A girl who was allegedly sexually harassed by the transgender-identifying male athlete at the center of the West Virginia Supreme Court case is speaking out after the high court ruled in favor of state laws restricting sports by biological sex.
Adaleia Cross, who will be a senior this year, alleged that trans-identifying male Becky Pepper-Jackson made comments in the girls’ locker room when he was in seventh grade and she was in eighth grade that constitute sexual harassment, Fox News Digital reported.
“I definitely have a sense of peace about all of it,” Cross told Fox News Digital after the Supreme Court ruling. “Although I had to go through all of that, and it doesn’t make up for what I had to go through, I know that other girls can be protected, like my sister and my friends who are still on the team.”
“Jesus Christ loves [the athlete] and has a place for [the athlete] if they want to be there,” she added.
Cross’s mother, Abby Cross, previously told the outlet that the trans athlete allegedly told her daughter and other girls to “suck my d—k.”
“[The trans athlete] was saying to her, coming up and saying to her, ‘I’m going to stick my d–k in your p–y and also in your ass.’ At different times [the trans athlete] was saying these things to her,” she alleged in December.
Adaleia said the locker room environment at the time totally shifted when Pepper-Jackson started using the girls’ facilities, with female students changing in bathroom stalls instead of out in the open.
“I know other teams started canceling coming to track meets, so their girls didn’t have to put up with it,” Cross said. “It’s just really sad to see all that happening.”
“Girls deserve to have that space,” she added. “And it’s just been taken away.”
The ACLU has previously denied the harassment allegations, per the report.
“Our client and her mother deny these allegations, and the school district investigated the allegations reported to the school by A.C. and found them to be unsubstantiated. We remain committed to defending the rights of all students under Title IX, including the right to a safe and inclusive learning environment free from harassment and discrimination,” the ACLU said in a statement to the outlet.
Attorneys for the Cross family at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) responded to the ACLU’s statement, noting that their client “has sworn under oath and under penalty of perjury in numerous cases about the events that took place between her and the male athlete,” and that Cross had to stop playing the sport she loved to “protect herself.”
Her family alleges the school did nothing to hold Pepper-Jackson accountable. The outlet said it has not received responses from the ACLU or the Harrison County School District to repeated requests for documentation related to the school’s investigation.
Cross said that despite ultimately winning the case at the Supreme Court, she has suffered years of consequences for fighting on behalf of women’s sports and spaces.
“The hardest part of the whole situation for me has been losing friends that I’ve had for years,” she said. “I’ve been friends with these kids since middle school, early elementary school, and to watch as we get older, and we get into high school, they just want nothing to do with me.”
She said that while most of her high school supported her, a “very small population … [was] extremely vocal” in their opposition to her, and has been “aggressive”
“So, while it’s like an 80/20, it feels more of a 50/50, which has been hard,” she said.
She also said she had to see Pepper-Jackson win the girls’ state championship in shot put, just a few weeks before the Supreme Court ultimately upheld West Virginia’s law banning males from female sports teams.
Cross called Pepper-Jackson’s win “extremely frustrating” for her and for all of her athlete friends who had spots taken from them.
Cross said she will not be competing in sports during her final year of high school because she has already spent too much time away.
Cross first spoke out at the age of 14 and credited her Christian faith and a Bible verse for giving her the courage to stand up for women’s rights.
I told God that I would do it if He made it abundantly clear for me, and He did. He has showed up for me since,” she said. “The next day, I got on my phone, and the verse of the day on the Bible app was Esther 4:14, which is, ‘Perhaps you were created for such a time as this,’ and I knew that that was what He wanted me to be doing.”