Maine girl involved in trans athlete battle reveals how state's policies hurt her childhood and sports career

Maine high school student Cassidy Carlisle opened up to Fox News Digital about her experience dealing with trans people in the state's public schools and sports. She is taking a stand.

Cassidy Carlisle was in seventh grade when she had to change in the same locker room as a transgender student, she said. 

During a gym class at Presque Isle Middle School in northern Maine six years ago, she said she walked into the locker room to find a biological male who would change with her and other girls. She alleges she was told by administrators that if she tried to avoid changing with the trans student, she would risk being late to class. 

"That was really my first experience in just knowing that something isn't right, but not knowing what to do with that," Carlisle told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. Fox News Digital has reached out to Presque Isle Middle School for comment.

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Gender identity was first included in the Maine Human Rights Act as part of the definition of sexual orientation in 2005. In 2021, the law was amended to add gender identity as its own protected class, joining other protected classes such as sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, color and religion. The law specifically says that denying a person equal opportunity in athletic programs is education discrimination.

The transgender student was only in the girls locker room for about a week, Carlisle claims, before mysteriously vanishing. But the memory of the experience stuck with her. 

Maine high school student Cassidy Carlisle skiing (Courtesy of Cassidy Carlisle)

The memory especially stuck with her in her junior year of high school, when she