In February, President Trump summoned the nation’s governors to the White House for an airing of grievances. As usual, the tiny number of trans athletes topped the list.
“Is Maine here?” he asked, before yelling at Governor Janet Mills for refusing to bench trans kids.
“I’m complying with the state and federal laws,” she noted testily.
“We are the federal law,” the wannabe dictator shot back furiously, before threatening to pull all federal funds from the state of Maine.
The retribution came immediately, with cuts to everything from Social Security to aquaculture. Last week the state sued and got a TRO blocking the capricious attack.
This morning Attorney General Pam Bondi held a press conference with Education Secretary Linda McMahon to announce that she is suing the state of Maine for being too nice to trans kids. Two trans kids, to be exact.
Flanked by anti-trans grifter Riley Gaines, Bondi explained that it is illegal discrimination against women in violation of Title IX to allow trans girls to play high school sports.
No court has ever said anything like that. And indeed at least one federal appeals court said the exact opposite, which is probably why the number of cases cited in this complaint is ZERO.
Instead Bondi relies on conclusory statements:
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.
She’s also got gross mischaracterizations of the federal regulations implementing Title IX. For instance, the complaint suggests that the regs require single-sex teams to exclude “boys who assert they are girls”:
Because such separation cannot disadvantage either sex, the Athletics Regulation requires that if an educational program separates teams by sex, the teams that the program designates as female teams must be completely separated by sex. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b); accord 45 C.F.R. § 86.41(b).
Don’t faint but …
34 C.F.R. § 106.41
(b) Separate teams. Notwithstanding the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section, a recipient may operate or sponsor separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport. However, where a recipient operates or sponsors a team in a particular sport for members of one sex but operates or sponsors no such team for members of the other sex, and athletic opportunities for members of that sex have previously been limited, members of the excluded sex must be allowed to try-out for the team offered unless the sport involved is a contact sport. For the purposes of this part, contact sports include boxing, wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, football, basketball and other sports the purpose or major activity of which involves bodily contact.
So if there’s no girls’ soccer team, the school has to let girls try out for the boys’ team. Kinda looks like that reg says the opposite of what the government claims it does, huh? Also federal regs aren’t actually “law,” particularly since the right wing got rid of Chevron deference. Oopsie!
Executive Orders are also in the “not law” pile. But that doesn’t stop Bondi from pointing to them as proof that “sex” refers to bathing suit parts ONLY:
Consistent with “sex” meaning biological sex in Title IX, the President of the United States issued on January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and issued on February 5, 2025, Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which both confirmed the definition of the term “sex” for Title IX.
The president said that boys are the ones who pee standing up! Why won’t Maine just keep all the trans kids out of sports?
There is also a fun section gesturing vaguely in the direction of Maine’s Human Rights Act of 2021, which says it constitutes “unlawful educational discrimination” to exclude anyone from participation in an athletic program “on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.” The DOJ both faults Governor Mills for signing the Act, and claims that allowing trans kids to play sports violates the Act’s guarantee of “equal opportunity in athletic programs.”
The complaint ends with a demand for declarative relief, a jury trial, “a damages award to the United States,” and “a process to compensate female athletes who have been denied equal athletic opportunities due to Defendant’s violations, including correcting past athletics records.”
Well, that’s… creative. On the plus side, the AG seems to have finally worked out the difference between a civil enforcement action and a criminal prosecution, so …
US v. Maine Department of Education [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
The post DOJ Sues Maine For Aggravated Nice To Trans Kids appeared first on Above the Law.
In February, President Trump summoned the nation’s governors to the White House for an airing of grievances. As usual, the tiny number of trans athletes topped the list.
“Is Maine here?” he asked, before yelling at Governor Janet Mills for refusing to bench trans kids.
“I’m complying with the state and federal laws,” she noted testily.
“We are the federal law,” the wannabe dictator shot back furiously, before threatening to pull all federal funds from the state of Maine.
The retribution came immediately, with cuts to everything from Social Security to aquaculture. Last week the state sued and got a TRO blocking the capricious attack.
This morning Attorney General Pam Bondi held a press conference with Education Secretary Linda McMahon to announce that she is suing the state of Maine for being too nice to trans kids. Two trans kids, to be exact.
Flanked by anti-trans grifter Riley Gaines, Bondi explained that it is illegal discrimination against women in violation of Title IX to allow trans girls to play high school sports.
No court has ever said anything like that. And indeed at least one federal appeals court said the exact opposite, which is probably why the number of cases cited in this complaint is ZERO.
Instead Bondi relies on conclusory statements:
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.
She’s also got gross mischaracterizations of the federal regulations implementing Title IX. For instance, the complaint suggests that the regs require single-sex teams to exclude “boys who assert they are girls”:
Because such separation cannot disadvantage either sex, the Athletics Regulation requires that if an educational program separates teams by sex, the teams that the program designates as female teams must be completely separated by sex. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b); accord 45 C.F.R. § 86.41(b).
Don’t faint but …
34 C.F.R. § 106.41
(b) Separate teams. Notwithstanding the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section, a recipient may operate or sponsor separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport. However, where a recipient operates or sponsors a team in a particular sport for members of one sex but operates or sponsors no such team for members of the other sex, and athletic opportunities for members of that sex have previously been limited, members of the excluded sex must be allowed to try-out for the team offered unless the sport involved is a contact sport. For the purposes of this part, contact sports include boxing, wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, football, basketball and other sports the purpose or major activity of which involves bodily contact.
So if there’s no girls’ soccer team, the school has to let girls try out for the boys’ team. Kinda looks like that reg says the opposite of what the government claims it does, huh? Also federal regs aren’t actually “law,” particularly since the right wing got rid of Chevron deference. Oopsie!
Executive Orders are also in the “not law” pile. But that doesn’t stop Bondi from pointing to them as proof that “sex” refers to bathing suit parts ONLY:
Consistent with “sex” meaning biological sex in Title IX, the President of the United States issued on January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and issued on February 5, 2025, Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which both confirmed the definition of the term “sex” for Title IX.
The president said that boys are the ones who pee standing up! Why won’t Maine just keep all the trans kids out of sports?
There is also a fun section gesturing vaguely in the direction of Maine’s Human Rights Act of 2021, which says it constitutes “unlawful educational discrimination” to exclude anyone from participation in an athletic program “on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.” The DOJ both faults Governor Mills for signing the Act, and claims that allowing trans kids to play sports violates the Act’s guarantee of “equal opportunity in athletic programs.”
The complaint ends with a demand for declarative relief, a jury trial, “a damages award to the United States,” and “a process to compensate female athletes who have been denied equal athletic opportunities due to Defendant’s violations, including correcting past athletics records.”
Well, that’s… creative. On the plus side, the AG seems to have finally worked out the difference between a civil enforcement action and a criminal prosecution, so …
US v. Maine Department of Education [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
