Maine voters will decide transgender athletes ban in girls’ sports

(The Center Square) — Backers of a proposal to ban transgender athletes from playing girls sports in Maine say they have cleared a major hurdle to put the issue before voters in November’s elections.

The Committee to Protect Girls Sports in Maine, the group behind the initiative, announced Monday that it has turned in more than the 67,682 signatures needed to get onto the Nov. 3 ballot.

“This is historic,” Leyland Streiff, lead petitioner for the ballot question, said at a press briefing. “Not only will our initiative become the only citizen-led issue to appear on the 2026 Maine ballot, but we will likely be the first state where voters can protect female sports at the ballot box this November. We will pave the way for the rest of this nation.”

Streiff and other backers of the plan say the state’s leadership is out of touch with what voters want and say the proposal is a “common-sense” approach to dealing with the issue of transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports.

“Our...