The Supreme Court on Thursday denied West Virginia’s request to let it fully enforce a state law that bans transgender women and girls from participating on public school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
In an unsigned order, the court denied West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s emergency request to let the state enforce the 2021 law. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, saying they would have granted the request.
Earlier this year, a lower federal court ordered the state to temporarily stop halt the ban against Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 12-year-old transgender girl who sued the state over the law shortly after its passage.
Pepper-Jackson has been able to compete on her middle school’s cross-country and track teams as a result of the lower court’s injunction, and the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the emergency request means she can continue doing so.
“We are grateful that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that there was no emergency and that Becky should be allowed to continue to participate with her teammates on her middle school track team, which she has been doing without incident for three going on four seasons,” the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia and Lambda Legal, all of which are representing Pepper-Jackson, said in a statement.
Though the law has remained on the books since 2021, lawyers for Pepper-Jackson said in recent court filings that the state is “not aware of any transgender student seeking to play school sports in West Virginia other than” her.
Morrisey described the court’s decision as a “procedural setback” in a statement Thursday, adding, “But we remain confident that when this case is ultimately determined on the merits, we will prevail.”
The court took an unusually long time to respond to the…
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