A Kennebunk Select Board member is under fire for comments supporting transgender athletes during a recent school board meeting.

At the Oct. 20 meeting, Leslie Trentalange spoke in support of transgender students, saying that those who are not in support of transgender students being allowed to play sports are not the majority opinion.

“The majority in this district knows that all students are welcome,” Trentalange said.

Trentalange then said those advocating against transgender students’ rights “clearly don’t care at all about the well-being of our students. Their obsession with genitalia points not to caring about the students in this district, but perhaps toward an underlying guilt for their own pedophilic tendencies. There is a registry for that.”

Trentalange’s comments were met with gasps from audience members, and board Chair Matthew Stratford asked her to stop speaking.

“There is no place for that, Leslie,” Stratford said. “That was inappropriate.”

“I don’t think that was inappropriate at all, and I stand by my comments,” Trentalange responded.

In a statement to the community on Oct. 27, Stratford did not directly address the comments made by Trentalange, but said that there is “no place for harassment, discriminatory language, disrespectful words, or other disruptive speech or comments” during public comment periods at school board meetings.

Stratford also noted that public comment periods this year have been largely dominated by conversations around transgender students.

Currently, the district’s policy states that every student, including transgender and gender-expansive students, has the opportunity to learn and participate in a school environment that is safe, inclusive, and free from discrimination or harassment.

“This policy remains compliant and grounded in Maine law, and the school board has no plans to revisit this during the 2025-26 school year,” Stratford wrote.

Several community members have spoken up advocating for the censure of Trentalange, demanding that she resign from her position on the Select Board.

John Salamone from Hollis gave a statement during the public comment section of the Oct. 28 Kennebunk Select Board meeting, calling on the board to take formal action against Trentalange.

“When an elected official uses her platform to publicly slander citizens, she undermines the integrity of this board, and erodes public trust in local government,” Salamone said. “Miss Trentalange should issue a public apology to the citizens she defamed and if she refuses, I ask the board to move forward with a formal vote of censure and to begin the process of her removal.”

There have also been community members speaking out in support of Trentalange, like Rebecca Read, a resident of Kennebunkport whose children graduated from RSU 21 in recent years.

Read, similar to Trentalange, remains focused on supporting the transgender students of the district.

“The community is planning a silent, peaceful, stand out in solidarity with our trans children at Kennebunk Elementary School prior to the next school board meeting …” said Read, “to show that the majority of our community supports the human rights and dignity of all our children.”

When she spoke at the school board meeting on Oct. 20, Read referenced a letter sent from the school board chair and the superintendent privately in response to a group of concerned parents, that allegedly emphasized their commitment to protecting the rights of transgender students in the district, citing the Maine Human Rights Act.

Trentalange stood by her comments, but apologized for any backlash that community members may have felt.

“If there are folks in the marginalized queer community who feel my message did not serve them, or hurt them in any way, it is that which I regret,” said Trentalange. “I also regret the undue and undeserved backlash other members of the Select Board or town’s staff have felt over my comments as an individual.”

Trentalange also relinquished her role as RSU 21 liaison.

Miriam Whitehouse, the Select Board chair, said, “she was very clearly speaking as an individual, not as a board member. As such, she is fully protected under the First Amendment. We’re not going to weigh in on what she said. The first sentence of our code of conduct says that it applies to us when we’re conducting Select Board business … which clearly this was not. She is clearly protected.”

Also at the Select Board meeting, several members of the board spoke out as private citizens about their opinions on the matter.

“I do not at all condone the situation in the way that it happened,” said Kortney Nedeau, “I personally feel that Leslie had 100% the right and the freedom of speech to say what she feels about any topic, just like any of us do, and I will always support my fellow board members. I just know that as an elected official for me, it is an ethical decision to never cross that line.”