Connect with us

Politics

Maine targeted with federal probes, threats after guv spars with Trump

Just two trans students are competing on girls’ teams in Maine this school year

Published

1 year ago

on

Attorney General Pam Bondi (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Less than three weeks after Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) sparred with President Donald Trump over his executive order prohibiting trans students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity, the state has been hit with sudden cuts to funding and grants along with multiple investigations led by federal agencies and threats of more to come.

The dustup, which came during a Feb. 21 White House convening of the National Governors Association, kicked off when Mills declined to say she would enforce the policy, committing only to abiding by “state and federal law.” The president then threatened to withhold funding for Maine, and the exchange ended with both parties vowing to fight it out in court.

Shortly after Trump’s order was issued, the governing body responsible for overseeing high school sports in Maine said trans athletes would still be allowed to compete because the ban conflicted with provisions of the Maine state Human Rights Act. The Maine Principals’ Association has said only two trans Mainers are competing in girls’ sports this school year.

Hours after that contentious meeting at the White House, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine School Administrative District #51, and the state’s public university system had become targets of inquiries by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and — the following day — an investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

These actions were followed on Feb. 25 by a letter to Mills from Attorney General Pam Bondi providing notice that the Justice Department was likely to soon file a lawsuit because “requiring girls to compete against boys,” or transgender girls, “in sports and athletic events violates Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972.”

Next came a decision in early March by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to pull the $4.5 million Maine Sea Grant for marine research — with ProPublica noting the agency “didn’t touch the 33 other grantees who get similar funding” — and most recently, last week’s cancellation and subsequent reinstatement of Social Security Administration contracts used by hospitals and nursing homes in the state to automatically report births and deaths.

Noting the concurrent probes led by the federal Education and Health Departments, Bondi warned that, “If these or other federal investigations show that the relevant Maine entities are indeed denying girls an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them to compete against boys, the Department of Justice stands ready to take all appropriate action to enforce federal law.”

Moreover, she wrote, because federal law passed by the U.S. Congress supersedes state statutes, it “does not matter if Maine state law allows, or even requires, state athletic associations or other similar entities to require girls to compete against boys in sports and athletic events.”

At the same time, however, Title IX has been interpreted by some courts as protecting the right of trans and gender diverse students to participate in educational programs and activities consistent with their identities, per the statutory anti-discrimination rules established under the Education Amendments of 1972.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sex-based discrimination as defined under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to conduct by public and private sector employees with more than 15 workers, also covers acts that are motivated by the employee’s real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

The decision was cited in the Biden-Harris administration’s updates to the Education Department’s Title IX guidance, which made explicit the argument that trans students in publicly funded schools are covered by explicit protections against discrimination, that the expanded definition of discrimination based on sex applies in the context of public education as well as in employment.

ProPublica, which published a comprehensive report on Tuesday chronicling the Trump administration’s “barrage of investigations and threats” that have come in the wake of the president’s tussle with Mills, notes that the DOJ also recently sent letters to Minnesota and California warning that they would face lawsuits for refusing to comply with or enforce the executive action banning trans students from competitive athletics.

The investigative news outlet also highlighted how unusual it is for an agency like HHS to enforce civil rights laws in a way that falls so far beyond its normal remit, which has primarily and historically centered on issues of health care access, and for the federal government to appear to reach conclusions with “unprecedented speed” in matters whose investigation typically takes months or even years.

Related Topics:
Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Congress

HRC president campaigns for Chris Pappas in NH

Gay congressman running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

Published

1 day ago

on

August 31, 2026

By

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson, left, campaigns with U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in Manchester, N.H., on Aug. 30, 2026. (Photo courtesy of the Human Rights Campaign)

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson on Sunday campaigned for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in New Hampshire.

Robinson traveled to Manchester, the state’s largest city, nine days before the Sept. 8 primary that will determine who will vie for retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)’s seat.

Former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate from 2003-2009, will face off against former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 2010-2013, in the Republican primary.

Karishma Manzur is among the Democrats challenging Pappas.

A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 shows Sununu is ahead of Brown. The same survey shows Pappas ahead of Manzur and his other Democratic challengers.

The UNH Survey Center poll shows Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.

Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.

Continue Reading

Congress

Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?

Senator is backing anti-establishment Democrats across the country

Published

6 days ago

on

August 26, 2026

By

By LEE O. SANDERLIN | The Democratic Party is having something of an identity crisis — losing to President Donald Trump twice in three elections will do that.

Should the party embrace anti-establishment figures who espouse progressive policy ideas like Medicare for all and rhetoric about unrigging the economy for the 1 percent? Or should Democrats try to appeal to moderates who want to return to semi-normalcy in a time of political upheaval?

Although he’s been in Congress since 2002, with key leadership roles throughout his tenure, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, 67, counts himself firmly in the anti-establishment camp.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

Continue Reading

Politics

Log Cabin Republicans remove transgender rights from mission

Decision made after ‘significant discussion’ with members, board

Published

2 weeks ago

on

August 21, 2026

By

From left, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and then-Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran attend the Log Cabin Republicans Big Tent Event at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that formerly represented LGBTQ conservatives, has removed advocating for transgender and queer rights from its “renewed” national advocacy focus.

In an opinion piece written by Log Cabin Republicans President Ross Hemminger for the conservative media outlet Town Hall, he announced that trans rights would no longer be part of what the organization advocates for through conservative leadership and candidates.

In his piece, Hemminger wrote that after “significant discussion” with members and Log Cabin Republicans’ board of directors, the organization’s leadership voted to “refine Log Cabin Republicans’ national advocacy focus to concentrate specifically on issues of sexual orientation and conservative values,” a focus that does not include trans people.

“We have fought for the right to legally marry who we love, serve our country and our communities openly and proudly, and to enjoy the same inalienable rights afforded to all law-abiding Americans — and we succeeded,” Hemminger wrote. “However, the new era of gender identity politics is not the movement we supported and fought for. Gay men and women are losing public support across the country, and support for gay marriage and other once-widely accepted rights is eroding. Why? Because many voters today weren’t alive or cognizant of the politics of gay marriage winding its way through the courts and gaining ground in public opinion. Their view of the gay community is based on today’s radical transgender activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America’s youth.”

Hemminger then went on to argue that trans advocacy has shifted to focusing primarily on minors — a characterization that does not reflect the breadth of issues trans advocates address.

“They push schools to teach radical gender ideology; they want biological men in women’s sports regardless of the consequences; perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are mostly irreversible,” he wrote.

Hemminger and many right-wing political leaders have continued to assert this false reality as fact.

A Harvard-affiliated study found approximately 2.1 gender-affirming surgeries occur per 100,000 trans and gender-diverse minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, underscoring how uncommon these procedures are among minors. In addition to the option of surgery for those who think it’s right for them, there is an array of other medically sound options to treat gender dysphoria, which according to KFF, an independent source for health policy research and polling, includes “medical, surgical, mental health, and non-medical services for transgender and nonbinary people.”

Additionally trans advocacy is not as narrow as Hemminger makes it seem in his opinion piece.

There are a slew of issues the trans community faces — and fights for — on a daily basis that have nothing to do with healthcare. Those include obtaining government documents that accurately reflect one’s gender identity, multiple elements of family law that include the right to marry and adopt children as straight couples can, protections from violence, hate crime protections, the right to serve in the military, access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender, and the right to education.

Despite the overwhelming number of issues trans people — regardless of political affiliation — have to struggle with as a result of systemic gaps in protections that are supposed to be afforded to everyone under the law, they remain vulnerable to unequal treatment.

Despite this shift, Log Cabin Republicans has committed to standing with the Republican Party rather than LGBTQ people as a whole. The organization was initially founded as a loosely connected network of local California social clubs made up of LGBTQ conservatives in the late 1970s before eventually emerging as a national political organization in the early 1990s under its founding executive director, Rich Tafel.

As the organization continued to gain momentum, it endorsed a handful of Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, the 2022 law that federally recognized marriage equality for same-sex couples.

The Washington Blade reached out to Log Cabin Republicans for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.

Continue Reading

Popular