Two Maine girls’ soccer players file federal complaint over South Portland male opponent 

Two Maine high school soccer players recently filed a federal civil rights complaint over a male player on South Portland’s girls’ team.

The girls say Maine’s rules don’t give them a fair chance to win.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights this week.

ADF represents Fryeburg Academy junior Reagan Wilson and Windham High junior Morgan Clark, the Christian Post reported. 

The opponent in question is South Portland High freshman Violet Wedick, a male transgender athlete.

Wilson has faced males in both girls’ soccer and girls’ cross country.

“This is unacceptable and has deprived me and so many other girls of equal opportunity to compete and win,” Wilson said at a recent press conference.

Through Oct. 27, Wedick had 15 goals and 10 assists. Wedick had contributed to about half of the team’s goals, OutKick reported.

Wilson’s team lost to South Portland in late August, and Clark’s team tied South Portland on Oct. 1. ADF says those results hurt the teams’ rankings.

The complaint is mainly about Maine’s Department of Education and the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA), though it also names the South Portland and Windham Raymond school districts.

The girls want a federal investigation and for Maine to bar males from girls’ sports.

ADF says Maine is violating Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal funds.

“Every time a male athlete competes on a female team, the athletic opportunities of deserving girls are destroyed,” ADF lawyer Tavia Bruxellas McAlister said in a statement.

MPA policy lets transgender students compete based on either their sex or so-called gender identity.

Maine officials have defended the policy, saying it follows the state’s Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on gender identity.

The Trump administration has already challenged Maine’s transgender athlete policy.

As Heartlander News reported last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found Title IX violations in Maine. That was because transgender athletes Katie Spencer and Soren Stark-Chessa had won girls’ track state titles there.

On Monday, Protect Girls Sports in Maine submitted additional signatures for a proposed 2027 vote on sex-based rules for school sports and private spaces.

The transgender athlete issue remains alive outside Maine.

Voters in several other states faced related ballot measures Tuesday, as Heartlander News also reported.

The measures to bar males from girls’ sports passed in Arizona and Nebraska and were leading in Colorado and Washington state as of Wednesday afternoon. The latter two are solidly blue states.

In Washington, a male Camas High School junior qualified for the girls’ state cross-country meet after switching from the boys’ team midseason, the Center Square reported.

Two Skyview girls who had walked off a racecourse to protest competing against the male runner also qualified for state.

Also in Canada, male athlete Elle Yung joined Western University’s women’s track team after leaving Brandeis University, an NCAA Division III school in Waltham, Massachusetts, Outsports reported.

Yung left Brandeis over the NCAA’s policy banning males from competing in women’s sports. The NCAA adopted that rule in February 2025.

“I felt very safe, but I couldn’t compete,” Yung told Outsports about Brandeis.

Yung will compete in the women’s pentathlon at Western. The team’s season starts later this month.

(Image credit: Reagan Wilson, Screenshot/X/Alliance Defending Freedom)