Maine won’t investigate school districts that align with federal order, challenge state transgender protections

Maine’s human rights agency says it won’t take action against two school districts siding with President Donald Trump in his fight with Democratic Gov. Janet Mills over transgender student policies.

The districts in Livermore Falls and Hodgdon have changed their interpretation of federal civil rights laws to bar transgender students from using bathrooms or playing sports based on gender identity, matching an executive order Trump issued in February.

Livermore Falls is a town about 50 miles from Augusta, while Hodgdon is on the U.S.-Canada border.

Other school districts still follow the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits so-called gender identity discrimination in schools and other public settings. The Maine Human Rights Commission enforces the law.

The agency’s executive director, Kit Thomson Crossman, said it only launches its investigations rarely and has no plans to punish Livermore Falls and Hodgdon.

“The Commission has no current plans to take independent action against any school district,” Crossman told Bangor Daily News.

The dispute stems from a February confrontation between Trump and Mills in Washington, D.C., over transgender athlete policy. It led to state-federal clashes, investigations and interruptions in federal funding. The Justice Department sued Maine in April, with a trial set for next spring.

Mills has defended the state’s law but has not told the Hodgdon district to reverse course. In April, she said it was not her job to provide legal advice to Hodgdon’s school district.

Many of the state’s school boards have been advised by the law firm Drummond Woodsum to follow the Maine Human Rights Act and ignore Trump’s Title IX interpretation.

Jacob Posik, legislative affairs director at the conservative Maine Policy Institute, said the court cases may be influencing the commission’s wait-and-see approach on enforcing state law. He called it “wise.”

“I suspect that it would be premature for them to take action,” Posik said.

Maine received national attention this past winter when a male transgender-identifying athlete called Katie Spencer won two Class B state championships: one in pole vault and the other a team state championship for Greely High School in Cumberland.

Spencer isn’t the only transgender athlete to win a girls’ track state title in the state. Maine Coast Waldorf (Freeport) runner Soren Stark-Chessa won the 800-meter state championship in the spring 2024 season.

The state’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation earlier this year barring males from competing in girls’ interscholastic sports. However, the Democrat-controlled Senate blocked the legislation from passing, sending it back to the House.