West Virginia Governor Jim Justice responds to court overturning transgender sports ban saying boys competing with girls will always put girls at a disadvantage

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice responded to a question on Tuesday regarding if he would allow a transgender basketball player on his girl’s basketball team after a court overturned West Virginia’s transgender sports ban.

“To me it’s a straight forward as straight forward can be. Boys competing with the girls, puts girls at a significant disadvantage and it always will. There’s no point in me dancing around this in anyway. I think it’s wrong, I think the court ruling’s wrong. I guess we’re always going to abide by laws but I think the ruling is completely terrible,” Governor Justice said.

Governor Justice added that “we” seem to be throwing out Title IX and making it a mockery by throwing out all the progress that has been made for female athletes.

“Before you know it, you’re going to have Lebron James or somebody with a talent beyond belief say I wanna be a girl and I’m going to play as a girl, and we say well okay, that’s fine. It’s not okay to me, ” Justice continued.

Justice said he will never change and stands rock solid on his point.

On April 16, a federal appeals court had overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, finding that the law violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

The ruling Tuesday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks a West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.

The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a 13-year-old girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade.

In February 2023, the court had blocked the state’s bid to kick Becky Pepper Jackson off her middle school track and field team if the law were enforced.

Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering her a “choice” between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams “is no real choice at all.”

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