Trump DOJ Sues Maine in Fight Over Trans Athletes

The Justice Department filed a complaint against Maine’s Department of Education Wednesday, claiming the state’s refusal to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports violates Title IX.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called policies around transgender athletes a “huge issue” for the president as she announced the government’s intention to sue alongside Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, activist Riley Gaines, and Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Maine). Bondi said other states including Minnesota and California are also at risk of similar actions.

“Pretty simple, girls play in girls sports, boys play in boys sports. Women play in women’s sports, men play in men’s sports,” Bondi said Wednesday.

Maine and the federal government—specifically Gov. Janet Mills and president Donald Trump—have been at odds in recent weeks. The state has refused to comply with a February executive order banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Trump threatened Mills at a meeting with governors later that month, saying, “You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding.” Mills replied: “We’re going to follow the law sir. We’ll see you in court.”

In response to Maine’s retaliation, the federal Department of Agriculture froze federal funding “for certain Maine educational programs” on April 2. Maine then sued the department on April 7 citing cuts to school meal programs, and on April 11, a federal judge ordered the funds to be restored.

All of this made Wednesday’s move “expected” in Mills’s words. “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,” the governor said in a statement Wednesday.

Title IX bans sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. For the first five decades of the law, the Department of Education had never sanctioned a school for Title IX violations by pulling funding, despite nearly every Division I institution failing to comply with some aspect of the complex requirements. 

Maine has cited legal precedent saying that Title IX supports transgender women participating in women’s sports. The Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees school sports, holds that the executive order clashes with the state’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in education. The Principals’ Associations has refused to sign a letter of compliance after the Trump administration found last month that the organization—as well as the state’s Department of Education, and one high school—had violated Title IX.

The DOJ argues that Maine is discriminating against its female athletes, and that Title IX concerns “sex”—which the complaint says was defined by Trump’s earlier executive order—rather than gender identity. The filing cites three students it says are each “a boy” and have competed or won girls’ competitions in Maine.

“I don’t care if it’s one, I don’t care if it’s two, I don’t care if it’s 100—it’s going to stop, and it’s going to stop in every single state,” Bondi said Wednesday.

The suit asks to “establish a process to compensate female athletes who have been denied equal athletic opportunities due to [Maine’s] violations, including past athletics records,” while Bondi also said the DOJ is “considering whether to retroactively pull all the funding that they have received for not complying in the past.”

Maine’s attorney general Aaron Frey said in a statement he is “confident” his state is in line with Title IX and the Maine Human Rights Act.

“Our position is further bolstered by the complete lack of any legal citation supporting the Administration’s position in its own complaint,” Frey said. “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. ”

The Biden administration tried to expand rights of LGBTQ+ students—without including transgender athletes—but those protections were halted by a federal judge near the end of his term. Trump, meanwhile, has signed executive orders against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, ordering the government to recognize male and female as the only two sexes, and specifically targeted transgender athletes with his Feb. 5 executive order.