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Trump’s battle with Maine over trans policies escalates

State has filed a lawsuit, federal government has cut funding and launched investigations

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President Donald Trump (Washington Balde photo by Michael Key)

A months-long standoff between between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) continued to escalate this week with a lawsuit targeting the administration on Monday and cuts to federal grants to the state on Tuesday.

The conflict kicked off on Feb. 21 at the White House, where the president threatened Mills with retaliation after she declined to say that her state would not comply with his executive order barring transgender athletes from competing in school sports. The governor and other officials have said the policy is in conflict with provisions of the Maine Human Rights Act, while the president argued his executive action supersedes state law.

While the heated exchange between the two concluded with each party vowing to see the other in court, developments in the time since suggest that Trump and Mills are likely to square off over legal questions far broader than whether the White House can prohibit trans girls in a blue state from joining the field hockey team.

In a complaint filed on Monday, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey argued U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins had unlawfully frozen funding for “certain administrative and technological functions” in schools in his state after concluding, in the absence of a formal investigation, that some of their programs violated Title IX rules. A letter last week from Rollins notifying Mills of the USDA’s decision warned that it was “only the beginning.”

Then on Tuesday, the Maine Department of Corrections said the Justice Department had cancelled several grants, which according to the Maine Morning Star would have supported “drug treatment for adults in reentry, programs that foster engagement between incarcerated parents and their children, and resources for corrections agencies to improve post-release supervision in order to prevent recidivism and reduce crime.” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during an interview that the move came in response to the state’s incarceration of a transwoman in a women’s prison.

One of Trump’s day-one executive actions targeting trans rights included a provision directing the AG and the Homeland Security secretary to ensure that women’s prisons and detention centers do not detain or house “males” or trans women, though here and elsewhere the administration deliberately does not make the distinction — and in Section 2 of the order, establishes that the policy of the federal government will be to treat gender as a binary that is fixed at birth, a narrow definition that denies the biological reality that people can be intersex (meaning their sex characteristics cannot be clearly distinguished as male or female) while others, like trans individuals, may experience incongruity between their gender and birth sex.

Leading up to this week, other major developments following the Feb. 21 White House confrontation between Trump and Maine’s Democratic governor include:

  • A probe in late March by the U.S. Department of Education into whether policies in Maine schools that protect the privacy of students by prohibiting disclosures to parents about the sexual orientation or gender identity of their kids may violate federal law,
  • Trump’s demand for an apology from Mills on her refusal to do so, both in late March,
  • DOE’s determination in late March that schools in the state were violating Title IX by allowing trans women and girls to compete in sports, which came after the Trump administration reversed that portion of the Title IX guidance issued under former President Joe Biden,
  • An announcement in mid-March by the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights that the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School violated Title IX by allowing trans athletes to compete in sports,
  • The USDA’s decision in early March to hold up funding for universities in the University of Maine system pending the conclusion of the agency’s probe into possible violations of Title IX and Title VI, which was subsequently reinstated after a couple of weeks,
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s withdrawal of funding in early March for the University of Maine’s Maine Sea Grant program, which was followed less than a week later with the U.S. Department of Commerce ‘s announcement that it would be renegotiated, and
  • HHS’s determination in late February that the Maine Department of Education violated Title IX, a conclusion reached just four days after an investigation was opened and without any interviews, data requests or negotiations.
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Congress

51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) spoke about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

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Andry Hernández Romero (Photo courtesy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

Forty nine members of Congress and two U.S. senators, all Democrats, signed a letter Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding information about Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT

“We are deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of Mr. Hernández Romero, who left
Venezuela after experiencing discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation and
opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian government,” the lawmakers wrote. They urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him.

After passing a credible fear interview and while awaiting a court hearing in March, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly transported Hernández out of the U.S. without due process or providing evidence that he had committed any crime.

In the months since, pressure has been mounting. This past WorldPride weekend in Washington was kicked off with a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fundraiser, both supporting Hernández and attended by high profile figures including members of Congress, like U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was among the four members who wrote to Rubio about Hernández in April. On Friday, he spoke with the Washington Blade before he and his colleagues, many more of them this time, sent the second letter to Rubio.

“There’s a lot of obviously horrible things that are happening with the asylum process and visas and international students and just the whole of our value system as it relates to immigration,” he said, which “obviously, is under attack.”

“Andry’s case, I think, is very unique and different,” the congressman continued. “There is, right now, public support that is building. I think he has captured people’s attention. And it’s growing — this is a movement that is not slowing down. He’s going to be a focal point for Pride this year. I mean, I think people around the world are interested in the story.”

Garcia said he hopes the momentum will translate to progress on requests for proof of life, adding that he was optimistic after meeting with Hernández’s legal team earlier on Friday.

“I mean, the president, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio — any of these folks could could ask to see if just he’s alive,” the congressman said, referring to the secretary of Homeland Security, whom he grilled during a hearing last month. ICE is housed under the DHS.

“People need to remember, the most important part of this that people need to remember, this isn’t just an immigration issue,” Garcia noted. “This is a due process issue. This is an asylum case. We gave him this appointment. The United States government told him to come to his appointment, and then we sent him to another country, not his own, and locked him up with no due process. That’s the issue.”

Garcia said that so far neither he nor his colleagues nor Hernández’s legal team were able to get “any answers from the administration, which is why we’re continuing to advocate, which is why we’re continuing to reach out to Secretary Rubio.”

“A lot more Democrats are now engaged on this issue,” he said. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, joined Monday’s letter. “The more that we can get folks to understand how critical this is, the better. The momentum matters here. And I think Pride does provide an opportunity to share his story.”

Asked what the next steps might be, Garcia said “we’re letting his legal team really take the lead on strategy,” noting that Hernández’s attorneys have “already engaged with the ACLU” and adding, “It’s very possible that the Supreme Court could take this on.”

In the meantime, the congressman said “part of our job is to make sure that that people don’t forget Andry and that there is awareness about him, and I think there’s a responsibility, particularly during WorldPride, and during Pride, all throughout the month — like, this is a story that people should know. People should know his name and and people should be aware of what’s going on.”

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Wasserman Schultz: Allies must do more to support LGBTQ Jews

A Wider Bridge honored Fla. congresswoman at Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday

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U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) speaks at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. on June 5, 2025, after A Wider Bridge honored her at its Pride event. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Thursday said allies need to do more to support LGBTQ Jewish people in the wake of Oct. 7.

“Since Oct. 7, what has been appalling to me is that LGBTQ+ Jewish organizations and efforts to march in parades, to be allies, to give voice to other causes have faced rejection,” said the Florida Democrat at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. after A Wider Bridge honored her at its Pride event.

Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, added the “silence of our allies … has been disappointing.”

“It makes your heart feel hollow and it makes me feel alone and isolated, which is why making sure that we have spaces that we can organize in every possible way in every sector of our society as Jews is so incredibly important,” she said.

The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when it launched a surprise attack on the country. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on that day.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed nearly 55,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Israel Defense Forces killed last October, are among those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.

A Wider Bridge is a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred.”

Thursday’s event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.

Police say a man who injured more than a dozen people on June 1 in Boulder, Colo., when he threw Molotov cocktails into a group of demonstrators who were calling for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages was yelling “Free Palestine.” The Associated Press notes that authorities said the man who has been charged in connection with the attack spent more than a year planning it.

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Sen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk

Pentagon reportedly plans to change the name of ship named for gay rights icon

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U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday introduced a resolution urging the U.S. Department of Defense not to rename ships that bear the names of civil rights leaders like gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.

The move comes just after reports on Tuesday that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename the U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk, with an announcement deliberately planned for Pride month on June 14.

The vessel, a replenishment oiler, is part of the John Lewis class fleet. The Pentagon is also considering renaming other ships in the fleet including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman, according to CBS News.

“By naming these ships,” Schiff wrote in his resolution, “the United States Navy has appropriately celebrated notable civil rights leaders and their legacy in promoting a more equal and just United States.”

Milk was assassinated in 1978 while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Prior to his election to the Senate last year, Schiff represented California districts in the U.S. House since 2001.

Part one of his resolution “strongly supports the naming of John Lewis-class fleet replacement oilers after the aforementioned civil rights leaders as a fitting tribute to honor their contributions to the advancement of civil rights,” while part two “strongly encourages the Department of Defense not to take any action to change the names.”

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