News from the Pine Tree State
$100K for Out Maine
OUT Maine, the Rockport, Maine–based LGBTQ youth support nonprofit, received $100,000 to create online educational tools for schools and providers.
Thanks to generous donations from Jane’s Trust and You Have Our Trust Fund, OUT Maine is converting its in-person professional development curriculum and expanding the content to reach even more teachers and service providers who work with LGBTQ+ youth.
OUT Maine’s training initiative helps youth by building a safety net of informed providers across rural communities. Their training initiative focuses on creating welcoming and affirming environments for LGBTQ+ youth in a variety of settings, including schools, youth camps/programs, medical and therapy practices and community service providers.
More: outmaine.org
Hickman elected state senator
Back in 2012, then-State Rep. Craig Hickman of Maine became the first openly gay Black man elected to the state’s legislature. In March, after serving four terms in the House, Hickman was sworn in to his first term as a state Senator, becoming the first Black man to serve in both of Maine’s legislative chambers.
“When I first was elected I remember saying that the voters pretty much have proven that it doesn’t matter what you look (like) or who you love, or how you walk or talk,” he told the Kennebec Journal. “It only matters what you do. I just live that all day, every day.”
Hickman, who lives in Winthrop, Maine on an organic farm with his husband, Jop Blom, was the delegate chosen to announce Maine’s votes for Joe Biden in the Democratic National Convention televised roll call last summer. One by one, a delegate from each state and territory pledged their votes via a live video feed, broadcast across the country and around the world.
When it came Maine’s turn, there was Rep. Hickman, telling millions of television viewers, “My American Dream? I’m living it! A 25-acre organic farm by the lake, a roadside produce stand, and a bed & breakfast. My husband and I aren’t corporate tycoons, we just want to make an honest living and feed our community.”
No support from Collins
The sole Republican US Senator who’d previously sponsored the Equality Act back in 2019, Susan Collins of Maine, told a Washington Blade reporter she’d “not co-sponsor” it again in 2020. However, she left open the possibility for a vote in favor of a revised version after the bill arrived on the Senate floor, which it did on March 17.
Specifically, a Collins spokesperson told the Blade the following week, Collins sought exceptions for facilities that serve men and women separately (like domestic violence and homeless shelters) and for religious organizations, and more study into transgender girls and women participating in school sports.
The Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, narrowly passed in the House of Representatives. President Biden promised to sign it into law as soon as the 60 votes necessary to pass it in the Senate could be delivered. Collins’ vote, of course, would be important.
School sports
A bill to bar transgender girls and young women from participating in school sports has been introduced in the Maine House of Representatives. The bill (LD 926) would apply to students ranging from elementary all the way up to post-secondary school sports programs, according to the Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.
“The bill would also require an invasive and demeaning medical examination for any girl or young woman who is wrongly excluded from participation on a girls’ or women’s team,” said GLAD in a press release.
“As Mainers we all want fairness in school sports but this bill isn’t fair, it’s harmful to young people. Not only would the bill exclude some girls and young women from important developmental opportunities because of who they are, it would subject any girl who wants to challenge that exclusion to a prying and privacy-invading medical exam,” said Gia Drew, program director at EqualityMaine.
“We can have both fairness for girls and inclusion of all girls in sports,” said Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s civil rights project director. “Allowing young people to develop and grow as people through participating in sports is good for them and for their, and all our, futures. That’s the track record we’ve built in Maine.”
Equity Fund grants
The Maine Community Foundation’s Equity Fund awarded seven grants that total $50,687 to nonprofit organizations for projects and capacity-building work that address LGBTQ+ issues and needs in the state.
Among the grantees is the Frannie Peabody Center in Portland, funded to evaluate its internal practices through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens and operationalize the agency’s practices to protect and uplift BIPOC and LGBTQIA populations.
Maine Transgender Network in Portland received support for ensuring transgender people in all communities in Maine have access to spaces where they belong, and health care where they are affirmed.
And Outright Lewiston Auburn was funded to continue their ongoing support of LGBTQ+ youth, families and schools in Western Maine.
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