Kennebunk Select Board Vice Chair Leslie Trentalange issued a non-apology during Tuesday’s board meeting after she claimed that parents concerned about transgender-identifying males in girls’ sports and restrooms had pedophilic tendencies.
“I made a statement that one could say pushed some boundaries at the recent school board meeting. If there are folks in the marginalized queer community that feel my message did not serve them or hurt them in any way, it is that which I regret,” she said.
“I do also regret any undue or undeserved backlash other members of the select board or town staff have felt over my comments as an individual,” Trentalange added at the Tuesday meeting
She made it clear that she was apologizing to the “queer community” for the harm caused by her comments, not to the parents she actually accused of harboring pedophilic tendencies. She avoided in any way recanting her inflammatory statements or acknowledging that they were inappropriate.
Trentalange, who served as one of the board’s liaisons to the Kennebunk School Board, said that she will relinquish that liaison position to clarify her role when speaking there.
“While I hold a position as select-board liaison to the school board, I will relinquish that position in order to help avoid any confusion as to my role when attending school-board meetings,” she said.
Last week, Trentalange spoke as a private member of the community against parents who want to see a change in school board policy to designate sports and spaces by sex rather than self-selected gender identity.
“Their obsession with what private parts are sitting in between the legs of our students is nothing less than creepy, and should absolutely be raising eyebrows in and around our school district,” said Trentalange during the October 20 RSU 21 school board meeting.
“Their obsession with genitalia points not to caring for the students in this district, but perhaps to an underlying guilt for their own pedophilic tendencies. There is a registry for that,” she added.
School Board Chair Matthew Stratford interrupted her comments at the time, but she spoke over him and affirmed that she stood by the statement and did not believe it was inappropriate.
In response to the comments, multiple community members reached out to the select board to demand Trentalange’s removal from the board. The board did not accede to their demands, and Trentalange insisted that she had a right to speak as a private community member.
John Salamone, of Hollis, who is running for Maine State Senate as a Republican in 2026, spoke out at Tuesday’s meeting against Trentalange’s comments.
“Miss Trentalange has responded not with respect but with open hostility,” said Salamone. “These comments are false, defamatory, and completely unacceptable from an elected official representing this community.”
“I am respectfully calling on this board to take formal action. Miss Trentalange should issue a public apology to the citizens she defamed, and if she refuses, I ask the board to move forward with a formal vote of censure and to begin the process for her removal,” he added.
Some members of the community spoke in favor of Trentalange, defending her comments because they were made in her capacity as a community member rather than as a select board member.
