Maine has become ground zero for a fight between the Trump Administration and the American left over “gender identity”— the nebulous concept that descended from the halls of academia to state houses, city councils, and school boards across the country to serve as a club that Democratic officials and progressive activists would use to batter voters and taxpayers into submission to far-left ideology. Marching under the banner of “gender identity,” leftists adorned American classrooms and city streets with Pride Progress flags, filled public school curricula with queer theory and pornographic children’s books, and labeled anyone who would not submit to the unreality that boys can become girls merely by wishing as a bigot.
The Lexington and Concord opening volley in the revolt against gender ideology, at least here in Maine, began with the pole vault seen around the world, the now-infamous picture of a male track-and-field athlete accepting his first-place trophy in the women’s division. That moment was juxtaposed side-by-side with an image from the previous year, where the same young man tied for fifth place in the men’s division. The image, posted to Facebook by Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn), spread like wildfire across the Internet. Despite a demanding letter from House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) asking that she delete the post, Libby stood firm. The image became a viral sensation not, as many on the left have asserted, because of “transphobia,” but because it depicted the kind of lunacy Mainers had been forced to accept as the new norm, lest they be harangued out of polite society.
[RELATED: Trans Identifying Male Leap-frogs Competitors at Girls’ Pole Vaulting Meet in Maine…]
Thanks to President Donald Trump’s national policy requiring the protection of female-only spaces and female sports, the image also served as ironclad evidence that Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), Attorney General Aaron Frey, and the Maine Principals’ Association were facilitating and endorsing the brazen violation of federal civil rights law. Simply put, Libby’s post showed a state-sanctioned violation of the civil rights of Maine’s female athletes. As a result of the viral social media post, the spectacle spilled over into national politics and culminated in a high-profile clash between President Trump and Gov. Mills at the White House.
President Trump had previously issued an Executive Order — “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — that articulated a national policy to defund any institutions that undermine women’s equal opportunity to participate in sports by forcing them to compete against male athletes: “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” Trump wrote. “This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports. Moreover, under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (Title IX), educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports.”
[RELATED: Boston Globe Wrecks Democrat Men of Maine for Giving Libby the Handmaid’s Tale Treatment…]
Gov. Mills, confronted in-person at a White House meeting between Trump and American governors, opted to pick a fight with the Commander-in-Chief over the Executive Order and the executive branch’s well-established right to withhold federal grants and funding from states. “We’ll see you in court,” Mills sneered at Trump. While Libby’s post served as proof that Maine was violating federal law, Mills obstinacy at the White House — and a later outburst by her Chief of Staff Jeremy Kennedy — confirmed that the Mills Administration’s official policy was to continue violating federal civil rights law by forcing young women to compete against male athletes.
Immediately after the exchange buzzed through multiple news cycles, Maine Democrats attempted to circle the wagons around a governor in need of reinforcements. The party sent out fundraising texts and emails, and Maine’s pro-Democrat Party newspapers all issued re-writes of the same basic storyline about Mills becoming the anti-Trump hero for which “The Resistance” had been longing. Perhaps in furtherance of this communications objective, Speaker Fecteau and House Majority Leader Matt Moonen (D-Portland) — in a spectacle that could have been ripped from Handmaid’s Tale fan fiction — stripped Libby of her right to vote and speak on the floor of the House of Representatives until and unless she apologized for sharing the image that allowed the world to see Maine was flagrantly defying federal civil rights law by forcing female athletes to compete against male athletes.
[RELATED: Maine Man Who Murdered His Parents and Dog Moved to Women’s Prison…]
Exactly what Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey will argue against the federal government remains unclear, but the Mills Administration already appears to be losing the argument in the court of public opinion. In Jan., a New York Times / Ipsos poll found that 79 percent of American adults agree with Trump that female athletes should not be forced to compete against male athletes. In the days prior to the spat, Mills charted her lowest ever approval rating in a Pine Tree State poll. That 80-20 divide was evidenced in dueling rallies Saturday and Sunday, when nearly 500 Mainers turned up at the State House for a peaceful “Rally Against Mills” after an online petition effort gathered more than 25,000 signatures in support of anti-Mills sentiments.
The following day, roughly 10 people demonstrated in front of Rep. Libby’s home in Auburn, leaving behind a smattering of dead fish in her driveway, an ominous homage to the Godfather’s famous line about sleeping with the fishes.
The State Legislature will soon hold public hearings for a bill that would prevent male athletes from competing in girls’ athletics, but the real fight will be had in the 2026 legislative and gubernatorial elections, and the focus of that fight will be whether the mutable concept of “gender identity” should be excised from the Maine Human Rights Act. Expanding the definition of this ideological buzzword in 2019 turned Maine’s civil rights protections into a weapon for far left activists, including Mills, Frey, and state bureaucrats writ large, to use against normal Americans, and especially Maine’s Christians.
[RELATED: ‘March Against Mills’ Draws Large Protest to Augusta…]
Imbued with a new understanding of “gender identity,” the Maine Human Rights Act became the basis for the Mills Administration’s assault on traditional American values, including women’s rights as they were understood until the world went mad in 2020. Using the post-2019 Maine Human Rights Act, Mills, Frey, and Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin have attempted to defund Christian schools. At the same time, school boards across the state have imposed policies that require young women to share bathrooms and locker rooms with males. In the same vein, Mills authorized taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures under MaineCare, including for minors. Last year, she signed legislation allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to seek sex-change procedures without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Similarly, Maine has the unique distinction of being a legal sanctuary for any adult who might transport a minor over state lines for the purposes of seeking so-called “gender-affirming” medical procedures.
[RELATED: Report: 57 Maine School Districts Hide Gender Transition Counseling From Parents…]
The current political fight may be crystallizing around whether Maine’s female athletes should be forced to compete against male athletes. However, the broader political battle will be about restoring sanity to the Maine Human Rights Act and returning the law to a true guarantor of civil rights, as opposed to a weapon leftist agitators can use to impose hard-left quasi-religious doctrines on the rest of the state through public institutions, particularly the schools. Given the stridency of the left-wing zealots who currently control Maine’s House, Senate, and Governorship, such a change is unlikely to happen in the current legislative session. That means change will only come at the ballot box in 2026—either with the ascendance of legislative leaders who have the courage to stare down the shrill voices of a fringe minority or through a ballot referendum aimed at restoring the state’s protections for the civil rights of women and girls.
READ MORE:
- Maine Education Department Tells Public Schools to Ignore Trump’s Order on Transgender Ideology
- Mills Signs Extremely Controversial Transgender Trafficking Bill Into Law
- Study Finds Transgender Surgeries Dramatically Increase the Risk of Suicide
- Maine AG Aaron Frey Defends Revamped “Transgender Trafficking” Bill Condemned by Red State AGs
- Maine Lawmakers Reject Coverage for “Detransitions” in Bill to Fund Transgender Hormone Treatments, Surgeries Via MaineCare
- Maine House Democrats Block Bill to Fund “Detransition” Healthcare for Transgender People
- Democrat House Speaker Ryan Fecteau Deletes X Account After Backlash for Censuring Rep. Laurel Libby
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="36098 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=36098">24 Comments
Kinda surprised mills didn’t invite em in then have them all arrested, because that’s what democrats like to do. Law-fare and democrat, peas in a pod.
I’m out of state and country now. I wish I had one of those license plate frames that hide “Maine” on my license plate. What an embarrassment these mentally ill people are. Most Maine citizens are not fruity or have unnatural attractions to children.
Kudos to the Maine Wire for confronting democrat women, none of them could justify their censure of Libby, in fact they ran away, what the hell does Mills have over these cowards, and the democrat men, worse than cowards for shouting down Libby on the floor! Cowards and weasels more like it! What the hell happened to real men in this state? C’mon man!
Has anyone connected the dots between Mills’ Chief of Staff and the Maine House Majority Leader being married? Isn’t there some sort of conflict of interest here?
Which one is husband and which one is wife ?
Good question, Eric. It helps explain our government’s focus on gay and trans issues.
Boys pretending to be girls is not normal
Aren’t there serious DEP fines involved in dumping fish on a roadway, or does that only apply to lobstermen?
Mills continues to add lunacy to her legacy. First was her obscene lockdowns under the phony Covid disaster all so she could obtain more and more federal dollars for her democratic cronies to spend. Then it was her obsessive destruction of the power grid to force ratepayers and taxpayers to send billions to out of state entities to put up solar farms. Then her and the evil members in the legislature ensuring a woman could kill their babies up until the day before birth. Now her fall on the sword policy to allow delusional men and boys inside girls bathrooms and locker rooms and to allow them to play against females in sporting events. Great job Janet. You’ll go down as the worst, and most evil governor this state has ever seen.
This WILL BE the HILL that the democrats will die on at the polls in 2026 .
WE will defeat them once and for all .
This insanity will not gain them votes , it will lose them .
Democrats are done in 2026 . We the voters will NOT forget .
No comment, I need to get reelected in 2026.
She’s setting up the insanity groundwork for her corruption trial.
It’s no surprise that the Maine Democratic Party is the one that has taken on the gender identity fight. They are led by a gay speaker, a gay majority leader, a governor who dances in drag, a chief of staff who is married to the majority leader (also a gay man), and many other very liberal people in the party. The Republicans in Maine are actual genuine people who don’t have their sexuality as their feat (though that’s also likely because they are all straight).
Boy, talk about a state loaded with RETARDS. Can’t believe these people are all-in supporting biological males showering and undressing in underage girls locker rooms.
If these trans “athletes” cut off their “junk” they might have some credibility. Unfortunately, they’re just playing dress up and pretending to be girls as though they were still 5 years old. Go sell your nonsense elsewhere; we don’t live in your version of reality.
Maine women, silent no more…stand up, speak out, as you go about your day. Defend yourselves and all women/girls against this trans propaganda. We’ve gone a long to get along for far too long. This is THE social and moral battle to fight…Get communism out of our State; call, text, write your reps and do what we do best, speak your mind to others. No more toleration across this Nation! Make Maine Sane Again!
Laurel Libby for Governor!
Hopefully Laura Libby wins the support of the maine republicans.
Then successfully runs for Governor Libby!
And wins!!
Everyone keep your eyes on the dancing puppets! Look how silly they are!
It’s more than a little disheartening, seeing how inexplicably easy it is to social engineer the masses these days.
Pro-tip kiddos: EVERYTHING you see coming from the giant theater production that is politics and mainstream media is just that- theater. Theater meant to divert your focus, distract you from what matters, keep you divided and at odds with your fellow man and serve the exact same purpose as the magician’s hand dangling something shiny so you keep your gaze fixed upon it as the other hand performs a trick.
None, and I mean NONE, of the b.s. insanity we’ve seen playing out has been the result of accident, ignorance or simple corruption. It is very purposefully contrived to socially engineer the thoughts, feelings and actions of the masses.
And seeing how incredibly successful it has all been scares the crud out of any thinking person. Bigly.
Yup. Keep worrying about trannies and “gender identity”. But for heaven’s sake, whatever you do, don’t focus on the digital prison that was just built all around you; or the massive transfers of wealth taking place; or, you know, trivial things like genocide by way of a needle in the hands of our “healthcare” system… or genocide by way of our tax dollars shoveled overseas to Bibi and others.
When people’s white knight hero savior (vaxdaddy the Judas antichrist) can be given a golden pager commemorating very literal mass murder of innocent people and the masses still can’t be bothered but rage against the nonsensical theater: you can be sure we are all screwed.
People have been reduced to children with the attention spans and critical thinking skills of a fruit fly. Sad is the understatement of the century.
I noticed as I was reading the comment’s that there was no one sticking up for the Trans people….I wonder why if they feel so strong about men in women’s sports!!
PLEASE let this be the hill Maine Socialist Democrats choose to die on!
Because die they will!
Their political careers will end next year!
Not all of them, because Southern Maine is infested with like-minded vermin, but enough so Maine returns to normalcy instead of this Lunatic Leftist Alphabet-ladened Shithole the Democrats have forced upon us!
STAY MAINE STRONG!
This isidious perversion of rotting moral deviance championed by Maine Democrats must be eradicated once and for all!
Dy1ngBreed, if you mean to suggest that the time we are spending fighting for Maine girls to be able to PLAY IN THEIR OWN SPORTS, would be better spent fighting against aiding Israel in their fight against the terrorists (who, by the way, committed a mass terror attack, still have hostages, raped women, kidnapped women and children, and did awful things to innocent civilians) than you need to restraighten your priorities. We should be focusing of BOTH. In fact I daresay most taxpayers prefer their lawmakers to spend time protecting their daughters before they do the (also important) task of aiding Israel in its targeted attacks on sites where there are terrorists. Might I also add that the United Kingdom bombed many places that had civilians but were instrumental in defeating the Nazis in world war 2 because they struck military targets, as Israel is today. But we should focus on the issues that directly affect Mainers before we do the foreign policy. Luckily President Trump has done a good job of targeting both very well.
Follow the money. Gender affirming care is substandard care for children suffering from body dysmorphia but it is profitable for physicians and BIG Pharma.
Where’s PETA on the killing, and then discarding the fish?