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.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="35870 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=35870">30 Comments
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
In 1863, The 20th Regiment of Maine, all volunteer Maine Patriots, repelled the forces trying to rip our union apart.
In 2025, Maine Patriots are again called on to repell the forces trying to rip our State apart.
We will not falter. We will not surrender. We will never stop fighting! We are Maine Patriots!
Once again history has called upon us, and we WILL NOT FAIL!
We have awakened, and we are everywhere! The tyrannical reign of Janet Mills must end! I truly hope this is the hill she has chosen to die on!
This is our moment in time to take back the state of Maine from the radical Socialist Democrats in Augusta. If not now, I fear Maine will be lost for generations – possibly forever. Now is our time to, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT”!
We must move quickly, act decisively and strike forcefully at the ideological cancer eating away at the very moral fabric of Maine! We can no longer ignore what is happening. We must stand up as Mainers united and take out state back.
Mills has made it clear, by her feckless and tone-deaf leadership and disregard for Maine citizens, she intends to burn Maine to the ground just to rule over the ashes. This MUST not happen. She MUST be stopped! 2026 may prove too late!
We did not ask for this fight. Maine Republicans have tried everything to get Mills and Augusta Democrats to listen to reason. It has continually fallen on deaf ears. The time has passed for talking. Now is the time for ACTION!
Unfortunately, Maine GOP leadership continues to hibernate. They are MIA, hiding in their safe places with their emotional support binkies. AS USUAL!
Who are the Republicans running for Governor? Who are the Republicans running to replace Golden? Who are the Republicans running to primary Collins? We, the Republican voters of Maine, have NO IDEA! Why? Because no one tells us!
Maine GOP Party leadership are eunuchs and cowards! Their silence proves their complicity. For Republicans to prevail, we need STRONG candidates and STRONG, VOCAL leadership.
Clearly, Louise Woods enjoys jeopardizing the safety of children and their families. MSAD 51 Superintendent Jeff Porter said in a letter to families the increase in police security was a precautionary measure because of what Rep. Libby did by singling out a child. That child and their family have already received threats. That is disgusting – have the debate but protect all children, not just some. If you cannot agree with that then all children are endangered by you.
So Mills does not comply, federal funds for education are held back and there’s a huge shortfall to support Mills quest to preserve trans abuse of women.
Dumbocrats = We must protect the man who won the Girls Pole Vault Championship. It’s the right of any man to win a Girl’s Championship. We don’t really give a crap about protecting actual real women despite our big lying mouths.
And if you don’t like it we can take away your free speech
Communism is absolutely sick and evil and unconstitutional.
Science cannot change your sex. It can only fake it.
Such quackery cannot be allowed in our hospitals and schools
Your first paragraph reads “… Gov. Janet Mills’ fight to prevent male athletes from competing against female athletes” Her fight is to allow male athletes “identifying” as women to compete in women’s sports. Just to clarify.
I remember back a while that the Maine principles association refused to allow a male to join the female field hockey team basically because it would be an unfair advantage for the male and that it would take a position away from a female and it was not discriminatory. They where following Title IX so what is the practical reason for allowing a trans male to play on a female team ,What has changed? especially since they can self identify with no medical verification.
Seriously Maine Wire you need to proof read your articles better, this is totally wrong “ 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 ” this is totally wrong, fix it!!!
Of course they do. Bunch of perv. loving want-to-be child molesters, that are not smart enough to understand the simple biology of two sexes. Too stupid to look at history and see that their ideology has FAILED everywhere it’s tried.
DUMB $#!+$
It will go to court . The Obama Biden judge will issue a stay at least . Gotta get to SJC . They’ll rule against Maine and others.
Then what ? So make it clear , the democrat party does not believe in biolocal sex reality.
Can a Maine governor be recalled ?
How can you even address such a sick, evil mind? Putting on display, encouraging mental illness, creating hate, allowing a child, not old enough to chose their bedtime but chose their sex, mutilating them – knowing the rates of suicide that those children have after the “change” – can those that rally for this really be that stupid? “Wicked finds no peace”, it always searches to find more wickedness, twenty – thirty years ago we couldn’t even imagine this being accepted…..
Hey Steve, check your first sentence in this article. It is AFU.
Aren’t we weary of all this identity politics? The dems won’t let go of it because they have nothing else to run on except hatred of their opponents. This is gear-grinding imbecility! Dems have run our state into near bankruptcy and fully intend to make sure of it via the rescinding of federal money which supports 40% of Maine’s budget to begin with! Janet Mills is either fundamentally illiterate or, if not, she actually wants to drive Maine into the ditch. The voters better wake up because tougher times are yet to come. It appears that Maine loves the quagmire of poverty brought on by big government socialism.
Keep it up democrats. Please keep it up. Its getting so their base doesnt even want to vote for them.
There’s got to be money involved. Nothing else can explain such abject insanity. Someone must have offered or given gobs of money to make Maine a center of transhumanist experimentation, and they’ll want it back if it all goes down the tubes.
What a hill to choose to die on. Convinces me, they’ re all retarded. Watch this video of the Canadian Powerlifting coach shattering the woman’s lifting record because Canada a few weeks before allowed a guy, who now “identifies as a woman” previously broke the female record. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7dyJfUxgOw
This is exactly the kind of decisions that we get from liberal democrats.79% of Mainers say NO, including 67% of democrats, yet they still cling to this issue. This is why Trump is now President! Mainers need to come to our senses and realize that these libs that we have put in control of our state our destroying it!
Why didn’t the Portland Press Herald get into trouble for naming and picturing minor Soren Stark-Chessa as “making history” as the first transgender to win the girls state championship in cross country? The news outlet pointed out that the winner was transgender; it did not treat the event as normal, but pointed out the participant’s difference. https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/21/transgender-girl-makes-history-with-victory-at-cross-country-regional/ Will the Democrats attack the Press Herald for picturing and naming Soren in its newspaper. Maybe the will shut it down until it issues an apology.
A whole lotta Democrats are lining up to register as independent.
Maine’s schools are getting a national black eye. This hurts property values. Mills is a radical.