Maine legislators on the Judiciary Committee heard a full day of passionate testimony earlier this month, both for and against a slate of bills that would restrict transgender girls from competing in Maine sports in a way that aligns with their gender identity.
The organization that oversees athletic competition between most schools in Maine didn’t take a side in the contentious debate, but its testimony came with a notable request: avoid middle ground. That will be something for Judiciary Committee members to consider as they hold a worksession on the proposed pieces of legislation at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Maine Principals’ Association representative Jared Bornstein said the group’s policy is “simply to follow the law” as the MPA testified neither for nor against the proposed legislation.
“It seems like there are three options for you all: remain the same, and a compromise where there is a decision on a case-by-case basis, or prevent transgender girls from competing in girls sports,” Bornstein testified on May 8 in Augusta. “While we remain truly neutral on these options and will faithfully execute whatever law you pass or don’t pass, we request that the law be fully one or the other, avoiding the middle ground. We ask that the legislature embrace its responsibility, rather than place the burden on MPA, who is an organizing body not a social, cultural or political deliberating body.”
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That middle ground approach was what Maine employed for years in interscholastic sports, with the MPA having a standalone transgender student athlete participation policy between 2013 and 2021 that generally allowed students to participate in a way that aligned with their gender identity, unless it would result in an unfair advantage or safety risk for other student athletes.
Under that previous process, an MPA committee would review a student’s request to participate in a way that matched their gender identity during a confidential hearing. Then in 2021, lawmakers amended the Maine Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in education. That change allowed student athletes to participate in sports according to their gender identity without the committee review process.
Bornstein confirmed Monday that the MPA would prefer not to return to a case-by-case approach as lawmakers consider new legislation.
“We want the Legislature to give us clear instructions that we can apply to every case,” Bornstein told the Bangor Daily News on Monday. “Because if we had this sort of hearing process again — you know that happened in a very different time. In 2014 this was not an issue really. There was a limited number of these hearings, they were always approved and nothing bad happened.”
Bornstein said returning to that case-by-case process would shift a cultural, financial and legal burden on to the MPA to defend those individual decisions — a burden that the MPA thinks should rest with elected officials.
“We know now that if this happened again and we had hearings, they would all be heavily protested on either side and they would be heavily litigated on either side,” Bornstein said.
He stressed that the MPA is made up of administrators, not elected officials or doctors, and that the MPA doesn’t feel qualified to carry that burden.
And though the MPA has signaled its preference to avoid a middle ground approach, Bornstein has stressed that the organization will shape its policy around whatever policymakers decide.
“If they say, ‘You need to do this middle ground,’ we’re gonna do it because we’re gonna follow the law,” he said. “In this issue, our only goal is to follow the law.”
