Middle schoolers banned from track meets after protesting trans athlete's participation in sports

Five middle schoolers who protested a transgender athlete's participation in track and field meets have been banned from upcoming meets. 

According to West Virginia Watch, the state's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed a lawsuit against the Harrison County Board of Education on the middle schoolers' behalf after they were barred from upcoming meets. 

The five female athletes were from Lincoln Middle School. They refused to participate in a track event that was won by 13-year-old Becky Pepper Jackson, who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since elementary school, the New York Post reports. 

Recently, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a West Virginia law that attempts to ban boys who identify as girls from playing on girls' sports teams discriminated against the teenage athlete, who should be allow to compete in girls' events. 

Morrisey announced last month that the state will ask the Supreme Court to take up its "Save Women's Sports Act" after it was blocked by the court last month. 

"This is one of the most important cases that my office has handled over the past 12 years," Morrisey said at the time. "We are vigorously defending the law and that law is reasonable."