The Maine Department of Education is broadly denying claims made by the Department of Justice that the state is violating Title IX by allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports.
The state’s response to the federal lawsuit, filed Wednesday, notes the introduction of the DOJ’s initial complaint references a now-viral exchange between President Donald Trump and Gov. Janet Mills, in which she told him “See you in court.”
But, the state adds, that came after “the president incorrectly asserted that ‘(w)e are the federal law’ and ‘you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t (treat an Executive Order as the law).’ ”
The Education Department denied every other claim made in the introduction, and almost every argument that followed.
The Justice Department argued in its complaint that Title IX, a landmark civil rights law, is designed to ensure “both sexes have an ‘equal athletic opportunity,'” and that Maine laws undermine that opportunity.
But while Maine acknowledges that the federal government accurately quoted the language of Title IX’s commitment to “equal athletic opportunity,” it argues that the Justice Department mischaracterized the meaning of the law.
The federal government brought its lawsuit last month, seeking an injunction to prevent transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, and it also demands that titles and medals be awarded to competitors who lost to trans athletes.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the lawsuit at a mid-April press conference, flanked by Maine Rep. Laurel Libby and former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, who began her activism after tying for fifth place with a trans swimmer during a college competition.
The suit followed a series of executive orders by Trump, in which he proclaimed there to be only two genders and then barred transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s competition.
Maine’s Education Department also acknowledges these orders in its response, but pushes back against the Justice Department’s claim that they “confirmed the definition of the term ‘sex’ for Title IX.”
Maine has had protections for gender identity enshrined in state law for about two decades.
In 2005, voters approved a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation under the Maine Human Rights Act, using a definition that explicitly included “gender identity or expression.” Lawmakers later revised the law to more specifically define and protect gender identity.
The Office of the Maine Attorney General, which is handling the Department of Education’s legal defense, declined to comment.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment on the state’s filing.
