TURNER — Directors of Maine School Administrative District 52 — including Turner, Leeds and Greene — last month directed its policy committee to draft changes regarding gender to align with President Donald Trump’s Title IX interpretation.

If the policy is ultimately approved, students would have to use the bathrooms and locker rooms, and play on the sports teams, that align with the gender they were assigned at birth.

The review will take place when the board reconvenes at the beginning of the next school year. Proposed changes will have to be voted on by the board before being implemented, according to Vice Chair Peter Ricker.

Meanwhile, people are split on the issue, with some feeling the changes are necessary to make sports more fair and bathrooms and locker rooms more comfortable for girls.

Others say the proposed changes are an unjust attack on trans students in a school system where they already struggle to feel accepted.

An executive order issued Jan. 30 by President Trump recognizes only two sexes, male and female. Though “biological gender” does not seem to be explicitly defined in the executive order, it defines female as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” and male as “ a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

He also issued a Feb. 5 mandate meant to exclude men and transgender women from women’s sports teams and locker rooms.

The school board’s directive on Trump’s interpretation of the Title IX policy was approved by a 5-3 vote, with Ricker, Ashley Michaud and Alec Cutter, all of Turner, and Anthony Shostak and Kyle Purington, both of Greene, voting in favor of the directive.

Jenny Maheu of Turner, Breanna Allard of Greene and Crystal Barus  of Leeds voted against the directive.

Board Chair Joseph McLean of Leeds was absent due to medical reasons.

Ricker is particularly concerned about fairness in girls sports, while Allard feels the changed policies would disproportionately negatively impact transgender students in the district.

Director Kyle Purington said he tries to maintain an open mind about every point of view. His child is nonbinary, which means they do not identify as strictly male or female. However, he said, he also needs to consider the views of the whole public.

“I’m trying to stay open minded to all parties,” Purington said.

Policies allowing transgender students in bathrooms, locker rooms and on sports teams that align with their perceived gender have been put in place following years of advocacy.

Purington said he feels the LBGTQ+ community has been put above everyone else, causing harm to girls.

It’s unsafe for transgender girls to play in girls sports because of their physiological differences, he said, and girls often are afraid to speak out publicly about their concerns for fear of causing problems.

Those in the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters may view the proposed policy changes as taking something away from them, Purington said, but they are just making things more equal.

Still, he said he does not know how he will vote until he sees what is presented and has heard discussion about it.

“I try to take everybody’s insight and try to make the best decision off of it,” Purington said.

Purington said that no matter what, he will always love and support his child.

Bea Purington, who uses they/them pronouns, feels fortunate that they come from a family who accepts them, and though they do not always see eye-to-eye on many issues with their father, they still feel respected by him.

The 2024 Leavitt Area High School graduate came out as nonbinary recently but did not feel comfortable to do so when they were in high school. Bea Purington said they witnessed many of the students who are part of the LGBTQ+ community in the high school be bullied because they were queer, including commonly being called “dogs.”

“I lived every day there in the closet as almost like a safety precaution for myself whether it was healthy or not,” Bea Purington said of their time at Leavitt. “And it wasn’t until recently that I noticed this looming threat and realize that, like, it’s now or never and the world has to know, and I also need to raise my voice and support my fellow queer kids because that’s exactly what I wish I had when I was going to Leavitt.”

Often kids in the LGBTQ+ community face bullying from cisgendered students  — people whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth — on sports teams. Even if a transgender student wanted to join a sports team, whether it aligned with their perceived gender or not, the bullying has a chilling effect on them, Bea Purington said.

Kyle Purington said he is aware that bullying goes on at the high school, beyond just that of a certain group of kids, and he is staunchly against it. There are systems in place to address bullying at the high school, he said.

Bea Purington is concerned that the changes will only intensify the bullying and make students who are part of the LGBTQ+ community feel more unwelcome.

“I respect parents for worrying about their kids but I think that they’re completely misguided,” they said. “Essentially, people are just being convinced to hate yet another minority.”

Others said the changes would have made them more comfortable as a student in the district.

Courtney Lacasse graduated from Leavitt Area High School roughly a decade ago. She recalls feeling uncomfortable using the bathroom with a transgender student who attended the high school when she was there, she said during the school board’s June 12 meeting.

“In 2010, during my freshman year, there was a boy in my homeroom who identified as female,” she said. “He was always kind to me but I was taken aback one day when I walked into the girls bathroom and found him there.

“I politely said, ‘Hey, I think you got the wrong bathroom,’ expecting a correction. Instead, I was told, ‘I have permission.’ I was confused and uncomfortable. When I brought this concern to my teacher they didn’t have an answer. The vice principal later said it was a ‘unique case’ and that the administration had given him permission.”

She said she felt like her discomfort did not matter to administrators, after being told to accept it and move on. Despite that, she kept raising the issue. She was not the only one uncomfortable but she felt like she and others were not heard, she said.

Lacasse said she wishes she had fought harder against letting the transgender student use the girls bathroom when she was in high school.

“This is no longer one isolated incident,” she said. “This is happening everywhere — in our bathrooms, locker rooms and now on our sports fields. Girls, who are already the most vulnerable, are being forced to give up their privacy and safety and now their opportunities, too.”

However, another former student said the changes will just further marginalize LGBTQ+ students in places where they already feel unwelcome.

Koral Smith, who graduated from Leavitt Area High School this spring, said she is concerned that her nonbinary and transgender friends still attending the high school will not have a place where they feel comfortable either, should the changes take effect. Some of them already struggle with feeling comfortable to use the bathroom in school.

“It upsets me that they (her nonbinary and transgender friends) would have to deal with something like that and that they don’t have a place where they can feel comfortable,” she said. “And it’s not like most of them really use the bathrooms even now because they just don’t really feel like they have a place to belong.”

While she understands the issue around fairness in sports is complicated, she said she is concerned the changes could have a cascading effect in which students will not be referred to as their preferred name or identity, losing that respect.

She said she always viewed Turner as being a community that had a sense of being “together.” But since the pandemic, when some residents started calling for book banning, she has noticed the debate of transgender rights in school becoming more prevalent and divisive.

Smith said she thinks there are compromises that could be made to make people feel more comfortable, such as gender-neutral bathrooms but she is aware that it could come with a high renovation cost in a district already facing higher operating costs.

It is hard for Bea Purington to consider what a compromise could look like. Nonbinary students are just asking for respect, they said, while opponents too often want people like them to just go away.

“In between, ‘We want you banned from school,’ and like, ‘You cannot come here,’ and ‘We will not call you by your preferred name or pronouns,’ and the other side, which says, ‘Please respect me,’ … the middle ground is still, like, ‘we’re not gonna respect you,’’ they said.

Kyle Purington hopes there can be a compromise that makes all students feel heard and comfortable.

As a student representative to the school board this last year, Smith has been able to witness its inner workings and gained a respect for those who serve. She believes none of them wish harm to any students, but wishes they would go about things differently.

“I do very much, like, respect our school board, I know they do a lot of hard work,” she said. “It’s not so much the school board that I feel is trying to hurt anyone. I’m not against the school board at all.

“It’s just, there’s certain people going about things in a certain way that is hurtful and overall the school board isn’t doing much about it or their focus is in a different place,” Smith said.