(The Center Square) — Maine Republicans are praising President Donald Trump for his efforts to force Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to comply with his order banning transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports.
In a letter to Trump, a group of GOP senators commended the Republican president for a “commonsense approach to protect women’s sports and spaces” and efforts to “bring Maine into compliance” with Title IX and other federal anti-discrimination laws.
The letter, first reported by Fox News, said a “majority of adults and students” in Maine don’t support Mills “and her radical policy of forcing girls to compete against males in athletics.”
“For years, the good people of Maine have been held hostage by a few radical progressives from southern Maine, many of whom have scarce ties to the state,” the letter, signed by Senate Republican leader Trey Stewart and 17 other GOP lawmakers. “Despite her claims, the governor could put a stop to these radical policies immediately.”
Maine has become a focal point in the national debate over transgender athletes in female sports since a confrontation between Gov. Janet Mills and President Trump, who has vowed to withhold federal funding from any states that fail to comply with his “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order. Mills, a Democrat, has refused to comply with Trump’s directive.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already frozen funding to the state over the issue, and a referral has been made to the Department of Justice over ongoing trans participation in girls’ sports in the state. The state is challenging the funding withdrawal in court.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Trump administration was pulling all nonessential funding from Maine’s Department of Corrections after allowing a man who identifies as a woman to be housed in prison for women.
Under Maine’s prison rules, inmates can be housed based on their gender identity if they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and officials determine it is in the inmate’s “best interest” to be classified by another gender.
Andrea Balcer, who was born as Andrew, was convicted in 2018 of stabbing his parents to death along with the family dog. Balcer was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the crime, but in January, was transferred from the Maine State Prison to the women’s section of the Maine Correctional Institute, according to the Bangor Daily News.
“So, they were letting him be housed in a female prison? No longer,” Bondi told Fox News. “We will pull your funding. We will protect women in prison. We will protect women in sports. We will protect women throughout this country. No more of that.”
