Maine has a choice, according to President Donald Trump’s administration: Keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports or lose federal funding.
That ultimatum was tucked into a Wednesday U.S. Department of Agriculture news release, marking the clearest statement from the administration about the consequences for continued inclusion of trans athletes.
In that Wednesday email, the USDA confirmed that the University of Maine System is in compliance with Trump’s February executive order barring trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, which has previously been reported by the Bangor Daily News.
The university system told the USDA that it doesn’t permit trans women or male athletes to participate in NCAA-sanctioned women’s sporting events or allow men to participate in individual or team contact sports with women. In response to a Trump executive order, the NCAA moved in February to limit women’s sports to those assigned female at birth.
Even though UMaine already had to bar transgender women from women’s sports, the USDA issued a statement saying its “decision to side with sanity is a win for women and girls in Maine,” adding that “any false claim” will result in “onerous and even potentially criminal financial liability.”
The USDA abruptly froze federal funding to the university system earlier this month and then quickly reversed that days later, though the agency said in its Wednesday release that the system has had access to its federal funds since Feb. 26.
“The choice for the rest of Maine is simple: protect equal opportunities for women, as required by law, or lose funding,” the USDA said Wednesday.
The USDA was among a slew of federal agencies that launched investigations into alleged Title IX violations at Maine’s public universities, Greely High School and the state at large. Title IX is the 1972 law barring sex-based discrimination in schools, and the Trump administration has advanced a novel interpretation that the state has violated the federal law by requiring girls to compete against transgender athletes.
In response to Trump’s executive order, the Maine Principals’ Association, which runs high school sports, affirmed this month it will continue to allow trans athletes to compete in accordance with the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.
That continues the association’s longstanding policy of inclusion, which allowed trans athletes to play in sports consistent with their gender identity, unless there was a safety risk.
Between 2013 and 2021, the association heard from 56 students wishing to participate during that time, only four of whom were trans girls. Only two trans girls are playing on sports teams across the state this school year.
Maine was thrust into Trump’s crosshairs in February when state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, targeted a trans athlete who won a Maine girls track-and-field title, prompting Trump to tease withholding federal funds from the state. The Maine House has censured Libby over her posts. She has sued House Speaker Ryan Fecteau in federal court to get her floor privileges back.
Trump’s threat led to a heated exchange between him and Gov. Janet Mills at a White House event in Washington. Soon after the Trump administration launched several Title IX investigations into Maine, which concluded, after four days, that the state had violated federal law. Mills has blasted those investigations as having a “predetermined” conclusion, noting that no state officials were interviewed.
The Trump administration has alleged that Greely High School, the Maine Principals’ Association and the Maine Department of Education violated Title IX. On Tuesday, the Maine Principals’ Association said the Trump administration has no authority to investigate the organization because it receives no federal funding.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened to sue Maine over any alleged Title IX violations.
