Adam Zajac is so confident that his community aligns with his desire to roll back protections for transgender students that he suspects his recent loss in a local school board race was the result of foul play.
There’s no evidence to back up his hunch, but the Windham parent expressed surprise that his campaign, along with two others that railed against trans rights, failed in November’s elections.
School boards across Maine made headlines this year as conservative board members and interest groups pushed at least eight districts to bar transgender girls from sports and private spaces that align with their gender identities. In elections earlier this year, social conservatives won seats on several school boards.
That momentum failed to flip several school boards in November. At least nine candidates in the state ran for school board seats this fall while campaigning for restrictions on trans student rights. Of those candidates, three won. But conservatives are already pressing forward with campaigns into next year, including a state referendum drive on the issue.
“The fact that Title IX isn’t passing completely blows my mind,” Zajac said, referring to the 1973 anti-discrimination statute that President Donald Trump’s administration has reinterpreted to fight state laws including Maine’s that ban discrimination based on gender identity in schools and other public settings.
The debate, which has centered on sports, has already reached Windham’s school board. In an October meeting, the board voted 5-4 to maintain transgender protections in line with the Maine Human Rights Act. Zajac missed a seat by a narrow 156 votes, falling to board chair Christina Small and newcomer Matthew Irving, who ran a pro-LGBTQ campaign.
Victory by the pair means trans student rights will likely be upheld in the district. Belfast area schools are also unlikely to limit transgender rights anytime soon. This month’s vote saw the Democrat-dominated city choose write-in candidate Madison Cook over a conservative who was listed on the ballot.
Maine’s right-wing social media sphere, which has elevated the profile of many school board candidates, lamented losses after a good election for Democrats nationally and in the state.
But it also celebrated a few school board wins. In particular, the Facebook account “Courage Is a Habit” celebrated the victory of Randolph’s Dan Coutts over incumbent MSAD 11 board member Elissa Tracey, whom it branded a “transgender cultist” over her support for the Maine Human Rights Act and opening a medical clinic within the district.
Coutts became involved in the parents’ rights debate while pushing against mask mandates in 2020. Despite his win, he says the board is still “uneven,” and that it would take one more conservative to push for policy change there.
“I’d just like to get it back to the basics,” he said of the school district.
Tracey said the attention from outside groups helped motivate conservative voters to oust her from the job, and said there was not much use persuading her opponents in the conservative-leaning Kennebec County town. She vowed to continue speaking out at meetings as a resident. She added that after a period of hostility this year, the campaign remained civil.
“[Hostility] has kind of moved over to Augusta,” she said of the city nearby, where activists have disrupted multiple school board meetings in protest of transgender policies. “Let them go be crazy over there.”
The capital city also saw a heated school board race that focused partly on transgender rights this month. A bid to increase the numbers of anti-trans board members failed there. Incumbent Rita Pello, who voted against changing the district’s policies in October, fought off conservative challenger Kelly Smith. One conservative member retired from the board, and her seat was filled by a liberal after two candidates seemingly split the conservative vote.
Parents’ rights activists say the fight there will continue. It already is.
At a meeting Wednesday, conservative activist Tim Bodnar, who frequents school board meetings and goes “Truth Slinger” online, introduced himself as “Bella Balls” before the board, wearing makeup and a sunflower atop Bodnar’s typical star-spangled cowboy hat.
After that, Nicholas Blanchard, a provocateur who goes by the online moniker “Corn Pop,” lamented the loss of a right-wing board member in town. Then he used a Wednesday meeting of the school board as a chance to declare his candidacy for the board in 2026.
“If I am elected I will fight like hell to protect safe spaces for young women, I will rip out every woke policy you have shoved down our throats,” he said, removing his jacket to show a campaign sign printed on his T-shirt.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
