Kelley McDaniel lives in Portland.

I am very concerned about the Maine ballot initiative that would force trans students to be outed in their schools.

I understand that some of the ballot measure’s proponents may not consider it anti-trans. They call it “Protect Girls’ Sports” and their stated motivation is to require students to be separated based on their sex assigned at birth, rather than by their gender identity. It applies to trans girls and trans boys and, in order to accomplish this identification and segregation, all trans students would first need to be officially identified.

The ballot measure, which will go to voters Nov. 3, would force Maine schools to ensure that students use single-sex spaces — like bathrooms, locker rooms and single-sex sports teams — based on their sex assigned at birth, but it doesn’t say how schools would enforce this, and, if passed, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

Some trans students would be afraid to attend Maine schools. As a parent, I would be afraid for my trans child to attend school knowing that school staff, students and parents would be trying to identify the trans students in their midst.

Would schools ask trans students to self-identify or would all students be required to submit their original birth certificates at the start of the school year? Not everyone can easily access an original birth certificate — due to having been born outside of the country, for example. Would they be outed as foreign-born and subject to the risk of deportation? 

Some children have had their birth certificates amended — due to adoption and name change — and original birth certificates are sometimes difficult to come by. Would they be outed as adopted? Non-trans students could be unintended victims of this process.

I was adopted and changed my name, and when I recently requested my birth certificate from Lewiston, the certificate that I received reflected both changes.

Could students be required to submit a medical form confirming that their genitals had been inspected by a doctor? Would such a list be shared among school staff who would use it to monitor bathrooms and locker rooms? Yes, you may enter. No, you may not.

Official school records would have to include a special marker identifying trans students. Would student IDs?

Would students police each other — reporting suspected trans students in the wrong bathroom or locker room based on whether or not they conform to gender stereotypes? Masculine-looking girls and feminine-looking boys, as well as androgynous students, could be targets, in addition to students with gender-neutral names. You would not need to be trans to be targeted.

One of my sons has a gender-neutral family name and he was misgendered on a childhood passport years ago. We corrected the error when we renewed his passport, but he is now in the system as having changed his gender. We worry that he will spend the rest of his life dealing with anti-trans harassment and discrimination whenever he uses his U.S. passport — even though he is not trans.

Trans youth report four times the rate of suicide attempts than their non-trans peers, and they report more than three times the bullying in school as their non-trans peers.

I don’t believe that everyone who collected signatures for the “Protect Girls’ Sports” petition — or who signed it, or who plans to vote for it — are necessarily anti-trans themselves, but this ballot measure is.

Regardless of how schools identify trans students, this ballot measure will force trans students to be publicly outed — in addition to targeting non-trans students mistakenly identified as trans, and other categories of students caught up in its dragnet — and it will hurt trans children by shining a spotlight on them and making them further targets in their schools and communities.

The action of voting for the measure will speak much louder than the hollow promise that it is not intended to be anti-trans.