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US attorney general is suing Maine over transgender athletes [1]
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Date: 2025-04-16
President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice said Wednesday it is suing Maine over the inclusion of transgender athletes in girls sports.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is fulfilling a pledge she made this year to sue the state over alleged violations of Title IX. She made the announcement during a Wednesday morning press conference, appearing alongside Education Secretary Linda McMahon, state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, and athletes who claim to have been harmed by the inclusion of trans athletes.
“We have exhausted every other remedy we tried to get Maine to comply. We don’t like standing up here and filing lawsuits. We want to get states to comply with us. That’s what this is about,” Bondi said.
The 31-page civil rights lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Maine. It targets the Maine Department of Education, alleging it has discriminated against girls and women and has failed to protect them in sports. The complaint alleges that competing with or alongside transgender athletes exposes girls and women to “heightened risks” of physical and psychological harm. The lawsuit cited no instances of girls suffering physical harm while competing with or alongside transgender athletes.
In the lawsuit, the Trump administration points to three examples of transgender athletes competing in girls sporting events or on girls teams. Together, those three athletes placed in the top three in seven events over three years. In two instances, their performances were key in their schools’ placements in track-and-field and skiing competitions, the administration claims.
“This discrimination is not only unfair but also demeaning, signaling to girls that their opportunities and achievements are secondary to accommodating others,” the Trump administration wrote in the lawsuit, calling the state’s policies “unapologetic sex discrimination.”
During her press conference Wednesday, Bondi warned other states against defying the Trump administration, pointing to California and Minnesota as other states facing increased scrutiny over their policies.
“We are going to continue to fight for women,” said Bondi, who called it a “public safety issue.”
It’s the latest entry in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign to force Maine to change its policies toward transgender residents. The lawsuit could ultimately ask the conservative U.S. Supreme Court to define Title IX, the landmark 1972 law barring sex-based discrimination in schools, to outlaw athletic policies like the ones in Maine and more than 20 other states.
Gov. Janet Mills said in a Wednesday statement that she will defend Maine “vigorously” against this latest action from the Trump administration.
“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Mills said.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said he remains confident that the state is acting in accordance with both state and federal laws and cast doubt on the legal basis of the Trump administration’s lawsuit.
“While the President issued an executive order that reflects his own interpretation of the law, anyone with the most basic understanding of American civics understands the president does not create law nor interpret law. We look forward to representing the state of Maine and defending the rule of law,” Frey said in a statement.
Bre Danvers-Kidman, the executive director of MaineTransNet, said Wednesday that the courts have interpreted Title VII and IX as prohibiting discrimination against transgender people.
“Nothing in Title IX — or any executive order — has the power to override the constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. The Trump administration is targeting a poorly understood group of people in hopes of making us scapegoats for the economic games he is playing with our state. Ultimately, it is my hope that everyone will recognize this scapegoating for what it is and allow the greater protections Maine has offered trans residents for over twenty years to stand,” they said.
In February, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports. That had an immediate impact nationally, with the NCAA changing its policy in response.
Not long after that Trump singled out Maine during a Republican governors meeting in Washington. The next day Trump and Mills crossed paths at an event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”
State law, specifically the Maine Human Rights Act, prohibits discrimination in education, employment, housing and more on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, ancestry or national origin.
The U.S. Department of Education launched a separate probe into its state counterpart over allegations that dozens of school districts are hiding students’ “gender plans” from parents in violation of the Family Educational Privacy Rights Act.
The Maine Department of Education missed a Friday deadline from its federal counterpart, agreeing that the state is at “an impasse” with resolving the dispute over the Trump administration’s novel and untested interpretation of Title IX.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services already has referred a Title IX case to the Justice Department.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey last week filed a lawsuit to prevent the U.S. Department of Agriculture from freezing funds over alleged Title IX violations. Those funds support Maine programs to feed schoolchildren, children in day care and vulnerable adults. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release those funds.
Earlier this month, Bondi announced that her department was pulling $1.5 million in “nonessential” funding from the Maine prison system because of a transgender inmate housed in a women’s prison, which she referred to again Wednesday.
The Trump administration also pulled funding for Maine Sea Grant, but since then, the Commerce Department has said it will renegotiate that grant. More than 30 states, Puerto Rico and Guam participate in the national Sea Grant program. No other Sea Grant program has seen its funding cut.
In March, the Social Security Administration ended two programs allowing Maine providers to share birth and death information electronically, a move that meant new parents would have to travel to one of eight Social Security offices to register their newborns for a Social Security number.
The agency reversed that decision within 48 hours.
The acting Social Security administrator, Leland Dudek, took that move in retribution against Mills over her war of words with Trump, despite earlier statements calling it a “mistake.” He even brushed off a senior aide’s warning that it would increase fraud. In an email, Dudek acknowledged “improper payments” would increase, but it was necessary in order to punish a “petulant child.”
In her statement, Mills echoed previous criticism of the Trump administration’s actions targeting Maine, calling the investigations “politically motivated” and “predetermined.”
“Let today serve as [a] warning to all states: Maine might be among the first to draw the ire of the Federal government in this way, but we will not be the last,” Mills said.
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[1] Url:
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/04/16/news/maine-attorney-general-pam-bondi-civil-rights-lawsuit-title-ix-maine-department-of-education-transgender-athletes/
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