Trans teen wins girls' shot put competition after 5 female competitors refused to play in West Virginia

A West Virginia trans-identified boy athlete won a girl’s shot put event on Thursday in the first competition the athlete was allowed to compete in after an appeals court ruling allowed the teen to participate in women’s sports.

13-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson competed in the Harris County Middle School Track and Field Championships Thursday, according to the Daily Mail. This came two days after the United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the West Virginia state law banning males in female sports could not be enforced in regard to 13-year-old trans athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson, saying that the law violated the teen’s Title IX rights.

Pepper-Jackson threw 32 feet and took home first place in shot put, throwing three feet further than the second-place finisher. Pepper-Jackson also finished in second place in discus.

At the meet, five middle school female athletes refused to throw against Pepper-Jackson in protest of the inclusion of the trans-identified male. The female athletes were seen entering the throwing circle when their names were called, then exiting the ring without throwing.

"It's a sad day when 13-14yr old girls have to be the adults in the room," former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines wrote. "But I couldn't be more inspired by and proud of these girls. 

"Enough is enough. The tide is turning!" Gaines concluded. 

In a Tuesday ruling, Judge Toby Heytens said, "The defendants cannot expect that [this athlete] will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy." 

“The Act’s sole purpose — and its sole effect — is to prevent transgender girls from playing on girls teams,” Heytens wrote in the Tuesday ruling.

"Offering B.P.J. a ‘choice’ between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams is no real choice at all,” he continued. “The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy."

“By participating on boys teams, B.P.J. would be sharing the field with boys who are larger, stronger, and faster than her because of the elevated levels of circulating testosterone she lacks,” he wrote. “The Act thus exposes B.P.J. to the very harms Title IX is meant to prevent by effectively ‘exclud[ing]’ her from ‘participation in’ all non-coed sports entirely.”

As the Daily Mail notes, the ruling does not overturn the entire law, which was signed into law in 2021, "but the law could be in limbo if other transgender student athletes choose to challenge it."