A decade ago, Mainers went to the polls to affirm the rights of transgender people. Two years ago, the Maine Supreme Court upheld those rights.

And this week, we learned that Gov. LePage is trying to interfere with the very same rights of transgender people who live in OTHER states – people like ACLU client Gavin Grimm, a boy who simply wants to use the right bathroom at school.

Earlier this week, Gov. LePage joined the governor of North Carolina and the states of South Carolina, Arizona, West Virginia and Mississippi on a brief arguing that transgender students in Virginia should no be allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender.

The brief comes in a case filed by the ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia on behalf of Grimm, challenging a discriminatory bathroom policy that segregates transgender students from their peers. The policy effectively expels trans students from communal restrooms and requires them to use “alternative private” restroom facilities.

Thankfully, this is a settled issue in Maine, and Gov. LePage has no similar course of action available to him here. In 2005, Mainers went to the polls and voted to keep protections for transgender people in Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA). The MHRA now prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation (which is defined to include gender identity and expression) in the areas of employment, public accommodations, housing, credit and education. 

The following year, the Maine law was put to the test when a transgender girl in Orono was wrongly made to use the staff bathroom at her school, rather than the girls’ room. Nicole Maines was known as a girl to her fellow students and had used the girls’ bathroom without incident, until a male student twice followed her into the bathroom – at the instruction of an older relative – claiming that he, too, had a right to use the girls’ bathroom. After that, Nicole was required by the school to use the single-stall, unisex staff bathroom. She was the only student instructed to use the staff bathroom. 

In 2008, Nicole’s parents filed a lawsuit against the school on her behalf, claiming unlawful discrimination in education and unlawful discrimination in a place of public accommodation on the basis of gender identity and expression, in violation of the MHRA. 

In January 2014, the Maine Supreme Court sided with Nicole, finding that “Where, as here, it has been clearly established that a student’s psychological well-being and educational success depend upon being permitted to use the communal bathroom consistent with her gender identity, denying access to the appropriate bathroom constitutes sexual orientation discrimination in violation of the MHRA.” (emphasis mine)

For nearly two years, this has been settled law in Maine. Nicole Maines has since graduated from high school. Transgender people in Maine have continued to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender. And nobody’s safety or well-being has been compromised.

So it’s puzzling, and profoundly disappointing, that Gov. LePage has joined an attempt to deny transgender students in Virginia the same fair treatment that transgender students in Maine are guaranteed. We hope the courts in Virginia will act to uphold the dignity and privacy of transgender students, just as we have done in Maine.