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EXCLUSIVE: Two West Virginia high school students and their families have come forward with alleged details of their experience with a local transgender athlete who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit that will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court this month.
The trans athlete’s lawsuit initially sought to ensure that the athlete, a biological male, could compete on middle school and high school women’s sports teams in West Virginia. The trans athlete is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and more than 130 Congressional Democrats have signed an amicus brief in support of the trans athlete for Supreme Court review.
Pak Gazette Digital is not revealing the name of the trans athlete because he is a minor.
Bridgeport High School student Adaleia Cross, a former track teammate of the trans athlete when they were both at Bridgeport Middle School, alleges that the trans athlete made comments to her that constituted sexual harassment in the girls’ locker room.
Cross, who is a year older than the trans athlete, said he quit the track team at Bridgeport High School last year as a sophomore to avoid sharing a locker room with the trans athlete again once he reached high school.
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West Virginia teenager Adaleia Cross said she ultimately quit the track team at Bridgeport High School last year to avoid sharing a locker room with a trans athlete. (Courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom)
Cross’s mother, Abby, told Pak Gazette Digital what the trans athlete allegedly said to her daughter when they shared the girls’ locker room during the 2022-23 school year. Adaleia was in eighth grade and the trans athlete was in seventh.
“When Adaleia first told us, she told us that [the trans athlete] “I was telling her and other girls my b—,” Abby Cross alleged.[The trans athlete] I was telling him, approaching him and saying: ‘I’m going to put my p— in your p—- and also in your a–‘. At different times [the trans athlete] “I was telling him these things.”
The mother said the comments were reported to the school.
The ACLU has responded to the Cross family’s allegations.
“Our client and her mother deny these allegations and the school district investigated the allegations reported to the school by AC and found them to be unfounded. We remain committed to upholding the rights of all students under Title IX, including the right to a safe and inclusive learning environment, free from harassment and discrimination,” reads an ACLU statement provided to Pak Gazette Digital.
The Cross family’s attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) responded to the ACLU’s statement.
“Our client has sworn under oath and under penalty of perjury in numerous cases regarding the events that took place between her and the male athlete. As a result of the situation, [Cross] “He had to completely step away from the sport he loved and sacrifice a key element of his school experience to protect himself,” read an ADF statement provided to Pak Gazette Digital.
ADF is also representing the state of West Virginia against the trans athlete in the case that will be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
The ACLU has not responded to the ADF’s response.
The Cross family said that when they reported the alleged harassment to the school, as far as they knew, nothing was done to reprimand the trans athlete.
“They told me they would do a full investigation into what I told them,” Adaleia said. “And then all of a sudden it was like nothing else was happening, it was already done, and it seemed like they didn’t think of anything because they didn’t talk to us about it at all, they just left it there and didn’t tell us anything else, so it just seemed like, well, it’s done.”
His father, Holden Cross, said: “We received no response from the school after submitting the report.”
Pak Gazette Digital made repeated requests to the ACLU and the Harrison County School District, which oversees Bridgeport Middle School and Bridgeport High School, seeking documentation related to the school’s investigation and clarification on whether an investigation occurred and, if so, why only the Cross family was not notified of the results. Those requests have not been met.
Meanwhile, former Lincoln Middle School girls track runner Emmy Salerno alleges that the trans athlete used “intimidation tactics” against her after Salerno refused to compete against the trans athlete during an event in the spring 2024 season.
Salerno’s protest occurred on April 18, 2024, when she and the trans athlete were in eighth grade. Salerno, along with four other girls, refused to compete in the women’s shot put competition that day at a local competition. Salerno claims her team was disqualified from the next meet and then began facing intimidating looks from the trans athlete at public events.
“After we went out, there was an immediate personality change. He didn’t want to talk to me. He just wanted to look at me and look down,” Salerno told Pak Gazette Digital.
Salerno also provided Pak Gazette Digital with a screenshot of a Snapchat post, which appeared to have been sent by the trans athlete, showing a photo of Salerno with a caption that reads, “Remember she has more testosterone than me.”
Salerno said there was an incident where the trans athlete followed her while they were at a local basketball game, giving her intimidating looks, and Salerno was concerned that the trans athlete would try to “fight” her.
“At the basketball game, when he followed me around, I thought, ‘Is he going to try to fight me?'” Salerno said. “‘Are you going to try to sneak up behind me and hit me?'”
Salerno and his father say they believe the stares, following patterns and social media posts were “bullying tactics” and that there have been “persistent discomforts” stemming from the situation.
“I’ve always tried to avoid him everywhere I went,” Salerno added.
The ACLU has not responded to Pak Gazette Digital’s request for a response to Salerno’s allegations.
Salerno said she avoided competing against the trans athlete the following season, but instead of making a public outcry, she simply told her coach not to include her in the lineup for meets against the trans athlete, to avoid a team penalty.
Salerno claims she also heard other girls in the community talk about sexual harassment allegations made by Cross against the trans athlete. Salerno said she has never been in a locker room or bathroom with the trans athlete.
“During track season, this is talked about more,” Salerno said of the sexual harassment allegations. “I heard at my school that people were talking about it.”
Adaleia Cross did not know how to compartmentalize the alleged sexual harassment
“They told me I was a girl and that was normal. So I tried not to think about it for a while. I knew I was uncomfortable, but I tried to push it out of my memory because I thought I had to deal with it,” Cross alleged. “I felt like I couldn’t talk about it because they told me it was normal, I didn’t know how to process my feelings about it.”
As time went on and Adaleia had conversations with her parents about it, the severity of the incidents really began to get to her.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is not right,’ and I got angry again, and it eventually turned into extreme anger,” she said, adding that the experience has impacted her in a “permanent way.”
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Competitively, Cross also saw the trans athlete knock her out of her school’s top three finishers in her shot put and discus by the team when she was in eighth grade and the trans athlete was in seventh grade.
“I had gone from being in the top three to suddenly seeing him rise rapidly through the ranks…I saw everything taken away from me very quickly.” Adaleia Cruz said. “I can’t do anything about it.”
Adaleia left the track team for the remainder of her time in high school. When he reached high school, he competed again, but only during his freshman year. When the trans athlete reached high school the following year, Cross quit the team again.
Now a high school junior, Adaleia hasn’t played high school sports in more than two years.
“It makes me feel kind of out of place,” he said. “I try to develop my athleticism in other places, but it’s not the same as playing a team sport.”
Holden Cross said the lack of sports for his daughter has been “quite upsetting.”
“For her to be put in that situation and understandably not wanting to be forced to be in that situation anymore has been pretty upsetting. We all know what team sports do for kids and stuff, and how they have a positive impact,” she said. “She’s really been put in a position where she doesn’t feel safe and comfortable competing on a team.”
Adaleia said that she also ended up leaving her school’s theater group, because the trans athlete is also part of that club. He added that the situation has caused him to lose friends in recent years.
How did it get here?
The trans athlete filed a lawsuit in July 2021, at age 11, successfully blocking West Virginia’s law banning biological males from competing in women’s sports. The court decision guaranteed that the trans athlete would be on the same team and in the same locker room as Adaleia and other girls at Bridgeport Middle School and now Bridgeport High School.
The judge for the 2021 decision, Southern District of West Virginia Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1995.
The judge’s son, Booth Goodwin, was appointed by former President Barack Obama to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia in 2010.
In April 2024, a federal appeals court upheld West Virginia’s blocking of the law, saying the law cannot legally apply to a high school-aged trans girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medications and has publicly identified as a girl since third grade.
But last July, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case and oral arguments are scheduled for January 13.
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The coalition of 130 congressional Democrats who signed the amicus brief in support of the trans athlete includes nine senators and 121 House membersis led by Congressional Equality Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Becca Balint, DV.t., Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.
The list of signatories includes prominent figures from the party’s left wing, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. The list also includes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The list does not include prominent moderate Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
