Portland (Maine) Public Schools Superintendent Ryan Scallon is facing immense criticism after comparing the ongoing battle to enable trans inclusion in women’s and girls’ sports to past American civil rights struggles involving women and minorities.
Scallon made his comments during a school board meeting on Tuesday.
“In our country’s history, there have been many civil rights struggles, including, but not limited, to fights for women’s rights to vote, for racial equality and for gay marriage. In each of these fights, the opposition in part was driven by fear in attempts to ostracize other people who look, act or believe in something different,” Scallon said. “Today, I see that happening again with transgender or non-binary students, and in particular, our transgender athletes.”
Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby, who has recently ascended as a key figure in the state’s ongoing resistance on trans inclusion, told Fox News Digital that she finds Scallon’s comments “insulting” and “unconscionable.”
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“It’s insulting to women everywhere,” Libby said. “If I was a parent there, I would feel betrayed and like I don’t have representation, and certainly that my girls didn’t have representation… It’s an example of leadership actively participating in the erasure of women and girls.
“It is unconscionable that a public official would compare the woke policy of allowing biological males to participate in girls’ sports to the civil rights struggle that previous generations fought.”
Libby became a prominent figure in this Maine debate after posting a Greely High School pole vaulter on social media. The pole vaulter competed as recently as June 2024 as a biological male, and ended up winning a state championship as a woman.
Libby was later censured for the post, and has since filed a lawsuit in response to try and regain her voting and speaking privileges.
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Former Maine high school pole vaulting coach and official Allen Cornwall, who had to judge a competition that involved a trans athlete earlier this year, told Fox News Digital that he sees Scallon’s comments as “a farce.”
“It’s a farce,” Cornwall said. “Until you sit there and look at the other girls’ faces, and then you can come and tell me why you think it’s fair, I don’t really want to hear it. I look at these girls’ faces every single week, I’ve witnessed it and they were dejected and they were hurt and then they found opportunities not to compete… it’s not what they wanted. So I find it ironic that these people who are supposedly, who are out for women’s rights, are forgetting that you’ve been trampling over women’s rights for years.”
The executive director of the American Parents Coalition, Alleigh Marre, provided a statement to Fox News Digital condemning the entire liberal movement in Maine that is working to enable trans inclusion.
“Parents overwhelmingly agree that forcing gender ideology on kids is unacceptable and they’re fed up with activists who pretend biology isn’t real,” Marre said.
“From boys in girls’ sports and locker rooms to tampons in boys’ bathrooms – families have had enough. Despite this, Maine liberals’ latest push of their ideology includes inviting a transgender activist who has been accused of [witnessing] sexual misconduct involving a minor to say the morning prayer at the House of Representatives today. Out of touch doesn’t begin to describe their continued actions. It is time for our leaders to listen to parents and families.”
Users on social media shared their own criticisms over Scallon’s comments.
Maine has become one of the nation’s biggest battlegrounds in the national debate over trans inclusion in girls’ sports.
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Buses leave King Middle School in Portland, Maine, at the end of the school day. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it found the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School all in violation of Title IX following an investigation into trans-inclusion in girls’ sports. HHS said on Monday that the state has 10 days to comply with a written agreement, or risk referral to the Department of Justice.
“What HHS is asking of the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) and Greely High School is simple – protect female athletes’ rights. Girls deserve girls-only sports without male competitors. And if Maine won’t come to the table to voluntarily comply with Title IX, HHS will enforce Title IX to the fullest extent permitted by the law,” OCR acting Director Anthony Archeval said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
The ongoing debate in the state has resulted in police protection being assigned to Greely High School, and even a massive protest against Gov. Janet Mills in Augusta last month.
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Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.
