Maine’s Gender Bender Industrial Complex is a House of Cards

I come bearing both good news and bad news from the frontlines of Maine’s culture wars.

First the bad news.

Gender ideologues across the state are celebrating their triumph in mid-coast Maine on August 1st, when the Regional School Unit (RSU) 40 school board voted to reinstate a “Transgender and Gender Expansive Student” policy that allows gender dysphoric male students with male genitalia to relieve themselves in the girls’ restroom and shower in the girls’ locker room.

[RELATED: American Society of Plastic Surgeons Refuses to Support WPATH Standards for Child Gender Transitions…]

The policy requires staff and students to address the gender-confused students by their chosen “let’s pretend” pronouns. What’s more, if a gender dysphoric student so desires, his parents will not be informed that he is “transitioning” at school.

Chalk up another victory for Maine’s sprawling Gender Bender Industrial Complex in its relentless campaign to subvert and destroy the dreaded mom-and-dad nuclear family that progressives believe stands in the way of liberating LGBTQ+ youth from the chains of gender oppression.

Maine’s failing K-12 government-run schools are ground zero for these culture-war skirmishes. Parents who don’t want their teenage daughters compelled to share toilet and shower facilities with teenage boys find themselves outnumbered and outgunned by an entrenched coalition of teachers’ unions, LGBTQ+ non-profits, liberal law firms, woke academics, and trans-friendly lamestream media outlets.

[RELATED: New Hampshire Gov. Signs Three Bills Protecting Minors from Radical Gender Ideology…]

Now, here’s the good news.

The gender benders’ pyrrhic victory in midcoast Maine contains the seeds of its own undoing.

Those seeds were planted when one of the trans cult’s leading advocates made the mistake of dropping her mask and telling a reporter the truth about the cult’s determination to drive a wedge between parents and children. Make no mistake, driving that wedge has always been the goal, but rarely have the cultists been so brazen in voicing their contempt for parents’ rights.

Sue Campbell of Rockland is a former RSU 40 board member. She now serves as the executive director of OUT Maine, a taxpayer-funded LGBTQ+ nonprofit that targets children as young as 9 years old for the purpose of creating “more welcoming and affirming communities for Maine’s diverse queer youth in all their intersectional identities.”

[RELATED: Study Finds Transgender Surgeries Dramatically Increase the Risk of Suicide…]

Campbell told a reporter for the left-wing Maine Morning Star that “parents’ rights and trans students’ rights do not have to be at odds with each other.”

“Parents are the number one protective factor. We want parents involved. But we also have to recognize that not all parents are supportive and so we have to rely sometimes on working with the student,” Campbell said.

Campbell’s message to parents of gender dysphoric students is blunt: We will transition your kid at school whether you like it or not, and we will do it without your knowledge or consent if that’s what it takes to get the job done.

That level of arrogance is breathtaking at a time when the pseudo-science of radical gender ideology is in retreat around the globe, even in postmodern, post-Christian western Europe.

Built on a foundation of falsehoods and fantasies, the gender-bender house of cards was bound to collapse sooner or later. I believe Campell’s remarks have the potential to become the wake-up call that rouses slumbering Mainers to reclaim their public schools from the gender-bender recruiters and propagandists.

Let’s unpack and more closely examine the house of cards before it collapses.

Exhibit A in the indictment is the definition of “gender identity” in the Maine Human Rights Act. Bear in mind that this repetitive, imprecise, incoherent word salad was drafted by lawyers, approved by a majority of legislators, and signed into law by the governor in 2019:

“Gender identity” means the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth.

Perhaps I’m giving away my advanced age here, but I recall learning in middle school English class (in a public school, no less) that it’s improper to use the term being defined in the definition of that term. Circular definitions neither inform nor enlighten, and have no place in the classroom, much less in statutes, where they become blank checks for expanding the power of unelected bureaucrats to make policy.

As for the statutory language that presumes sex is “assigned at birth,” you have to wonder, was this drafted by a witch doctor or a sorcerer’s apprentice?

All sane adults with above room-temperature IQs know that biological sex – male or female – is observed, not assigned, at birth. The “assignment” verbiage is a crackpot, fact-free delusion lifted from the transgender cult’s pagan catechism and incorporated into Maine statutes. It’s also been embedded in curriculum material for kindergartners. See the Maine Department of Education’s video HERE.

Another recent amendment to the Maine Human Rights Act is cited by the woke nonprofit Maine Principals Association as the legal basis for allowing gender dysphoric boys to join girls’ athletic teams and compete against girls. But you wouldn’t know that from reading the MHRA amendment, which simply says that it’s unlawful to “deny a person equal opportunity in athletic programs…on the basis of gender identity.”

It’s not even clear from the bill sponsor’s testimony at the public hearing on May 14, 2021 that enactment would mandate allowing males who identify as females to compete as female athletes.

Titled, “An Act To Improve Consistency Within the Maine Human Rights Act,” the 11-page bill was sponsored by Senator Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec), who introduced himself to the Judiciary committee as “a former cross-gendered performance artist and substitute teacher.” It’s well worth the time it takes to read Hickman’s two pages of bizarre testimony, but here’s the portion I want to call readers’ attention to today:

“Back in 1993, when I was young and some say pretty, a paragon of androgyny, the cover photo of my book Rituals: Poetry and Prose caught the eye. Leslie Feinberg featured that photo in Transgender Warriors with the following quote. This was back in 1996:

‘I find that as a cross-gendered artist and person that I have a very big responsibility to myself and to the people who hear and read my work because gender roles stifle and in my opinion are the basis for all oppression…’ ”

Get it? According to Sen. Hickman, those arbitrary “gender roles” assigned at birth are the basis for all oppression. This is cultural Marxism on steroids.

Given the flimsy, fanciful legal foundation on which the trans cult’s house of cards is built, woke lawyers are in high demand to bully and browbeat skeptical school board members into submission. Chief among the taxpayer-funded shysters is the Portland-based Drummond Woodsum law firm that advises school districts to adopt the model “open door” bathroom policy that was reinstated at RSU 40 on August 1st.

Contrary to Drummond Woodsum’s false claims, Maine courts have NEVER ruled that public schools must permit students to access the restroom of their choice.

[RELATED: No, Letting Boys Use the Girls’ Bathroom Is Not “Settled Law” in Maine…]

Doe v. RSU 26 is the 2014 Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision often cited by DW’s attorneys as a mandate requiring schools to allow students who identify as transgender to use whichever restroom they want. The case involved Nicole Maines of Orono, a 12-year-old student with a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a mental disorder.

The high court issued a very narrow decision in favor of the student, citing the medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria as the basis for its ruling. Here’s what the court actually said in Doe v. RSU 26 (underline emphasis added):

The determination that discrimination is demonstrated in this case rests heavily on [the student’s] gender identity and gender dysphoria diagnosis, both of which were acknowledged and accepted by the school….Thus, we do not suggest that any person could demand access to any school facility or program based solely on a self-declaration of gender identity or confusion without the plans developed in cooperation with the school and the accepted and respected diagnosis that are present in this case. Our opinion must not be read to require schools to permit students casual access to any bathroom of their choice.

But the policy Drummond Woodsum is pushing on school districts across Maine explicitly states that no medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria is necessary. All that’s required is a self-declaration while at school that the student’s “gender identity” is different from the student’s biological sex observed at birth.

The dishonesty of DW’s lawyers is almost as breathtaking as the arrogance of trans activist Sue Campbell.

In closing, here’s another nugget of good news for parents’ rights advocates.

On the issue of schools concealing information from parents about their child’s expressed desire to “transition” to the opposite sex, the tide appears to be turning against the Gender Bender Industrial Complex. Several Maine school districts, including woke Yarmouth, have already amended their “Transgender and Gender Expansive Student” policies to require full disclosure to parents unless the superintendent has evidence or has reasonable cause to suspect that involving the parents would likely lead to abuse or neglect of the student.

Sue Campbell and her ilk are about to discover they can’t have it both ways. You can’t slander parents for not being “supportive” – implying that they may harm their children – unless you’re prepared to present evidence to back up that charge as a mandated reporter under Maine child protective statutes.

Put up or shut up, Ms. Campbell.

Lawrence Lockman of Bradley served four terms in the Maine House of Representatives, from 2012 to 2020. He is Co-founder and President of the conservative non-profit Maine First Project. He may be reached at larrylockman22@gmail.com