Matt Moonen, executive director of EqualityMaine, said via email on June 7 it is not clear when legislators will vote on the three bills, but the Legislature is set to adjourn next week. Two of the bills proposed this spring, LD 926 and LD 1401, would ban transgender youths in Maine from participating in school sports the other, LD 1238, proposes eliminating trans girls’ and women’s access to private emergency shelters.Īll three of the bills remain in committee, according to the Maine Legislature website. In addition to supporting the anti-hate resolutions in Portland and South Portland, EqualityMaine has also actively opposed three pieces of legislation at the state level that O’Connor described as “anti-trans” bills. “Two weeks (later) we had given away 500 Pride flags and people donated just around $9,000 to support our work and it was phenomenal,” O’Connor said.
![portland gay pride logo portland gay pride logo](https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.573205588.3307/flat,800x800,075,f.jpg)
The next day, 250 more flags had been given away. Within a day of the post, 100 flags were gone. The post also stated people picking up the flags were invited to make donations to EqualityMaine if they wanted to. O’Connor said, however, it can be tough to find Pride flags for purchase when it’s not June, so he posted on the EqualityMaine social media channels in January that his organization would be giving away Pride flags to anyone who wanted one.
Two of the homes that received letters had Pride flags on display another home did not have a flag flying but has a gay resident. Portland and South Portland city councilors encouraged residents to hang the flags on their properties in January after several homes in the cities received anonymous letters containing homophobic slurs. Although the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of Portland’s Pride parade for the second year in a row, Mainers are flying flags in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community this month and, thanks to widespread vaccine acceptance, have new in-person ways to celebrate and show their pride.ĮqualityMaine has given away more than 2,000 pride flags across the state and raised $23,000 as part of an initiative that was more successful than organizers anticipated.Ĭhristopher O’Connor, development director for EqualityMaine, said in an interview last week that he had the idea to give away Pride flags after realizing how difficult it can be to find the flags in stores.