Get ready for a trans-ition year
Here’s a news flash: It doesn’t matter who the nominees for governor, U.S. senator or any other office turn out to be in 2026. Next year’s election in Maine isn’t going to be about some dumb candidate. It’s going to be about one overriding issue.
The economy? Don’t be silly. No governor or senator is going to fix that.
Health care? You’ll be long dead by the time that mess gets straightened out. Housing? Don’t throw away that refrigerator carton. You might need it.
No, the crucial issue that’s about to dominate the ’26 campaign won’t be anything that will directly affect the lives of 99 percent of Mainers. But it’s going to be hell for that remaining 1 percent (and their families and friends).
Republicans are formatting plans to make the debate all about transgendered girls playing sports. And finding a place to take a pee.
Because that’s way more important than rising property taxes or declining infrastructure or drug addiction or any of those other complicated issues for which the GOP has no practical solutions.
Instead of futzing around with that crap, Maine Republicans, with backing from the national party, intend to take a page out of the Donald Trump playbook, mimicking his very effective anti-trans TV spot (“Kamala is for they/them. I am for you”). They intend to back Democratic candidates into a corner if they support Maine’s civil rights law that bans discrimination based on gender identity.
They’re going to get some major help with that from a proposed referendum that could appear alongside those candidates’ names on the November 2026 ballot. The ballot question would repeal gender-identity protections when it comes to school sports and bathrooms. This would bring Maine into alignment with Trump’s worldview, which says there are only two sexes and he gets to decide which one you are.
As the campaign heats up, candidates are going to be pressed on this issue to the exclusion of all else. Who cares if we’re invading Venezuela to fight drugs that don’t come from Venezuela, or sending the Army into Boston to fight crime that isn’t there, or tearing down the Washington Monument because it gives the president penis envy. The only thing that matters is whether the small number of transgendered girls who play high-school sports in Maine (two? three?) are limited to playing on the team that aligns with their birth gender.
If a candidate isn’t cool with that, expect the GOP to come after them with biblical fury, all the hate speech they can muster, and some variation on the they/them/you ad. Meanwhile, Susan Collins, Paul LePage and whatever toxic mutants the GOP selects to run for governor and the 1st Congressional District can all pander to voters’ ardent desire to blame everything wrong with the world on this minuscule minority with no power to fight back.
This isn’t mere speculation.
According to several national news sources, Republicans are gearing up to use transphobia as a central campaign theme in several states, including Maine. Why? Because it worked for Trump and polls show it’ll work for local GOP candidates well enough that they’ll be able to win in spite of impending recession, impending wars, government shutdowns, rising insurance premiums and the destruction of the East Wing of the White House.
Needless to say (but I will anyway), there isn’t much rational thinking behind this. Unlike most of the real issues mentioned above, transgendered people, particularly transgendered kids, don’t pose any threat to anybody. But you’d never know that from a campaign brochure distributed in Belfast that claimed current law promotes “radical transgender propaganda in the classroom,” or from a speech during legislative debate by Katrina Smith, the assistant House Republican leader, who claimed transgender protections were an attempt to “erase women” from the record books and amounted to physical and mental abuse.
This is basically the same sort of right-wing hysteria that was used (and is still being used) against gay rights and same-sex marriage, and before that against civil rights for Blacks, and even before that against giving women the right to vote. All of which boils down to [evangelical preacher voice]: It is an affront to God that will destroy traditional society.
Transgendered people don’t deserve the wave of hatred headed their way. The tiny number of instances when a trans girl has won an athletic contest over cis-gendered competition doesn’t justify upending civil rights law just so Trump can fly to Maine to snatch the trophy away from them and hand it to the runner-up. No one (except Trump) is going to feel good about that.
There are critical issues to be dealt with in deciding who to back in the mid-term elections. Changing the law to harass people who changed their gender doesn’t address a critical issue. It’s just an ugly distraction.
Al Diamon also opines on serious issues every Wednesday in the Bangor Daily News’ e-mail newsletter, Maine Politics Insider. He can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
