Maine Persists with Transgender Delusion While Suppressing Debate About It

I continue to be amazed at the state of Maine’s resistance to returning to the original, correct, and traditional view of Title IX: that it does not allow biological male athletes to compete as girls.  It is truly costing the state financially, if not politically.

What caught my eye this week was the treatment of a parent at a school board meeting in Maine’s capital city of Augusta. The meeting included a testy interaction between a parent, Nick Blanchard, and the school board Chairman, Martha Witham, over Maine’s stubborn and inexplicable insistence that males be allowed to compete in girls’ sports.  This dispute not only includes the State’s dogged adherence to the trans delusion but also presented a glaring free speech issue. 

The facts are very straightforward: Blanched, a local parent, was cut off from speaking several times by Witham when he attempted to raise the issue of biological males competing in girls’ sports.  Blanchard had drafted a petition he wished to present to the school board to have Kim Liscomb, a middle and high school principal, removed from her position.  Liscomb is currently the president of the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA), which supports allowing biological males to compete in girls’ school sports based upon their “gender identity.”   (Jackson Thompson, FOX News, April 10, 2025).

Regarding the meeting itself, I hardly found Blanchard’s commentary to be so egregious or inflammatory as to require him to be silenced or dismissed.  What was really eye-opening was Witham’s demand that “no comments on personnel are allowed in any way … so you may not speak to any individual employees of the … school system.  No complaints or allegations are allowed at board meetings concerning any person employed .. will not be tolerated …”  Witham also condescendingly stated that “we discourage duplication, and we’ve had alot of repetition so if your point has (already been made by others) we understand that point” and don’t need to have it repeated.  (FOX News, Id). 

Witham immediately cut Blanchard off when he merely complimented the 6 board members who voted against allowing men to compete in sports against girls and stated “shame on the one board member that voted” to allow it.  He was cut off again when he mentioned his petition in connection with Liscomb’s name.

I was taken aback.  Is he really not allowed to state a public official’s name??  If that was not enough, Blanchard then clarified that he was not intending to address his comments to Liscomb in particular but the Board generally.  Nevertheless, Witham replied, “such comments will not be tolerated … directed to us or to anyone else in this room.”  He was not even allowed to generally reference “the president of the Maine Principals Association.” 

This is a violation of freedom of speech if I’ve ever seen it.  

This school board is a government entity, and it is directly suppressing, silencing speech the Chairman deems to be “offensive.”  While a government entity is certainly allowed to maintain order and decorum during its meetings, disallowing a reference to a public official directly or even indirectly goes too far.  That is censorship. 

I was also struck by how many times Witham stated that Blanchard’s remarks would not be “tolerated.”  The use of that term in a public forum sounds ominous and authoritative.  (All of this is to say nothing of the prohibition on “repetition or duplication.”  Repetition and duplication of speech regarding public policy by concerned parents is what creates the very pressure required to force school board members, or any elected official, to change course.)

Allowing men to compete against girls in sports is fundamentally unfair. The fact that that point even has to be made in 2025 is a sad commentary on the moral confusion in our American culture.  However, there is simply no justification for silencing a speaker who is attempting to address the issue.  This reminds me of the heavy-handedness of the Biden Administration when parents of public-school students were deemed “domestic terrorists” because they had the “nerve” at school board meetings to challenge the forced masking and vaccinations of their children during Covid and the existence of Woke, pornographic literature in public school libraries.

This government entity in Maine is ripe for a constitutional challenge to the conduct of its meetings.  I hope one is undertaken.