Maine girls deserve sex-based teams—and their families are back
As Maine girls prepare to speak before the Senate election, volunteers are submitting almost 5,000 signatures to revive a ballot fight over girls’ teams and private spaces.
Girls’ teams and private spaces belong to girls, and Maine girls are taking that case to the State House1. OutKick reports that on Monday, Nov. 2, two female athletes from Windham High School and Fryeburg Academy are scheduled to speak alongside parents and representatives of Alliance Defending Freedom and ICONS. The Protect Girls Sports in Maine committee plans to submit new signatures for a 2027 ballot effort. ICONS announced the event for 10 a.m. at the Capitol Building’s Welcome Center2. The news conference falls one day before Maine chooses its senator.
ICONS co-founder Kim Jones put the whole fight in one sentence: “There should be no male students on girls’ teams, and no male students in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.”1 These girls are asking for what every parent assumes a school already guarantees: a team of their own and a locker room without boys in it.
“There should be no male students on girls’ teams, and no male students in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.”
The measure sets sex-based rules
Family Brief’s position is plain: girls’ sports and female private spaces should be organized by biological sex. “An Act to Designate School Sports Participation and Facilities by Sex” would write that into Maine law. That makes biological sex, as recorded on a student’s original birth certificate, the standard for who joins a girls’ team and who uses the bathrooms and other private spaces the measure covers. The proposal would also let students sue schools over violations1. That gives a girl a way to hold her school to the sex-based rule, so the measure’s promise does not go without an enforcement mechanism.
Maine girls have already learned what happens without such a rule. In February 2025, a male Greely High School athlete competing as a girl won the girls’ Class B indoor pole-vault championship, and Greely won the girls’ team title by one point, OutKick reports. The Maine Principals’ Association maintained that its policy followed the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects against discrimination based on gender identity1. That defense concedes the point. Once gender identity is written into the law, girls’ sports and private spaces lose their sex-based boundaries. A girls’ championship came down to one point, so who answers to the girls who lost it?
A missing oath cost 532 signatures
Maine families did the work the first time. Maine’s first petition fell 532 signatures short after the state invalidated signatures collected by four out-of-state circulators who had not consented to Maine jurisdiction in their submitted affidavits. The petition did not start out short. The committee filed 79,692 signatures on Feb. 2, 2026. The Secretary of State first found 71,033 of them valid, more than the 67,682 required3.
A challenge then targeted four nonresident circulators who had collected more than 1,500 signatures. The Secretary conceded those signatures should be invalidated because the circulators had not checked the box agreeing to Maine jurisdiction3. On July 10, 2026, the state’s high court affirmed the invalidation of 1,520 signatures. The court upheld the Secretary’s decision to invalidate the signatures. An unchecked box decided it: the initiative did not qualify for the 2026 ballot, and parents had to begin again to seek protections for their daughters1.
About 100 volunteers gathered nearly 5,000
When President Trump pressed Maine to keep male athletes out of girls’ sports, Gov. Janet Mills told him, “See you in court,” OutKick reports. Maine families lost their own round in court and answered at the door instead. They began again. Committee principal officer Leyland Streiff, a leader of Maine Girl Dads, said about 100 volunteers collected additional signatures over the month before the announced submission. The committee planned to submit almost 5,000 signatures, nearly ten times the previous shortfall1.
A technicality ended one ballot bid, and volunteers returned with a much larger stack of signatures. Those signatures still need review before the initiative can qualify for the 2027 ballot1.
Collins and Jackson split on girls’ sports
The initiative is aiming for 2027, but Maine voters face a choice on girls’ teams on Tuesday, Nov. 3, when Sen. Susan Collins meets Troy Jackson. OutKick reports that Collins voted in March 2025 to advance the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act and said in March 2026 that transgender athletes should not compete in girls’ and women’s athletics1.
Jackson’s record points the other way: in June 2023, he voted to accept a committee recommendation against passing LD 930, legislation seeking to restrict participation in girls’ and women’s scholastic sports. In an April 2026 questionnaire, he answered “No” when asked whether he supported a transgender sports ban and dismantling other protections under the Maine Human Rights Act. The Maine Human Rights Act is the same law the principals’ association used to defend its policy. The choice is plain: one candidate has backed advancing a federal sports bill, while the other opposed a state sports restriction and rejected a ban1 in his questionnaire.
Maine families have already done the work once, and their volunteers have come back with far more signatures than they needed. That sets the state’s next step: count the signatures, put the measure on the 2027 ballot if it qualifies, and let families decide whether girls’ sports and private spaces will be governed by sex1. Jones has promised that “The courts, the voting booth, the media and every other available tool will be used to ensure that these girls are not shoved into the shadows to be harassed and ignored.” Parents should stand with these girls in Augusta on Monday. Officials should count every valid signature. On Tuesday, Maine voters should support the candidate who has stood with their daughters’ teams.
Sources
- Maine girls to speak out on trans athletes as parents revive ballot push on eve of Senate election | OutKick
- @icons_women on X, 2026-10-29: Maine girls to speak out on male athletes as parents revive ballot push on eve of Senate election 📢 NEWS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT 📅 Monday, November 2 ⏰ 10 a.m. ET 📍 Capitol Building’s Welcome Center | Augusta, ME https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/main, 2026-10-29
- 2026 ME 59 Jane Gilbert et al. v. Secretary of State
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