Anti-trans activists turn in signatures for sports ban in Maine as new strategy takes holdhttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/anti-trans-activists-turn-in-signatures-for-sports-ban-in-maine-as-new-strategy-takes-hold/ 🔗Alex Bollinger (3 Feb 2026)
Organizers from the anti-trans group "Protect Girls Sports" in Maine say that they turned in over 82,000 signatures to the state secretary of state's office to put a trans sports ban on the November ballot this year.
Their ballot initiative would require the entities that govern interscholastic sports to designate all teams as male, female, or coed and allow only students assigned female at birth to participate in girls' sports. The ballot initiative would also require restrooms, locker rooms, and showers to be separated by sex assigned at birth.
The state is now reviewing the signatures that Protect Girls Sports turned in to see if at least 67,682 of them are valid. That's the minimum number of signatures from Maine voters required to qualify an issue for the ballot.
This is the second state where anti-trans activists have attempted to get a sports ban on the November ballot. In January, the group Let's Go Washington said that it turned in more than enough signatures to put a sports ban on the ballot in that state. The Washington ballot initiative will also include authorization for genital examinations for girls who want to participate in school sports.
Anti-trans organizers may be turning to ballot initiatives because every state that will pass a trans sports ban through its legislature already has, and Democratic elected officials tend to be more opposed to trans sports bans than Democratic voters.
