Maine is garnering the national spotlight as the rights of transgender student-athletes is under scrutiny here. But currently women are not guaranteed equal rights under the law in the state.

Some are hoping to correct that.

While Gov. Janet Mills refuses to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for a nationwide ban on transgender student-athletes and bills to restrict the rights of transgender students in schools are being submitted to the Legislature, according to the Portland Press Herald, the State Judiciary Committee held a hearing March 4 regarding an amendment, L.D. 260, that would constitutionally guarantee equal rights not only to women, but to racial, sexual and religious groups, among others, on Tuesday.

To shine a light on the issue, the Gray Democratic Caucus collaborated with the Maine ERA for All Coalition to host a discussion around efforts to add an Equal Rights Amendment to Maine’s state Constitution at the Gray Public Library on Feb. 26.

While Maine ratified the federal ERA in 1974, it is one of 22 states that does not guarantee gender equality at the state level.

“I’m just flabbergasted that women are not equal to men under the foundational documents of our country and our state,” said Anne Gass, one of the hosts of the event.

Gass serves as a member of both Gray’s Town Council and Maine’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. She is also an independent historian who has written a number of books on women’s history and spent 14 years researching the history of the women’s rights movement. Gass, who has unsuccessfully run for the Maine House of Representatives twice, said that the majority of people she heard from on the campaign trail believed that gender equality was constitutionally enshrined.

In conjunction with the discussion, there was a screening of the documentary “Ratify,” centered around efforts in Virginia to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment. Virginia was one of three states to ratify the amendment during the first Trump administration, thus bringing the number of ratifying states to the constitutionally-required 38. However, the original amendment, as voted on by Congress in 1972, had a 10-year time limit, which supporters argue was unconstitutional, making the future of the would-be 28th Amendment uncertain.

According to polling from the Maine Women’s Lobby, large majorities across the political spectrum support the ratification of the Maine State ERA, including 90% of Democrats, 79% of independents, and 56% of Republicans.

Nevertheless, Gass and Sandy Carder, head of the Gray Democratic Committee, mentioned how, unlike in the 1970s, support and opposition to the ERA is heavily split along partisan lines, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting against. According to the ERA Maine website, constitutional amendments in Maine require a two-thirds majority in both houses before they are sent to the people as a referendum, and with Maine’s state Legislature being almost evenly split along party lines, the ERA has not been able to pass in the last four legislative sessions.

Although Gass acknowledged that the prospects of getting the amendment through this year were low, she was not deterred, and traveled to Augusta in person to testify at the hearing. She and Carder, who planned to testify remotely, encouraged attendees to speak in favor of the amendment via Zoom. The two of them explained that, even if the amendment failed, testifying would be an opportunity to expand outreach and education for future sessions, where they hoped it would have a much better chance.