PORTLAND (WGME) – The Maine Human Rights Commission has filed a lawsuit against five Maine school districts, claiming they are violating the civil rights of trans and gender-nonconforming students.

The move comes as the Trump administration and the state are already at odds about how to handle transgender policies in school.

“This has been the law in the state for 20 years,” MHRC Executive Director Kit Thompson Crossman said. “That in turn chills those students’ and their families’ exercise of their rights under the act.”

Defendants in the lawsuit include MSAD 70 in the town of Hodgdon, RSU 24 in Sullivan, RSU 73 in Livermore Falls, the Baileyville School District and the Richmond School Department.

According to the commission, both SAD 70 and RSU 73 this year officially approved a policy to recognize only two sexes.

In September, Baileyville adopted a policy that “multiple-occupancy bathrooms, locker rooms and other sensitive areas shall be separated by sex,” and that certain athletic teams shall also be separated by sex.

In the same month Richmond adopted a policy requiring participation in athletic activities to be restricted based upon the students’ biological sex.

All those actions align with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in February titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and were supported by several people speaking during school board public comment periods.

“The people that are sending their children to us, and they’re asking us to take care of them throughout the day, we need to listen to them,” MSAD 70 Superintendent Tyler Putnam said.

The changes conflict with the Maine Human Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of someone’s gender identity.

“What it’s done is create a lot of fear for kids, and their friends and family, who are trans,” Equality Maine Executive Director Gia Drew said.

Drew says they support the lawsuit but believe it’s unfortunate it had to go this far.

“Federal law hasn’t changed with the new President and despite his executive orders, that doesn’t change the law either,” Drew said. “So Maine law still is in place here.”

Members of Maine’s Republican Party believe the districts are just following Trump’s orders.

“The state of Maine is waiting on a lawsuit that the federal government already has against us for disobeying Title IX, and I just thought that this was kind of unprecedented and really a step in the wrong direction,” Maine House Republicans Assistant Leader Katrina Smith said.

The commission says the districts will now have a chance to respond to the lawsuit, but they were not sure how long that would take.

CBS13 tried Tuesday to reach all five school districts named in this lawsuit.

The only one to respond was RSU 24, which had no comment.

BAILEY ISLAND (WGME) – A pair of thieves were caught on camera stealing copper pipe at an iconic gift shop.

The owner says at least 200 gallons of propane leaked out of the severed pipe right under their shop.

Since 1959, three generations of the Hutchins family have owned and operated Land’s End Gift Shop at the end of Bailey Island.

In one night, they say they could have lost it all from a propane leak and buildup under the gift shop.

“When I got to the top of the stairs, I was overwhelmed with the smell of propane,” Land’s End Gift Shop Owner Karen Hutchins said. “So I went down to see if there’s anything obvious, like a broken line or anything like that, I didn’t see anything. So then I’m thinking I better turn off my propane heaters in the store.”

She did so despite the risk of an explosion.

A technician later found the source of the leak.

“He took a walk around the back of the building, and that’s where he discovered from the regulator to under the building, copper piping was missing,” Hutchins said.

It was stolen in the middle of the night.

“The propane was spilling out,” Hutchins said. “And actually rising up towards the building.”

Her daughter checked their security camera footage and saw two people pulling up 40 feet of copper pipe around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

“She saw two people,” Hutchins said. “And she could actually see them pulling up the line.”

The entire theft took six minutes.

Because it was dark, security cameras didn’t get a good look at the vehicle.

All they saw was it had running boards.

A scrap yard in southern Maine says 40 feet of copper would likely only be worth $50 or $60.

“You can salvage it and get a little bit of money, but not much,” Hutchins said.

Hutchins says the propane leak caused by the theft could have cost, not only her business, but her and her daughter’s lives.

“For 8.5 hours, it was just coming out into the atmosphere and under the building,” Hutchins said. “So the potential could have been catastrophic for the whole area.”

She hopes the suspects are caught to prevent this from happening to someone else.

“My biggest thing is not the cost of repairing this, but the potential for someone else getting hurt,” Hutchins said.

If you have any information about this theft, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office would like to hear from you.