The Maine Democratic Party issued a rare off-cycle fundraising text message on Monday, asking recipients to donate money in support of Gov. Janet Mills’ fight to prevent male athletes from competing against female athletes, a policy decision that risks Maine losing hundreds of millions in federal funding.
Mills drew national attention last week when she threatened to sue President Donald Trump over his executive order requiring the protection of female-only spaces and sporting events.
[RELATED: Mills’ Chief of Staff Threw a Tantrum and Stormed Off during White House Meeting: Report…]
The order — “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — was issued on Feb. 5 and casts policies that allow males to compete in women’s sports as violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.
“It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” said Trump.
On Thursday evening, Trump signaled that he was serious about withholding funding from states that failed to enforce his executive order.
During an in-person meeting the following day, Trump again raised the subject, and Mills took the bait.
“Your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports,” Trump said.
“You better do it,” he said. “You better comply otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.”
After claiming that her administration would follow federal and state law, Mills threatened have the matter settled in litigation.
“We’ll see you in court,” Mills said.
That could be an expensive threat.
In FY24-25, the state of Maine’s $13.8 billion two-year budget included $5 billion in federal funding.
Maine’s financial dependency on the federal government means the the Trump White House has plenty of financial levers it can pull should the governor remain unwilling to comply with his executive order.
The text message from the Maine Democrats is among the first signs that Gov. Mills’ Democratic allies back in Maine are going to join her in making transgender athletic policies the proverbial hill to die on.
The decision to draw a line in the sand over allowing men into women’s sports has surprised many Republican insiders in Maine, especially considering the policy’s unpopularity.
According to a Jan. 2025 New York Times / Ipsos poll, 79 percent of Americans support restrictions that don’t allow males who identify as female to complete in girls’ or women’s sports.
Those results are in line with polling the Maine Wire conducted in 2023, which examined voter attitudes toward progressive policies in Maine’s public schools.
In that polling, 77 percent of Mainers said that Maine’s schools should get “back to basics” and focus less on race and gender.
To coin a phrase from your queer GBT assistant :
Fuck You Janet Mills You Asshole .
Mills and the wacko dems will back down! The university system alone gets 100 million, the chancellor must be crapping his pants and emailing Mills by the minute! C’monman!
It amazes me democrats can remember to breath.
Check the first line, you got it backwards
Fuck Mills and all of them dimshits!
Now we have all of them in the record. Republicans were just given a HUGE gift in the next election cycle. Mills incompetence has paid off handsomely.
Is Maine’s Democrat Party trying to take women’s expectation of privacy in shower rooms, trying to get some girls hurt, trying to belittle women & girls and their sports, or are they just a bunch of pervert groomers?
Trans “rights” in sports and girls’ locker rooms, protection for out of state sex change operations on kids, porn in school libraries, attempting to place inefficient and expensive windmills in the ocean, funding an Office for New Mainers, a draconian full-term abortion law and so on. What’s next, legalizing pedophilia? Great choice for governor, Dems.
Mills is polling terribly now too. The only sad thing is that the moderates will forget about it by November 2026 and just vote for the Democraps again. They have the money
It s not as though losing education funding will noticeably impact Maine s public school performance. Perhaps they need a reason to explain away the abysmal outcomes. No one pays any attnetion anyway, save this small MW crowd