Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has been quietly mounting a legal battle against World Aquatics to overturn the swimming governing body’s effective ban on most trans women competing in the highest levels of the sport, a lawyer representing Thomas confirmed to NBC News on Friday.
Carlos Sayao, a partner at top Canadian law firm Tyr, said Thomas is asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland to overturn the new World Aquatics rules, issued in June 2022, that prohibit trans women from competing in women’s swimming events unless they transitioned before age 12.
The U.K.’s Telegraph was the first to report on Thomas’ behind-closed-doors legal challenge in an article published Thursday evening. Details of Thomas’ challenge, which The Telegraph reported began in September, were not made public previously because cases brought before the Court of Arbitration for Sport are meant to be kept confidential by all parties involved.
The new rules, which would effectively bar trans women from competing in women’s swimming events at the Olympics, came several months after Thomas, then a student at the University of Pennsylvania, made history by becoming the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. And in May 2022, Thomas told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that it’s been a lifelong goal of hers to compete in the Olympics.
Thomas made global headlines for her NCAA win and became the face — and often conservative media’s punching bag — of the worldwide debate over whether trans women should compete in women’s sports.
Lia Thomas competes on March 17, 2022, at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta. Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via AP
Sayao confirmed his comments to The Telegraph regarding the rules imposed by World Aquatics, which he called “discriminatory” and said caused “profound harm to trans women.”
“Trans women are particularly vulnerable in society and they suffer from higher rates of violence, abuse and harassment than cis women,” he told the British newspaper.
Sayao declined to comment further.
World Aquatics and the Court of Arbitration for Sport did not immediately return requests for comment.
The family of a transgender volleyball player has added a South Florida school district as a defendant in a federal lawsuit that challenges a 2021 state law banning transgender girls from playing on female sports teams, claiming school officials have placed the family in danger.
Attorneys for the family filed an amended complaint Thursday that adds the Broward School Board, the school district’s superintendent and the Florida High School Athletic Association. The school officials had been named as defendants when the lawsuit was initially filed in 2021 but were dropped the next year, leaving just the Florida Department of Education and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz as defendants.
“While we can’t comment on pending litigation, Broward County Public Schools remains committed to following all state laws,” district spokesman John J. Sullivan said in a statement. “The District assures the community of its dedication to the welfare of all its students and staff.”
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, a Trump appointee, ruled in November that state officials had a right to enforce a 2021 law that bars transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as female at birth but allowed the family to file an amended complaint.
The law, which supporters named “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” was championed and signed in by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president and has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender.
The transgender student, a Monarch High School 10th grader who played in 33 matches over the past two seasons, was removed from the team in November after the Broward County School District was notified by an anonymous tipster about her participation.
According to the lawsuit, the student has identified as female since before elementary school and has been using a girl’s name since second grade. At age 11 she began taking testosterone blockers and at 13 started taking estrogen to begin puberty as a girl. Her gender has also been changed on her birth certificate.
The girl’s removal from the volleyball team led hundreds of Monarch students to walk out of class in protest. At the same time, Broward Superintendent Peter Licata suspended or temporarily reassigned five school officials pending an investigation, including the girl’s mother, an information technician at the school.
The Associated Press is not naming the student to protect her privacy.
The initial lawsuit didn’t identify the student or her school, but the amended complaint said the family lost all privacy when the school district began its investigation. The student’s mother issued a statement at the time calling the outing of her daughter a “direct attempt to endanger” the girl.
The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights organization, has been supporting the family.
“The reckless indifference to the well-being of our client and her family, and all transgender students across the State, will not be ignored,” the group’s litigation strategist, Jason Starr, said in a statement last month.
The International Cricket Council has imposed a ban on transgender players from international women’s cricket if the player has gone through male puberty.
The elite council, in a statement, said it has decided after an extensive scientific review and a 9-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s cricket matches, safety, fairness and inclusion.”
“The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any male to female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken,” reads the ICC statement. “The review, which was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee chaired by Dr. Peter Harcourt, relates solely to gender eligibility for international women’s cricket, whilst gender eligibility at domestic level is a matter for each individual Member Board, which may be impacted by local legislation. The regulations will be reviewed within two years.”
Cricket is one of the biggest sports in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with a fan base of 2.5 billion people around the world.
The ICC started the first women’s World Cup in 1973. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is the richest cricket board in the world, worth $2.25 billion. The BCCI in 2023 alone made $3.77 billion from the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League. A huge population of trans people lives in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and other major countries that participate in international cricket matches, but the new policy change has created a blowback for the community.
Danielle McGahey, a trans cricketer from Australia, confirmed after the ban came into effect that her career as a cricketer is over.
“Following the ICC’s decision, it is with a very heavy heart that I must say that my international cricketing career is over. As quickly as it begun, it must now end,” said McGahey on her Instagram page. “While I hold my opinions on the ICC’s decision, they are irrelevant. What matters is the message being sent to millions of trans women today, a messaging say that we don’t belong.”
McGahey also said that she will not stop fighting for equality in sports.
She is the first transgender woman cricketer to take part in an official international match when she represented Canada in a T20 match against Brazil. She previously played for men’s club cricket in Melbourne before moving to Canada in 2020.
Although the ban has shattered many hopes and dreams, the ICC statement confirms each country can decide eligibility for trans cricketers in domestic games.
The Washington Blade reached out to India’s BCCI for reaction and response on the future of trans cricketers in India, but the board did not immediately respond.
The Blade also reached out to the Australian Cricket Board and South African Cricket Board but did not receive a comment. The Blade sought comment from Sports Minister Anurag Thakur and MP Rajiv Shukla, a former IPL chair, but both declined to respond.
“It is very unfortunate, and I am really disappointed with the decision of ICC, which is excluding transgender people because when we talk about human rights or legal rights, transgender people deserve to be in all parts of the society,” said Kalki Subramaniam, a trans activist, queer artist and motivational speaker based in India. “Especially in sports trans people deserve to play. It is a huge disappointment for us to know that ICC has banned transgender people. There is no need to do that and ICC should review their policy. While Indian army is considering (whether) to recruit transgender people, why would the ICC do the opposite.”
Kalki told the Blade the ICC statement does not justify the exclusion, especially trans women as it excludes trans women as categorized as women.
While talking to the Blade, Nilufer, a trans activist who represents the Mumbai-based Humsafar Trust, said there is constant discrimination happening in sports not only in India but around the world in athletics against trans women. She also said the ICC ban is discriminatory against the community, not only for trans Indian cricketers but for the entire world.
Ankush Kumar is a reporter who has covered many stories for Washington and Los Angeles Blades from Iran, India and Singapore. He recently reported for the Daily Beast. He can be reached at mohitk@opiniondaily.news. He is on Twitter at @mohitkopinion.
New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Games as the first openly transgender woman to compete at the Olympics received mixed reviews in one of the most contentious areas in sport.
In the end, Hubbard retired after an inauspicious performance in Tokyo where she failed to record a valid lift.
Fast forward to 2023 and she would find herself ineligible for next year’s Paris Games after the International Weightlifting Federation tightened its eligibility rules.
Heading into 2024, there has been a seismic shift in the sporting landscape for trans athletes with the pendulum swinging back towards tighter measures on a divisive issue that has virtually no grey area.
In March, World Athletics banned transgender women who had gone through male puberty from elite female competitions — a decision federation president Sebastian Coe said was based “on the overarching need to protect the female category.”
The International Cycling Union (UCI) in July banned trans women who had gone through male puberty from competing in the female category of competitive events. Athletes who do not qualify can enter the newly named “men/open” category.
The UCI’s new rules came two months after British Cycling’s similar ban on trans women.
Hubbard, French sprinter Halba Diouf and Welsh cyclist Emily Bridges could previously compete in the women’s category because they met testosterone level requirements.
“The only safeguard transgender women have is their right to live as they wish and we are being refused that, we are being hounded,” Diouf told Reuters after World Athletics tightened their rules.
Anti-trans activists argue that the participation of trans women is the biggest threat to women’s sport, with much of their anger targeted at high-profile athletes such as swimmer Lia Thomas, the first openly trans athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 U.S. national college title.
Thomas, who won the women’s 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 championships, cannot compete in the women’s category at the Paris Olympics due to World Aquatics’ new rules.
Canada’s soccer midfielder Quinn — whose case differs from Hubbard and Thomas in that Quinn was assigned female at birth — became the first ever openly transgender and nonbinary gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics.
The inclusion of trans women has prompted some of the world’s greatest athletes to take sides.
Megan Rapinoe, who recently retired from the U.S. women’s soccer team, said she would welcome a trans player on the squad.
“We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,” Rapinoe told Time Magazine. “It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized. Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports?”
Her comments raised the ire of tennis great Martina Navratilova, a trailblazer for gay rights, who tweeted a one-word response: “Yikes…”
Rapinoe and her partner, retired WNBA star Sue Bird, were among 40 professional athletes who signed a letter to U.S. lawmakers in April opposing a federal bill that stipulates Title IX compliance requires banning transgender athletes from playing women’s and girl’s sport.
Title IX is a 1970s civil rights law which bars discrimination based on sex.
“Certainly the pendulum is swinging back in a negative way,” Joanna Harper, a Canadian-born transgender woman and author, told Reuters in July. “There’s little doubt of that.”
The National Hockey League banned players from wearing themed jerseysduring warm-ups, but they didn’t say anything about wearing them before warm-ups.
That’s the loophole that the New Jersey Devils are exploiting as the organization marks its LGBTQ+ Pride night on Thursday. The team announced ahead of their game against the Edmonton Oilers that the specially-designed jerseys would be “worn during player arrivals,” in an apparent bypass of the league’s new policies.
NHL teams added LGBTQ+ Pride to their seasonal theme nights in recent years, which also include events such as Black History, military appreciation, and Hockey Fights Cancer. On these nights, players would wear jerseys corresponding with the theme while they warmed up, which would later be auctioned off with the proceeds going to related charities.
Just seven players refused to wear pride jerseys last year, citing their own personal beliefs. Some teams responded to the PR backlash by taking the choice away from players and removing Pride jerseys entirely. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s Board of Governors decided to nix themed jerseys entirely at the end of the 2022-2023 season, with Bettman calling them a “distraction.”
NHL players are now forbidden from wearing themed gear during warm-ups, with players who break the rules getting threatened with fines. No player so far has actually been penalized for disobeying the policy, including Travis Dermott, who donned rainbow Pride tape before the league reversed its ban on that specific item.
Proceeds for the Devils’ Pride jersey auction will go to Hyacinth, New Jersey’s largest and first HIV/AIDs service provider. The jersey was designed by local artist, Kathryn Kennedy of Kearny, New Jersey, who said that the abstract style represents “coming out” within the LGBTQ+ community.
“These theme nights let people who are a part of their respective communities know that they’re seen, heard, and welcome,” she said in a statement. “It’s a huge honor to be involved with the Devils’ Pride Night, and my hope is that I’ve created something that helps others feel accepted and appreciated.”
Cricket Australia has confirmed that it has no plans to bow to anti-trans rhetoric and exclude transgender athletes from competing in the division that aligns with their gender.
Following in the footsteps of other global sports federations like the International Swimming Federation, World Rugby, World Athletics, and World Cycling, the ICC announced last month that any athlete who had been through male puberty would not be permitted to compete in the international women’s game.
Cricket Australia will remain inclusive to trans athletes, despite the ICC’s new policy. (Paul Kane – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The decision was yet another blow to the few transgender athletes who have repeatedly been blocked from competing in their sport from community to elite levels.
In response to the ICC’s policy change, Cricket Australia has now pledged to keep domestic competitions inclusive of trans athletes.
Speaking to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, Hockley said: “We were really proud in 2019 to put out a leading set of transgender guidelines, both for the community and for elite cricket, and they were based absolutely on the philosophy of inclusion.
“The ICC guidelines go a bit further in terms of it takes quite a scientific approach. We’ve expressed that we think that inclusion is the priority, so we will continue to work with the ICC to express our views.”
Cricket Australia’s transgender guidelines state that transgender women may compete in elite-level domestic women’s competitions if they have maintained testosterone levels of less than 10 nanograms per deciliter for 12 months before being nominated for a team.
Meanwhile, community-level women’s competitions are even more inclusive, and simply require transgender athletes wishing to compete to demonstrate a “commitment that their gender identity is consistent with a gender identity in other aspects of everyday life.”
Hockley noted that, for now, there are no transgender cricketers in Australia hoping to play at an international level, so the ICC’s decision has no direct impact on Australian Cricket.
But that won’t stop Cricket Australia from pushing for more inclusive policies from the ICC.
“I think we need to be really inclusive and we also need to be very mindful of player wellbeing and mental health considerations as well,” he said.
Although Hockley suggests that the ICC’s policy change was based more in science than in inclusivity, there is little-to-no scientific evidence to back up their stance.
That’s despite a lack of scientific evidence to support the claim that transgender women would have an athletic advantage over cisgender women.
For example, a 2023 report from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport determined that, if existing rules are followed, trans women who have begun testosterone suppression do not have any biomedical advantage over cisgender women in elite sport.
The report also found “strong evidence” that “elite sport policy is made within transmisogynist, misogynoir, racist, geopolitical cultural norms”.
Similarly, a 2017 study from Sports Medicine concluded that there was “no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender female individuals have an athletic advantage at any stage of transition, and therefore, competitive sports politics that place restrictions on transgender people need to be considered and potentially revised.”
Opponents of Connecticut’s policy letting transgender girls compete in girls high school sports will get a second chance to challenge it in court, an appeals court ruled Friday, which revived the case without weighing in on its merits.
Both sides called it a win. The American Civil Liberties Union said it welcomes a chance to defend the rights of the two transgender high school track runners it represents. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the four cisgender athletes who brought the lawsuit, also said it looks forward to seeking a ruling on the case’s merits.
In a rare full meeting of all active judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, judges found the cisgender runners have standing to sue and have described injuries that might qualify for monetary damages. The runners also seek to alter certain athletic records, alleging they were deprived of honors and opportunities at elite track-and-field events because they say “male athletes” were permitted to compete against them.
The case had been dismissed by a Connecticut judge in 2021, and that decision was affirmed by three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit a year ago.
At least 20 states have approved a version of a blanket ban on transgender athletes playing on K-12 and collegiate sports teams statewide, but a Biden administration proposal to forbid such outright bans is set to be finalized by March after two delays and much pushback. As proposed, the rule announced in April would establish that blanket bans would violate Title IX, the landmark gender-equity legislation enacted in 1972.
Under the proposal, it would be much more difficult for schools to ban, for example, a transgender girl in elementary school from playing on a girls basketball team. But it would also leave room for schools to develop policies that prohibit trans athletes from playing on more competitive teams if those policies are designed to ensure fairness or prevent sports-related injuries.
In a statement Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Foundation of Connecticut cast the ruling as a victory for the two runners they represent — Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller — noting that the 2nd Circuit wrote that the transgender runners have an “ongoing interest in litigating against any alteration of their public athletic records.”
Roger Brooks, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said the decision was a victory “not only for the women who have been deprived of medals, potential scholarships, and other athletic opportunities, but for all female athletes across the country.”
In 2020, the Alliance sued on behalf of four athletes — Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti — over a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows transgender girls to compete in girls’ athletic events.
Three of 15 judges who heard arguments earlier this year fully dissented on Friday, while five other judges dissented to portions of the majority ruling.
In a dissent to the majority ruling, Circuit Judge Denny Chin noted that three of the cisgender athletes alleged that only one track event in their high school careers were affected by the participation of transgender athletes while a fourth athlete alleged that four championship races were affected.
In a footnote, Chin wrote that all four plaintiffs currently compete on collegiate track-and-field teams, some after being awarded scholarships, while neither of the transgender athletes who intervened in the case have competed since high school.
And he pointed out that no one was able to cite any precedent in which a sports governing body retroactively stripped an athlete of accomplishments when the athlete complied with all existing rules and did not cheat or take an illegal substance.
“It is not the business of the federal courts to grant such relief,” Chin said.
Florida officials temporarily barred a transgender student from participating in any of her high school’s sports teams, saying the teenager violated state law by playing on the girls volleyball team.
In a letter sent Tuesday to the unnamed student’s school, Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, officials from the Florida High School Athletic Association said the trans teenager was “declared ineligible to represent any member school” and therefore barred from competing on any school sports team for just under a year.
Officials also placed the South Florida high school on probation for 11 months, fined it $16,500 and mandated that its staff undergo a series of compliance trainings.
The state’s penalties come just a few weeks after the high school’s principal and several other school officials were reassigned after county officials opened an investigation into “allegations of improper student participation in sports,” flagged by an anonymous tipster.
A spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools confirmed Wednesday that the district received the Florida High School Athletic Association’s letter and that its investigation into the matter is ongoing.
Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group which is serving as the trans student’s legal representation, condemned the state’s action’s in a statement Tuesday.
“Today’s determination by the Florida High School Athletics Association does not change the fact that the law preventing transgender girls from playing sports with their peers is unconstitutionally rooted in anti-transgender bias, and the Association’s claim to ensure equal opportunities for student athletes rings hollow,” Jason Starr, a litigation strategist at the HRC, said in the statement. “The reckless indifference to the wellbeing of our client and her family, and all transgender students across the State, will not be ignored.”
Through the HRC, the trans student and her parents, Jessica and Gary Norton, declined to comment. The student’s mother did, however, issue a statement last week suggesting county officials outed her daughter by launching the investigation.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, signed a law in 2021 barring trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams in public schools. About half of the country’s states have similar laws restricting trans athletes’ ability to participate in school sports. A representative for the Florida governor’s office directed NBC News’ request for comment to the state’s Education Department.
The department did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment, but in a social media post Tuesday, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. commended the association’s decision to penalize the high school and the trans athlete and the state law that led to those actions.
“Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis, Florida passed legislation to protect girls’ sports and we will not tolerate any school that violates this law,” he said in a post on X. “We applaud the swift action taken by the @FHSAA to ensure there are serious consequences for this illegal behavior.”
The trans student at the center of Monarch High School’s sports controversy and her parents filed a suit over the sports law in 2021 against DeSantis, the Broward County School Board and several other Florida officials. The family argued that the state law violated Title IX, a landmark civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination at both public and private schools that receive funding from the federal government. A federal judge denied the family’s challenge to the law last month.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, a transgender teen at the center of a legal battle over transgender participation in West Virginia sports, after a hearing in Richmond, Va., on Friday. Shuran Huang for NBC News
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, sat in a courtroom Friday morning while lawyers argued over a law in her home state of West Virginia that would ban her from running on the girls’ cross-country and track teams at her middle school.
The hearing in front of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals was the most recent update in her more than two-year legal battle, which began in May 2021, when she was 11, a month after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill that bars transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams in middle school, high school and college.
The appeals court will decide whether the law will take effect, and its decision could also start a chain of events that could land Becky’s case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Becky has been allowed to run on her school’s cross country team and throw discus and shot put on the track and field team since the appeals court reinstated a previous injunction against the law in February. The state of West Virginia appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court, which in April rejected reinstating the ban during the lawsuit.
Becky Pepper-Jackson and her mother, Heather Jackson, after a hearing in Richmond, Va., on Friday. Shuran Huang for NBC News
Becky’s mom, Heather, said Becky will often stay late at track and field practice. Sometimes she’ll even practice discus and shot put in their backyard in the rain.
“She likes to do the best in everything, be it algebra or running or shot put or discus,” Heather said. “She tries to excel in everything that she does, just like any other kid.”
Becky said she’s continued her fight after all this time because she loves playing sports.
“I want to keep going because this is something I love to do, and I’m not just going to give it up,” she said. “This is something I truly love, and I’m not going to give up for anything.”
‘It shouldn’t be that hard to be a kid’
Running has always been a family sport for Becky. She has run with her mom and her two brothers since she was a small child, though her running routine has changed slightly since one of her brothers went to high school and Heather is waiting on a knee replacement.
In the meantime, Becky, who is in eighth grade, has thrown herself into discus and shot put. She said she does two types of training for it. Sometimes, she works on her form while throwing lighter or bigger discs or spheres. Most of the time, she said she and her teammates go into what’s called “the pit,” and they get to throw with the high school students. She said she likes how discus and shot put are “polar opposites.”
“With shot put, it’s more like just throw it really hard and hope for the best. You have to be really aggressive,” Becky said. “But in discus, it’s very graceful and all about speed instead, which is what I like best about it.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va.Shuran Huang for NBC News
West Virginia was among the first states to restrict some or all trans student athletes from playing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identities. Just days after Justice signed the bill in April 2021, he was unable to provide an example of a trans student athlete in the state trying to gain an unfair advantage.
Rather, Justice relied on his experience as a sports coach to justify the law. “I coach a girls’ basketball team, and I can tell you that we all know what an absolute advantage boys would have playing against girls,” he told MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle at the time.
Heather said she and Becky decided to file the lawsuit because, “if she didn’t start the fight, who’s going to?”
She said their lives haven’t changed much over the last two years, though they are more aware of their surroundings when they’re out in public, since their photos are online and some people might recognize them.
“At school, her friends still treat her exactly the same, her teachers treat her exactly the same,” Heather said. “She’s just a regular kid that just wants to play, so that hasn’t changed at all.”
Ahead of the hearing Friday, Heather said they were hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, jokes with her mother, Heather Jackson, outside court. Shuran Huang for NBC News
“We don’t like to be in the spotlight,” Heather said. “We’re just country people from West Virginia, so it’s a little overwhelming. I’m nervous for her, because I know what joy she gets from doing her sports, and every kid needs sports. It’s just a moral foundation they need to get. They learn responsibility, they learn camaraderie, they learn that people depend on them. And I see how much fun she has.”
In the last three years, 23 states in addition to West Virginia have passed similar restrictions on trans student athletes, with many of their supporters making arguments similar to Justice — that trans girls have an inherent advantage over cisgender girls, or those who aren’t transgender. Courts have temporarily blocked laws in West Virginia, Idaho and Arizona. A court has also permanently blocked Montana’s law as it applies to colleges, but not for K-12 schools.
Becky said it’s been “disappointing” to watch state after state pass trans athlete restrictions during her lawsuit. Heather said she gets upset “because it seems to be the issue du jour.”
“Politicians are out there fighting for votes, and they just jump on a bandwagon without ever researching it for themselves, when if people would just do their own research, the biology and the science is out there to prove what we’re looking for,” Heather said. “We just want to be accepted, and she just wants to be a kid. It shouldn’t be that hard to be a kid.”
An ‘equal and fair playing field’
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which are representing Becky, argue that West Virginia’s law is discriminatory and violates Title IX, a federal law that protects students from sex-based discrimination, and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
During Friday’s hearing in front of the 4th Circuit, Becky’s lawyer, Joshua Block of the ACLU, said Becky has received puberty-blocking medication, which has prevented her from going through testosterone-driven puberty and receiving any potential physical advantage. West Virginia’s law, he argued, “goes out of its way to select criteria that do not create athletic advantage but do a perfect job of accomplishing the function of excluding transgender students based on their transgender status.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va.Shuran Huang for NBC News
The law “could have been drafted to actually adopt criteria that are relevant to athletic performance, but it doesn’t,” Block argued. “It picks criteria that define being transgender.”
Lindsay See, the solicitor general for West Virginia, argued that the district court, in ruling in favor of the law, “got it right that sports is a uniquely strong case for differences rooted in biology and call for sex-based distinctions to help ensure an equal and fair playing field.”
See also noted that experts for both the state and the plaintiff established that there is at least a slight inherent physical difference between trans girls and cisgender girls even prior to puberty. This, See argued, justifies the law. However, Block argued in rebuttal that the state’s expert conceded that any differences before puberty are “minimal.”
Block estimated that the court could release its decision in the next three to six months.
“We really hope that the judges were able to recognize this for what it was, which was discrimination against trans girls solely based on the fact that they’re trans,” he said in a phone call after Friday’s hearing.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, and her mother, Heather Jackson.Shuran Huang for NBC News
Regardless of how the court decides, an appeal is almost guaranteed. Whichever party does appeal will have the opportunity to appeal to the entire 4th Circuit or to the Supreme Court. The ACLU is also litigating a similar law in Idaho and is awaiting a decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Depending on the outcome, that case could also be appealed to the high court.
One of the 4th Circuit judges acknowledged the stakes of the outcome at the end of Friday’s hearing.
“I want to thank all counsel for their arguments today, realizing we’re probably only a waystation on the way to the Supreme Court,” Judge G. Steven Agee said.
“The experiences of non-binary youth in organized team sports in Canada have been drastically understudied,” said researcher Martha Gumprich.
A new study has determined that a vast majority of non-binary youths in Canada now avoid joining sports teams over discrimination fears. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“Our report found that many youths avoid team sports due to abuse and discrimination but there are some solutions that would make sport more inclusive for non-binary participants and benefit everyone.”
Two-thirds of non-binary youths surveyed said that their reasoning for not joining an organised sports team boiled down to rules that would force them to play on a binary-gendered (men’s or women’s) team.
Meanwhile, four out of five non-binary youths said that they had avoided joining an organised team sport because of the layout of changing rooms or locker rooms.
Half of those surveyed said that they had avoided organised sports teams because of the teammates and coaches. Similarly, half opted not to take part because of discriminatory comments they had witnessed.
Half opted not to take part because of discriminatory comments they had witnessed. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Finally, one in six non-binary youths avoided organised sport because they had witnessed someone being physically harassed because of their gender.
Compared to their US neighbours, Canada hasn’t been too strict with restricting trans or non-binary people from their chosen sport – though there is plenty of grey area for athletes and teams to navigate.
A star player on Canada’s Women’s World Cup 2023 team was a non-binary athlete.
Footballer Quinn has also made history as the first out trans, non-binary athlete to win an Olympic medal, after taking home the gold for Canada at the Tokyo Games.
Meanwhile, in the US, 23 states have passed laws that restrict transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming athletes’ participation in organised sports – particularly school sports – in the past three years alone.
This can have serious repercussions on gender non-conforming youth, who are excluded – voluntarily or not – from team sports that help to build, not just a players’ athletic abilities, but their social skills, team-building abilities, and leadership and problem-solving skills.
Quinn is using their platform and football talent to help the next generation of footballers. (Getty)
Alongside their findings, TransConnect and Simon Fraser University researchers offer a number of possible solutions to these concerns that would encourage non-binary athletes to participate in sports again.
Those solutions include: allowing non-binary participants to choose the gendered team they’d like to play on, offering co-ed team options or dividing teams by competitiveness, creating gender-neutral changing areas with single stalls, and offering better education on diverse genders and sexualities.
“Participation in physical activities, particularly activities with the sociality of team sports, is a key part of preventative health measures,” said Simon Fraser University’s health sciences assistant professor Travis Salway.
“Non-binary youth deserve the same opportunity to participate in team sports as everyone else.”
