Heather Jackson reflects on the importance of supporting and standing by her child, Becky Pepper-Jackson
Becky Pepper-Jackson is a 13-year-old transgender girl from West Virginia caught in the legislative crosshairs of a state law that bans trans, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary students from playing on school sports teams that do not match the sex assigned to them at birth. Currently, Lambda Legal is challenging the law, which has been stayed, pending a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In the meantime, Becky is allowed to play with her teammates.
We were driving home from cross-country practice when the news hit this April that the Supreme Court had rejected West Virginia’s request to ban my 13-year-old daughter from playing on her school’s girls’ team. I looked over at Becky, who, throughout years of these unwarranted attacks, hadst shown even the slightest chink in her armor. This time, it was different. She let out a huge sigh of relief, as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her tiny shoulders.
That’s a lot for a child to grapple with—not understanding why living your truth is met with so much cruelty. Yet even in the face of all this ugliness, she somehow has still shown empathy, optimism, and a willingness to teach and bring people in. I love that about her, her ability to see good in the world. Me? I’m jaded. I don’t always have the same patience or hopefulness with people who are hell-bent on tearing down my child. I know history.
“Mom, what would Rosa do? She didn’t give up her seat on the bus, and look what happened. I don’t want to give up playing on my team either. This isn’t just for me—this is for all the other kids out there too.”That’s one of the beauties of motherhood. Our kids can teach us and change us, just as we do with them. We just have to be open to receiving those lessons.At the very beginning, I knew Becky was different from her brothers. She started questioning her clothing at age 3.
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