Before President Trump chastised Gov. Janet Mills of Maine at the White House last month, and before his administration started investigating Maine’s education system, the seeds of their conflict over transgender athletes had been planted by a state legislator.
Representative Laurel Libby, a Republican from Auburn, Maine, had posted on Facebook about a transgender athlete who won a high school pole-vaulting competition. Her critical post, which named and included photos of the student athlete, went viral.
About a month later, the fallout has included funding cuts at the University of Maine and a finding by the Trump administration that the state had violated federal law by allowing transgender athletes to compete on two high school teams. The Democratic-controlled Legislature has censured Ms. Libby. And people on both sides of the issue have experienced a complex surge of emotions about Maine suddenly landing in the cross hairs of Mr. Trump.
“We’re not often in the center of controversy here, and it’s a little bit of a shock that it’s happened so quickly,” said Keegan Tripp, a junior at the University of Maine and the president of its student body. “We have students afraid for themselves, for their friends — their academics, research, financial situations — and all of this fear is so brand-new.”
When the Trump administration issued an executive order on Feb. 5 barring transgender women from women’s sports, Ms. Libby, a 43-year-old mother of five, saw an opportunity to amplify her own position on the matter.
After she took to social media to criticize her state for standing by its policy, she said in an interview, she received a tip about a transgender high school student in Maine who was set to compete in a girls’ track event last month.
When the student came in first, Ms. Libby posted two photos: one showing the student on the medal podium last year, after competing on the boys’ team and placing fifth, and another taken after the student won the girls’ competition.
Ms. Libby’s post circulated widely on conservative social media. Democratic state lawmakers called it bullying; Ms. Libby appeared on Fox News to discuss her refusal to delete it.
As the story seized national headlines, Mr. Trump turned his own attention to Maine. When he singled out Ms. Mills at a White House meeting with governors on Feb. 21, telling her that she had “better comply” with his executive order, her response was icy. “See you in court,” Ms. Mills told him.
Within days, the administration concluded that the state’s Education Department had failed to comply with Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs, including school sports. It also notified the University of Maine that it was discontinuing $4.5 million in federal funding for its Sea Grant program, which supports marine science education and research.
Ms. Libby was also facing consequences. After she had refused to delete her Facebook post about the student athlete, or to issue an apology, the Maine House voted narrowly to censure her for actions it deemed “reprehensible,” barring her from voting or speaking on the House floor.
“I think we can all agree that our kids deserve better than to be used as political fodder for internet bullies,” Ryan Fecteau, the House speaker, wrote in an opinion piece in The Bangor Daily News before the vote. “It isn’t just cruel or meanspirited to take advantage of a minor in this way. It can also be downright dangerous.”
Ms. Libby called the criticism “a red herring” that Democrats were using to avoid real policy debate. She filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court, claiming that the censure had violated her First Amendment rights by punishing her for a Facebook post that was “constitutionally protected speech on a matter of public concern.”
The narrowly split Maine Legislature reflects the divisions among the state’s 1.4 million residents. Kamala Harris won in Maine in last year’s election, with 52 percent of votes, but 45 percent of voters supported Mr. Trump.
Ms. Mills’s clash with the president deepened feelings about her on both sides, ratcheting up tensions that spilled into view at recent protests outside the State House in Augusta.
Mike Dees, 56, of Skowhegan, said he brought his 11-year-old daughter, Julia, to a “March Against Mills” this month because she had played softball against a team with a transgender player who outhit everyone else on the field. Mr. Dees said he thought that Ms. Mills should be impeached.
Theresa Weichmann, 59, of West Gardiner, said that while the issue had not come up in her community that she knew of, she believed that parents and school boards were being pressured into accepting transgender athletes on girls’ teams.
“This should have been squashed years ago,” she said.
Ms. Mills, 77, is term-limited, and her second term ends next year. She declined an interview request but has said that she intends to fight cuts to Maine’s federal funding. A portion of the University of Maine’s lost Sea Grant funding has since been restored, a spokeswoman said, and negotiations are underway to try and save the rest.
Asked by reporters recently about her run-in at the White House, Ms. Mills said the State Legislature is the appropriate place to consider changes to Maine’s policies on transgender athletes.
“You don’t change it by executive order or by wishing it differently,” she said. “It’s worthy of a debate — a full democratic debate.”
At the anti-Mills march two weeks ago, counterprotesters draped a banner with the slogan “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used to It!” on a white picket fence across the street from the demonstration. They included Doug Emerson, 67, of Portland, who said he was gay and worried that the Trump administration’s recent rhetoric and actions could lead to increased violence against L.G.B.T.Q. people or anyone “who looks other.”
“Our gay kids are going to be so much more marginalized and bullied,” Mr. Emerson said. “They’ll live in fear.”
Polling suggests that most Americans agree with Ms. Libby. A poll in January by The New York Times and Ipsos found that nearly all Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats believe transgender women should not play women’s sports. Since 2020, 25 states have passed laws barring transgender athletes from joining teams aligned with their gender identities.
Maine legislators moved in the opposite direction, updating a state law in 2021 to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. In compliance with that law, the Maine Principals Association, which oversees interscholastic athletics, allows transgender students to join teams of either gender.
Among the 151 public and private high schools that the association oversees statewide, there are two transgender girls currently competing on girls’ teams, according to a spokesman for the association.
Ms. Libby said she believes the actual number is larger — and that even one would be too many.
“Any young lady getting displaced by a biological male on a podium is unacceptable,” she said. “I ran track and cross country in college, and I can empathize with these girls, walking into a competition thinking you have a shot of winning, and then finding out a biological male is competing, and the outcome is guaranteed.”
On the snow-covered flagship campus of the University of Maine in Orono last week, several students said they had felt empowered by Ms. Mills’s feisty response to Mr. Trump, even as they also feel their campus increasingly at risk of losing federal funding that supports their research, campus jobs and financial aid.
“Yes, it put us as a target,” said Gracie Gebel, 19, a sophomore political science major who helped organize a pro-Palestinian demonstration in front of the Fogler Library on March 7. “But you have to be a target if you’re going to protest.”
For her part, Ms. Libby said she had no regrets about drawing the attention of the Trump administration, and the costs that Maine may bear as a result. Another Republican legislator has filed a bill that would bar transgender student-athletes in the state from women’s sports, but Ms. Libby sees little chance of it passing.
“The only way we get a fair playing field is by federal action,” she said.
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