper-Jackson plans to study music in college and pursue a career as a band director.