A girl’s girl keeps girls’ teams for girls. Troy Jackson backed the bill’s defeat.

As Troy Jackson campaigns with Ocasio-Cortez, Maine families face a Senate choice over whether girls’ teams and private spaces keep sex-based boundaries.

A girl’s girl should protect girls’ teams, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered Maine families a different standard at an Oct. 22 town hall in Portland campaigning for Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson: “I support the rights of trans women because I’m a girl’s girl,” the New York Post reported¹.

What does that promise offer a girl who wants her school team reserved for female students? Jackson’s record gives parents something firmer to examine than a visiting politician’s slogan.

Jackson backed the bill’s defeat

In June 2023, Jackson, then Maine Senate president, supported accepting a committee recommendation against legislation limiting girls’ secondary-school teams to female students, OutKick reports².

The procedural wording deserves plain English: he backed stopping the protection². The question before lawmakers concerned the eligibility rule schools would follow. A female category needs a boundary that keeps it female; otherwise, the label offers girls no dependable protection.

Parents evaluating Jackson should begin there. They need an answer about who can compete against their daughters, not an assurance that every student deserves courtesy. Schools can require courtesy while keeping girls’ teams for girls.

Girls’ privacy and teams matter

Ocasio-Cortez’s strongest defense was sweeping: “The moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen in America,” the Post reported¹.

That argument assumes the disputed boundary is itself an attack on someone’s rights. But girls have claims of their own: fair competition, bodily privacy and school rules grounded in biological reality. Why should a universal promise of rights require their interests to yield?

Parents should reject that bargain. Respect for every child does not require opening female teams or sex-based private spaces to boys. A daughter’s privacy is no less worthy of protection because an officeholder finds the boundary inconvenient.

Maine voters missed a direct vote

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows accepted staff’s finding that the initiative fell short of the required signatures and declared it invalid pending appeal. Her office’s final question described restrictions on public-school sports, bathrooms and other private spaces based on each child’s original birth certificate, with students allowed to sue schools³.

Maine Public reported that the Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine Committee, which pursued the referendum, shifted its effort to 2027 because its federal appeal would not be decided in time to print the November ballots⁴. Parents seeking those rules must keep pressing for a direct vote.

Collins backed protections for girls

Republican Sen. Susan Collins voted to advance the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in March 2025 and a similar amendment in March 2026, OutKick reports. Explaining the latter vote, Collins stated her longstanding position that “transgender athletes should not compete in girls’ and women’s athletics.”²

That is a clear standard voters can enforce. Collins should carry that position into the next legislative fight; Jackson should answer whether he would support the same boundary.

Maine families should demand a yes or no: will their next senator vote to keep male athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports? Protecting the female category should be the commitment, and advancing that protection should be the vote.

A girl’s girl keeps girls’ teams for girls. Troy Jackson backed the bill’s defeat.

Jackson backed the bill’s defeat

Girls’ privacy and teams matter

Maine voters missed a direct vote

Collins backed protections for girls

Sources