The Maine Human Rights Commission is suing five school districts for adopting policies restricting the rights of transgender students, saying that creates a hostile educational environment and violates state law.

The suit was filed Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court and comes amid heightened political tensions in Maine over transgender students’ participation in school sports. It was first reported by the Bangor Daily News.

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing the state in a separate case over its policy allowing transgender girls to compete in girls sports. And a group of Maine Republicans and activists also has been gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would change state law to align with the Trump administration’s order.

The districts named in the case are Maine School Administrative District 70 in Hodgdon, Regional School Unit 24 in Sullivan, RSU 73 in Livermore Falls, and the Baileyville and Richmond school districts.

Within the last eight months, all five districts have adopted policies that “create a hostile educational environment for gender non-conforming students” and are in violation of the Maine Human Rights Act, the suit said.

A person who answered the phone at the offices of RSU 24 Tuesday said the district had no comment on the suit. Chad Kempton, the superintendent in Richmond, said he would be reviewing the complaint with the district’s school committee and was not able to comment further on Tuesday.

Superintendents in the three other districts named did not respond to messages and emails Tuesday seeking interviews.

The districts’ policies define sex as “biological sex” and seek to restrict students’ abilities to participate in sports and access private school spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t align with the sex they were assigned at birth, according to the suit.

“Gender nonconforming students in defendants’ districts, and other school districts throughout Maine, are harmed by defendants’ policies because they cannot be assured that they will be protected from unlawful discrimination,” the suit states.

It said other districts throughout Maine are considering repealing their policies protecting transgender students from discrimination and that discussion of the issue has already led to threats of harm for students. In one case, the commission said it received a copy of an email in which an adult expressed the desire to “make an example out of” a “piece of (expletive) tranny” in the third grade, the suit said.

The policies enacted in the five districts violate the Maine Human Rights Act, which states that the “opportunity for an individual at an educational institution to participate in all educational …and all extracurricular activities without discrimination because of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity … is recognized and declared to be a civil right,” the suit states.

The lawsuit also accuses the districts of violating civil rights protections in the Maine Constitution and asks the court to prevent them from enforcing their policies and require that they repeal them and adopt new ones.

It notes that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court already weighed in on the issue of bathroom access in a 2014 case in which it ruled that  a school district in Orono violated the rights of a transgender student, Nicole Maines, by prohibiting her from using the women’s bathroom.

The suit is unusual for the commission, a quasi-independent state agency charged with enforcing Maine’s anti-discrimination laws. Executive Director Kit Thomson Crossman said it is the first time in recent memory that the commission is bringing a suit without having gone through its own investigation process first.

Thomson Crossman, who uses they/them pronouns, said they could not comment on whether the commission has any complaints pending on cases involving transgender students, as any complaints would be confidential under Maine law while they are pending.

But Thomson Crossman said the commission felt urgency to bring a suit because an increasing number of school boards are adopting or considering policies that are in conflict with the Maine Human Rights Act, and it is having a chilling effect on students and their families.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at keeping transgender athletes out of girls sports, arguing that allowing them to compete deprives women and girls of fair athletic opportunities under the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX.

That order preceded a clash between state and federal officials in Maine over the state’s policy, and led to Gov. Janet Mills saying she would challenge the administration on the issue. The U.S. Department of Justice case is expected to go to trial in April.

In the meantime, the five districts now being sued passed their policies. The Hodgdon district in Aroostook County was the first to break with the state’s policy of allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls sports in April, with the superintendent saying at the time that the school board was seeking to align with the Trump administration.

In many cases, school districts have been encouraged to adopt policies by the Maine Education Initiative, a project run by the right-wing Maine Policy Institute and in partnership with the Maine chapter of Parents’ Rights in Education. The initiative provides districts with model policies, letters, workshops and other resources.

Thomson Crossman said they could not speculate Tuesday on how the districts might respond to the lawsuit, but said the focus of the suit is on gaining clarity on Maine, not federal, law.

“For the commission, untested guidance about the application of a federal law with different language from the Maine Human Rights Act is not relevant,” they said.