Maine residents agree with keeping trans athletes out of girls' and women's sports, poll shows

Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby discusses Maine’s refusal to follow the Trump administration's executive order on transgender athletes in girls' sports.

Most Maine residents do not believe transgender athletes should compete in girls’ and women’s sports, a University of New Hampshire poll released Thursday showed.

The survey came as the Trump administration’s deadline for the state to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to bar biological males from girls’ and women’s sports came. Maine refused to comply with the order and the Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights referred the state’s "noncompliance with Title IX" to the Justice Department.

The poll showed that 64% of Maine residents believe transgender athletes "definitely should not" or "probably should not" participate in girls’ and women’s sports. Only 29% of Maine residents believed that transgender athletes "probably should" or "definitely should" compete against girls and women in sports.

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Gov. Janet Mills attends an event, March 11, 2022, in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

The poll also showed that 56% of Maine Democrats believe that transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.

When it came to enacting policies to combat the issue of transgender participation in sports, the poll showed that 50% of Maine residents wanted it at the federal level, while 41% believe policy should be left up to the states.

Around 1,057 Maine residents completed the poll between March 20 and 24 with the margin of error being around 3%.

The poll’s results came as Maine officials continued to thumb their nose at Trump’s "No Men in Women’s Sports" executive