Maine referendum to ban trans athletes from girls sports teams qualifies for ballot
By Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News Staff
A referendum to ban transgender athletes from girls sports teams has qualified for Maine’s November ballot.
Organizers submitted more than 71,000 valid signatures, exceeding the qualifying threshold of 67,682, the Maine secretary of state’s office said Tuesday.
Appeals of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision must be filed within 10 days. Otherwise, the referendum will go before the Legislature, which under the Maine Constitution can enact it as written or send it to voters.
Bellows will release the proposed wording of the ballot question for public comment later this year.
If approved, the referendum would require public schools offering interscholastic or competitive sports to maintain separate male, female and coed teams, as well as separate locker rooms and bathrooms. Girls could perform on a boys team if no alternative exists.
“It’s official! This November, Mainers will get to do what the MPA and State Legislature have failed to do, and they’ll get to do it through the most democratic process possible – a simple majority vote will designate competitive sports and private facilities in our schools by sex. This is inclusive, fair and safe – everyone gets to play sports; not one single person is banned,” Leyland Streiff, an organizer for the group behind the referendum, Protect Girls Sports in Maine, said in a statement.
The referendum has support from prominent Republicans like U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, whose office confirmed last year that she signed a petition to get the referendum on the ballot, and megadonor Richard Uihlein, who bankrolled the referendum drive.
Last April, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a Title IX lawsuit against Maine, alleging that the state has discriminated against girls and women and has failed to protect them in sports. The complaint alleges that competing with or alongside transgender athletes exposes girls and women to “heightened risks” of physical and psychological harm. The lawsuit cited no instances of Maine girls suffering physical harm while competing with or alongside transgender athletes.
In the 31-page civil rights lawsuit, the Trump administration pointed to three examples of transgender athletes competing in girls sporting events or on girls teams. Together, those three athletes placed in the top three in seven events over three years. In two instances, their performances were key in their schools’ placements in track-and-field and skiing competitions, the administration claims.
For the 2024-2025 school year, about 53,000 students participated in high school sports in Maine, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. (That does count students who participated in two or more sports multiple times.)
The lawsuit fulfilled Bondi’s pledge to take the state to court over noncompliance with President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
It could ultimately land before the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, where the Trump administration could ask it to define Title IX, the landmark 1972 law barring sex-based discrimination in schools, to outlaw athletic policies like the ones in Maine and more than 20 other states.
Not long after Trump signed that executive order last year, he singled out Maine during a Republican governors meeting in Washington. The next day Trump and Gov. Janet Mills crossed paths at an event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”
State law, specifically the Maine Human Rights Act, prohibits discrimination in education, employment, housing and more on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, ancestry or national origin.
After that verbal sparring at the White House, the Trump administration launched an unprecedented pressure campaign against Maine over the inclusion of transgender athletes. Key to that was a slate of investigations from six federal agencies targeting the state, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, Greely High School in Cumberland and the University of Maine System.
Earlier this month, a panel of federal judges in Maine rejected the Trump administration’s call for them to be recused from the case.
The case is set to go to trial later this year.