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A four-woman squad of Presque Isle High School student athletes helped lead a march on Maine’s state Capitol building in Augusta last week.
They went to spar with state legislature Democrats over three bills that would ban biological males from girls’ sports – an issue that has sent their state and sports seasons spiraling into chaos in 2025.
For three of them, it was their first political rally, and they were taking center stage. They had to wade through pro-transgender counter-protesters outside the building, and dismissive liberal lawmakers inside it.
“It was a little intimidating knowing they don’t have the same beliefs as us,” Hailey Himes, a first-time protester, told Fox News Digital.
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Maine girls’ track and field athlete Hailey Himes (Courtesy of Hailey Himes)
But Himes said she realized she had to join the fight to protect girls’ sports from trans athletes when her English teacher assigned her an essay on the subject on March 12.
Just one month before that, Himes and other female athletes witnessed the pole vault jump that plunged their state into a national conflict, when a trans athlete won first place in girls’ pole vault for Greely High School in early February.
“I watched this male pole vaulter stand on the podium and we were all just like looking we were like ‘We’re pretty sure that’s not a girl. There’s no way that’s a girl,'” Himes said. “It was really discouraging, especially for the girls on the podium not in first place. So that motivated me to fight for them.”
So Himes, along with her track and field teammates Lucy Cheney and Carrlyn Buck, marched on Augusta, following the lead of fellow Presque Isle track athlete Cassidy Carlisle, who has already taken part in two marches in Augusta and trips to Washington, D.C., to meet with GOP leaders on the issue.
The group had gained plenty of experience in dealing with controversies involving trans athlete, close to home for years together. Years earlier, the girls saw their high school rocked by a situation involving a trans athlete, when a biological male joined the girls’ tennis team.
“We all heard of it from friends and none of us do tennis so it was just kind of a word of mouth kind of thing,” Cheney said. “At that point we couldn’t really do anything about it because the administration agreed to let them play so we really just had to accept it, and really no one else on the team really wanted to accept it, but they had to.”
Maine girls’ track and field athlete Lucy Cheney
All four girls added that it quickly became one of the most-discussed topics in Presque Isle High School when it first happened, and it continued throughout the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, before the trans athlete graduated last summer.
Now, this year, they’ve all had to compete under the shadow of a national conflict between their state and President Donald Trump because Gov. Janet Mills and the Democratic majority have committed to keeping trans athletes in girls’ sports.
Mills’ stance risks costing the state’s high schools federal funding, while leaving Carlisle, Himes, Cheney, Buck and their teammates facing the anxiety of competing against trans athletes in the state’s track and field playoffs.
MAINE ROCKED BY TRANS ATHLETE DOMINANCE AT GIRLS’ TRACK MEET AMID ONGOING LEGAL CONFLICT WITH TRUMP
When the four teens got into the Capitol on Thursday, they came face to face with the individuals who were fighting to keep trans athletes in their sports. The Maine legislature’s Democratic majority has been actively and aggressively resisting the Trump administration for months over the president’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order.
But now three Republican-backed bills – LD 868, LD 233 and LD 1134 – were on their own floor to reverse its policy, and over a dozen Maine high school girls’ athletes were there to fight the Democrats for it.
“They definitely asked a lot less questions to the people who they didn’t agree with than the people who they did agree with, and you could tell they did not feel as compassionate,” Cheney said of the Democratic leaders.
“They got emotional just when [pro-trans speakers] were sharing, and it seemed like they really cared for them, and they wanted to support them, and it didn’t feel as much as they wanted to hear our side.”
Buck said that when the Democrats did come to them with questions, they seemed “hostile.”
“They just seemed more hostile toward our testimonies when they did ask questions,” Buck said. “It felt like a lot of questions were being pestering.”
Maine girls’ track and field athlete Carrlyn Buck
Still, the teens made sure to let everyone in the chamber know what it was they were dealing with, as the trans athletes competing in Maine’s track and field playoffs threaten to upend their entire season.
A trans-identifying athlete who competed for North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth, Maine, recently dominated the girls’ 800-meter and 1600-meter events at the Poland-NYA-Yarmouth-Seacoast meet, prompting national outrage.
“For my teammates, and some of my best friends on the team that are in the events with [the trans athletes], it’s really unfortunate for them, and just our team as a whole because those points will impact our team ranking,” Himes said, adding that another local girl suggested her parents won’t allow her to compete in the same event with a trans athlete.
Buck added, “It’s not just about the points, it’s also that our teammates are going to feel discouraged when placed in an event against them because they’re going in already knowing that the outcome is decided, with playing against a biological male who is biologically stronger than them, so they have no chance.”
Carlisle is already very familiar with that feeling of defeat, having lost to the same athlete who dominated the Poland-NYA-Yarmouth-Seacoast meet in past running and skiing competitions, dating back to 2023. On top of that, she first had to experience changing in the same locker room with a male in seventh grade when a trans student was in her gym class.
MAINE GIRL INVOLVED IN TRANS ATHLETE BATTLE REVEALS HOW STATE’S POLICIES HURT HER CHILDHOOD AND SPORTS CAREER
Maine high schooler Cassidy Carlisle running in a track event. (Courtesy of Cassidie Carlisle)
But even now, as an ascending crusader against trans inclusion in girls’ sports, having attended marches, meetings of GOP attorneys general and even a Department of Justice press conference announcing a lawsuit against Maine over the issue, she says she still has a friend who is transgender.
“I communicate with them almost on the daily, we never have negative interactions,” Carlisle said. “For people that want to say we’re not accepting, that’s not the problem. We don’t have a problem in general with trans people. We have a problem when it starts to impact our lives.”
Carlisle has saved her resentment, not for trans people, or even the trans athletes, but for Mills.
“She is directly looking at us and saying ‘I don’t care about you,'” Carlisle said. “When I vote next time, I’ll absolutely take that into consideration.”
All four teens plan on making regular trips to the state Capitol to lobby on behalf of LD 868, LD 233, and LD 1134 until they are signed into law, as they seek to keep males out of their sports, and keep federal funding going to their schools.
“Our schools need federal funding,” Carlisle said. “So for [Mills], now she’s not just looking at Maine girl athletes and saying ‘I don’t really care about you.’ She’s looking at students in Maine and saying ‘I don’t care about you and I don’t care if your school gets funding, because I’m going to pick a fight that really doesn’t need to be picked.'”
The DOJ has accused the state of “openly and defiantly flouting federal anti-discrimination law by enforcing policies that require girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions designated exclusively for girls,” according to a complaint obtained by Fox News Digital.
Mills, the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Principals’ Association have held firmly in support of continuing to enable trans inclusion in girls’ sports across the state, citing the Maine Human Rights Act as the precedent for determining gender eligibility.
Meanwhile, two Maine school districts have already taken matters into their own hands, as MSAD No. 70 and RSU No. 24 have each moved to amend their own policies to keep trans athletes out of girls’ sports.
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Presque Isle High School girls’ athletes, from left, Carrlyn Buck, Hailey Himes, Cassidy Carlisle and Lucy Cheney. (Fox News Digital)
And in addition to those school districts and young women like Carlisle, Buck, Himes and Cheyney, Mills and the Democrats may ultimately end up facing more internal resistance than external.
A survey by the American Parents Coalition found that out of about 600 registered Maine voters, 63% said that school sports participation should be based on biological sex, and 66% agreed it is “only fair to restrict women’s sports to biological women.”
The poll also found that 60% of residents would support a ballot measure limiting participation in women’s and girls’ sports to biological females. This included 64% of independents and 66% of parents with kids under age 18.
But so far, the governor has remained firm in opposing Trump on the issue, even at the cost of taxpayer-funded legal fees.
“I’m happy to go to court and litigate the issues that are being raised in this court complaint,” Mills told reporters in April.
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