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OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:32 PM – Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Attorney General Pam Bondi stated on Wednesday that the Justice Department has launched a lawsuit against Maine to challenge the state’s policy on transgender-identifying athletes participating in women’s and girls’ sports.
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The complaint, which asserts that Maine’s policy is unconstitutional under Title IX, is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to draw attention to inequality in female sports, in addition to the safety concerns it poses.
“The State of Maine, through its Department of Education, is openly and defiantly flouting federal anti-discrimination law by enforcing policies that require girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions designated exclusively for girls,” the lawsuit states. “By prioritizing gender identity over biological reality, Maine’s policies deprive girl athletes of fair competition, deny them equal athletic opportunities, and expose them to heightened risks of physical injury and psychological harm.”
Alongside conservative activist Riley Gaines and other Maine parents and students who have protested the state’s regulations surrounding biological males competing in female sports, Bondi made the announcement of the lawsuit.
“The Department of Justice will not sit by when women are discriminated against in sports. This is about sports. This is also about these young women’s personal safety,” Bondi said in remarks at DOJ. “I met many of these women throughout the past weeks and months, and what they have been through is horrific.”
Bondi previously sent warning letters to state officials in Maine, California, and Minnesota in February, directing them to “comply with federal anti-discrimination laws that require them to keep men out of women’s sports.”
Governor Janet Mills (D-Maine) has denounced the efforts as “administrative overreach” from the Trump administration.
“For decades — first as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor — I have fought tirelessly for the rights of women and girls, for the health and well-being of children and families, and defending the Constitution of Maine and the Constitution of the United States,” Mills said in a statement on Wednesday. “My Administration and Maine’s Attorney General will vigorously defend our state against the action announced today from the Department of Justice,” she added.
Mills had previously downplayed the issue of gender dysphoric male athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports, despite the fact that in February, a man who identifies as a transgender woman from Maine’s Greely High School won a state championship in pole vaulting in the girls’ division.
“Are you not going to comply with that?” Trump questioned Mills directly during a White House meeting in February with the country’s governors, when he was discussing his executive order prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in female sports.
In response, she claimed that she would abide by both federal and state laws.
“Well… we are the federal law,” Trump reminded her. “You better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
She then responded by saying: “See you in court.”
“Good,” the GOP president replied. “I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be an easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
In early April, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for freezing federal funding over the state’s refusal to comply with President Donald Trump’s transgender athlete ban.
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