Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
A slate of Republican-led bills aimed at undoing Maine’s policies allowing transgender girls to play in sports aligned with their gender identity are heading for votes after the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee effectively deadlocked on three of them late Tuesday.
The key player was first-term Rep. Dani O’Halloran, D-Brewer, who voted with Republicans on two bills that would bar schools that receive state funding from allowing transgender girls to play alongside girls. She also endorsed a version of a similar bill from Rep. Liz Caruso, R-Caratunk, that would take out language allowing people to sue schools for violations.
Democrats who control Augusta otherwise united on the issue that has led to Gov. Janet Mills’ fight with President Donald Trump over Maine’s federal funding. These Republican-led bills still have an uphill path to passage in the Legislature, but O’Halloran’s stance has injected uncertainty around how the votes will land in the closely divided House.
Mills has defended Maine’s laws on the subject but has not said how she feels about changing the policies, saying in March that it was “worthy of a debate.” A University of New Hampshire poll of Maine that month found two-thirds of Mainers think transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s and girls’ sports.
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It’s no surprise that O’Halloran was the one to break with her party. She was one of two Democrats to vote with Republicans in April against enshrining existing civil rights protections — including those for gender identity — in the Maine Constitution.
She was one of the most vocal members during Tuesday’s committee session, questioning Mary Bonauto, a prominent LGBTQ+ rights lawyer from Portland, about whether transgender participation in girls sports erodes opportunities for those who were born girls. The lawmaker returned to that point before the committee started taking votes.
“You have not only transgender girls on girls teams, you have girls on girls teams, and then there are some transgender boys that are playing on girls teams,” she said. “So that leaves me sitting here wondering, where does that leave girls?”
Other Democrats stuck together in voting against the bills. Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, worried about the real-world effects of Caruso’s bill that would bar transgender girls from girls sports but allow schools to create co-ed teams to accommodate those students.
“If the school does not have the resources or can’t put a regional team together, then we have de facto just discriminated against those students because we have not given them choice — choices,” she said.
Rep. Rachel Henderson of Rumford, summed up the Republican perspective on the committee, saying her faith teaches her to love everyone but that it is “hard science” that there are only two biological sexes. (The American Medical Association recognizes a “medical spectrum” of gender.)
“With that love has to come a truth, and this is the truth I’m standing on,” she said. “But please know that my desire is to always wrap that truth in love.”
