Gov. Janet Mills got national attention when President Donald Trump singled her out in February and started targeting Maine in an effort to force the state to ban transgender girls from sports aligned with their gender identity.
Since Mills told Trump she would “see him in court,” she has appeared on cable television and sent out more than a dozen fundraising emails for the Democratic Governors Association — including one Friday — to tout her legal victories over the Republican president’s attempts to freeze Maine’s federal funding.
But Mills, who is termed out of office next year, has been notably quiet on her opinions regarding the state’s policies and the Republican-led bills awaiting upcoming floor votes to ban transgender girls from girls sports, only saying in March the issue was “worthy of a debate.”
That has resulted in diverging opinions on the left over whether Mills should publicly oppose a proposed ban that at least two House Democrats have signaled they may support and that polls have indicated a majority of Mainers and Americans favor. It is also a reminder of how Mills has not always pleased progressives due to her more moderate approach to various issues.
Democrats control the House by a 76-73 margin and the Senate by a 20-15 margin, meaning it is hardly guaranteed the measures will reach Mills’ desk before lawmakers are scheduled to adjourn in June.
The governor’s defenders note that state law and Maine’s scholastic sports association have allowed a small number of transgender girls to compete for years. It became more contentious after Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, used a viral social media post in February to single out a transgender high school student who won a state pole vault title.
The post apparently made it to Trump, who then called out Mills that same week before his administration began targeting various Maine programs and universities. Trump’s Justice Department also sued Maine in a pending case that seeks to reinterpret Title IX.
Mills “has been a steadfast champion of LGBTQ+ rights, which includes supporting numerous pieces of legislation that support transgender Mainers,” said EqualityMaine Executive Director Gia Drew.
“We have no reason to believe that her support for our community has wavered whatsoever,” Drew said.
But Mills and her office have plenty of power that they have used to influence lawmakers on other policies, said Rep. Laura Supica, D-Bangor. A leader should “bring people together” and “to the table” for tough policy discussions, she said, adding that this issue is a fraught one.
“There’s just so much hateful rhetoric,” Supica said last week. “It’s like nobody could do anything to make the situation better.”
Spokespeople for Mills did not respond to a request for an interview with the governor nor to a request for comment on how she views the Republican bills to bar schools that receive state funding from allowing transgender girls to compete in girls sports.
Rep. Dani O’Halloran, D-Brewer, was the lone Democrat on the Judiciary Committee to vote with Republicans earlier in May on backing those bills, while other GOP proposals on the issue that extended to areas such as bathrooms and the names teachers use for students were defeated by wider margins.
In response to the Trump administration’s untested legal argument that allowing transgender girls to compete in girls sports counts as sex discrimination under the landmark 1972 Title IX law, Mills said in April that Maine “might be among the first to draw the ire of the federal government in this way, but we will not be the last.”
“These federal attacks are not actually about transgender rights,” Destie Hohman Sprague, executive director of the liberal Maine Women’s Lobby, said. “They’re about an abuse of power by [Trump].”
Trump has also threatened to withhold federal funding from Minnesota and California over their policies that 22 states have allowing transgender female athletes to compete in female sports.
Trump singled out a transgender girl in California who was set to compete Friday at a state track and field meet. In response, California’s governing body for high school sports set new rules that will give athletes assigned female at birth medals based on where they would have finished if a transgender athlete had not competed in the same event.
Rep. Dick Campbell, the Orrington Republican who proposed a ban on transgender female student-athletes in female sports, lamented how the debates “got caught up in the personalities” of Trump, Mills and “some local legislators.” He said he senses Mills would not sign but also would not necessarily veto a measure that reaches her desk.
“But I’ll bet nothing goes anywhere,” Campbell said.
