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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 the athlete, a biological male, could compete on middle and high school girls’ 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 the Supreme Court review.
Fox News Digital is not disclosing the name of the trans athlete because the individual is a minor.
Bridgeport High School female student Adaleia Cross, who is a former track and field teammate of the trans athlete when the two were at Bridgeport Middle School, alleges the trans athlete made comments to her that constituted sexual harassment, in the girls’ locker room.
Cross, who is one year older than the trans athlete, said she quit the track and field team at Bridgeport High School last year as a sophomore to avoid sharing a locker room again with the trans athlete once that athlete reached high school.
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West Virginia teen Adaleia Cross said she ultimately quit the track and field 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 Fox News 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] was telling her and other girls ‘s— my d—,’” Abby Cross alleged. “[The trans athlete] was saying to her, coming up and saying to her, ‘I’m going to stick my d— in your p—- and also in your a–.’ At different times [the trans athlete] was saying these things to her.”
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 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,” read an ACLU statement provided to Fox News Digital.
The Cross family’s attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) have responded to the ACLU’s statement.
“Our 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. As a result of the situation, [Cross] had to step away from the sport she loved entirely and sacrifice a key element of her school experience to protect herself,” read an ADF statement provided to Fox News Digital.
ADF is also representing the state of West Virginia against the trans athlete in the case that is set to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
The ACLU has not responded to the ADF’s response.
The Cross family said when they reported the alleged harassment to the school, nothing was done to reprimand the trans athlete, to their knowledge.
“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 done, and it seemed like they thought nothing of it 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 made it seemed like, yup it’s done.”
Her father, Holden Cross said, “We received no response from the school after filing the report.”
Fox News 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 and field runner Emmy Salerno alleges the trans athlete used “intimidation tactics” against her after Salerno refused to compete against the trans athlete during an event in the 2024 spring season.
Salerno’s protest came 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 girls’ shot put competition that day at a local meet. Salerno claims her team was disqualified from the following meet, and then began to face intimidating stares from the trans athlete at public events.
“After we stepped out, it was an immediate personality change. He didn’t want to talk to me. He just wanted to stare at me, and just stare down,” Salerno told Fox News Digital.
Salerno has also provided Fox News Digital a screenshot of a Snapchat post, which appeared to be sent by the trans athlete, showing a photo of Salerno with a caption that reads, “Reminder that 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, making intimidating stares, and Salerno was concerned the trans athlete would try to “fight” her.
“At the basketball game when he just followed me everywhere, I kind of felt like, ‘Is he gonna try to fight me?’” Salerno said. “‘Is he going to try and sneak up behind me and punch me?'”
Salerno and her father say they believe the stares, following patterns and social media post were “intimidation tactics,” and there have been “lingering discomforts” stemming from the situation.
“I’ve always tried to avoid him everywhere I went,” Salerno added.
The ACLU has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for a response to Salerno’s allegations.
Salerno said she avoided competing against the trans athlete the following season, but rather than making a public protest, she simply told her coach to not include her in the lineup for the meets against the trans athlete, to avoid penalty to the team.
Salerno claims she has also heard other girls in the community speak about the sexual harassment allegations made by Cross against the trans athlete. Salerno said she herself has never been in a locker room or bathroom with the trans athlete.
“Around track season, it gets more talked about,” Salerno said of the sexual harassment allegations. “I heard through my school, people were talking about it.”
Adaleia Cross didn’t know how to compartmentalize the alleged sexual harassment
“I was told that he was a girl and that was what was normal. So I tried not to think about it for a while. I just, I knew I was uncomfortable, but I just tried to push it out of memory because I thought I had to deal with it,” Cross alleged. “I felt like I couldn’t talk about it because I was told 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 started to hit her.
“I was like ‘Oh my Gosh, this isn’t okay’ and I was upset all over 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 watched the trans athlete displace 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 top three to all of a sudden watching him very quickly move up the ranks… I watched it all just be very quickly taken from me.” Adaleia Cross said. “I can’t do anything about it.”
Adaleia quit the track and field team for the remainder of her time in middle school. When she got to high school, she competed again, but just for her freshman year. When the trans athlete came up to high school the following year, Cross quit the team again.
Now, as 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,” she said. “I try to get my athletics in other places, but it’s not the same as having a team sport.”
Holden Cross said the lack of sports for her daughter has been “pretty upsetting.”
“For her to be put in that situation, and understandably not want to continue being forced to be in that situation has been pretty upsetting. We all know what team sports does for kids and stuff, and how it is a positive impact,” he said. “She’s been really put in a position where she doesn’t feel safe and comfortable competing on a team.”
Adaleia said she also ended up quitting her school’s theater group, because the trans athlete is part of that club too. She added that the situation has caused her to lose friends in recent years.
How it got here
The trans athlete filed a lawsuit in July 2021, at age 11, successfully blocking West Virginia’s law that prohibits biological males from competing in girls’ sports. The court decision ensured 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 in 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 United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia in 2010.
In April 2024, a federal appeals court upheld the block on West Virginia’s law, saying the law cannot lawfully be applied to a middle school-aged trans girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since third grade.
But this past July, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, and oral arguments are scheduled for Jan. 13.
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The coalition of 130 congressional Democrats who have signed the amicus brief in support of the trans athlete includes nine senators and 121 House members, is led by Congressional Equality Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Becca Balint, D-V.t., Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.
The list of signees features prominent figures on 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 noted moderate Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
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