The Regional School Unit (RSU) 4 school board voted on Wednesday, near the end of the school year, to remove their “Transgender and Gender Expansive Students” policy that allows transgender-identifying males into girls’ spaces and allows teachers to keep secrets from parents.
RSU 4 straddles Androscoggin and Kennebec counties.
“By permitting and protecting through policy the withholding of information or keeping of secrets from parents regarding their children, the RSU is in direct violation of the Supreme Court and the Constitution of the United States,” said newly-elected board member Matt Earley, advocating for the repeal of the policy.
The contentious meeting, held at the end of the school year, included the final vote on the district’s transgender policy, which had first been addressed at the previous meeting without appearing on the agenda.
During the meeting, only two members of the public testified, and both were opposed to the transgender policy.
“I don’t trust you at all with rules like this in place, plain and simple, from what I can tell,” said Joel Furrow of Wales.
Though the policy has already been removed from the district’s online policy directory, testimony from board members suggests that it was a fairly standard pro-transgender policy.
It apparently mandated the use of a student’s preferred pronouns and chosen name, concealed students’ gender transitions from parents, allowed transgender-identifying males into girls’ private spaces such as locker rooms and restrooms, and let biological males compete against girls in sports.
Before the board voted to repeal the policy, they held a vote to send the policy to is policy committee for revisions. That would have required a 2/3 majority, which it failed to receive, so the board proceeded to the repeal vote.
The board then voted 4-3 in favor of repealing the policy, with two members abstaining because they neither supported the policy in its current form nor wanted it entirely repealed.
RSU 4, serving Litchfield, Sabattus, and Wales, joined Hodgdon’s MSAD 70 in Aroostook County and Regional School Unit (RSU) 24 in Hancock County, which have already rescinded parts of their transgender policies in defiance of Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) and the Maine Principals Association (MPA).
Both Gov. Mills and the MPA have demanded that transgender-identifying males be allowed to compete in girls’ sports, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
