Lawsuit filed against 5 Maine school districts over transgender policies

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.