Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) is championing her decision to force female high school athletes to compete against males who identify as girls, especially as she runs for the U.S. Senate against progressive brawler Graham Platner.
However, emails obtained under the Freedom of Access Act show that the Mills Administration and Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) officials were initially confused about who had the authority to impose the policy and were even reluctant to own the decision.
Communications obtained by the Oversight Project and provided to the Maine Wire have revealed that Gov. Mills’ office, the MPA, and the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) all tried to avoid responsibility for forcing schools to allow transgender-identifying males to compete in girls’ sports.
“These emails show that Governor Mills and her staff treated boys cosplaying as girls in Maine high school sports as a political hot potato until it became expedient to embrace the issue,” said Oversight Project Vice President Kyle Brosnan, in comments provided to the Maine Wire.
“Only after she was able to exploit her high profile spat with President Trump to increase her national name ID did she own the issue and conveniently launch her Senate Campaign. I bet she’s raised a ton of money off of the fight with the President given that she’s made fighting President Trump a central tenet of her Senate campaign,” he added.
On Feb. 21, Mills made headlines when she openly defied President Donald Trump’s executive order clarifying that Title IX’s protection of sex-based rights means high school girls cannot be forced to compete against male athletes. Mills was able to generate a viral clip when she told the president, “See you in court.”
That encounter sparked an ongoing legal battle that threatens Maine schools’ federal funding.
Much of the discussion surrounding Maine’s permissive transgender athlete policy has focused on the MPA, the body that governs Maine’s school sports, as the driving force behind the decision to resist the federal government.
However, communications between Executive Director of the MPA Interscholastic Division Michael Burnham and Governor’s Office Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Ogden suggest that neither Mills’ office nor the MPA was eager to be seen as the primary force making girls compete against biological males.
According to the communications, Burnham reached out to Ogden, requesting that any statement on transgender athletes specify that the MPA is simply following the directives issued by the MDOE and the advice of their legal counsel, not spearheading the effort to force boys into girls’ sports.
“It is my understanding that Governor Mills is going to do a press release today ‘supporting’ the decision of the MPA to allow transgender females to compete in school athletics. Hopefully, it will clearly state that the MPA, on behalf of the 151-member high schools, is following the directive that was laid out by the Maine Department of Education in January,” wrote Burnham.
“It is unfortunate that we seem to be caught in the middle of a political fight,” he added. “Our organization will continue to tell people that we don’t make the law, but that we are in a position that we must follow the law.”
In response to Burnham’s email, Ogden explained what the governor’s press release would say and promised to send him the full text in a separate email.
“I appreciate you letting us know what MPA will continue to say, and I also recognize this is a difficult situation. Like you, I am saddened to see Maine children put into the center of this fight,” said Ogden.
Ogden’s response did not satisfy Burnham, who continued to express concern that the Governor’s Office was not doing enough to take the blame for the controversy off of the MPA.
“While I appreciate the press releases from both the governor and attorney general, they clearly state that they are willing to defy the executive order, but in no way take the MPA out of the middle of the controversy,” said Burnham in a follow-up email.
The state-level Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) establishes self-selected gender identity as a protected class and conflicts with Trump’s executive order, leaving organizations like the MPA in the difficult position of choosing between state and federal law. The MPA ultimately decided to side with state law.
Despite Burnham’s attempts to avoid blame, the MPA has stood firm in its support for transgender-identifying males in girls’ sports, even going so far as to request a court order to prevent the Trump administration from obtaining records from their organization that the Department of Justice subpoenaed as part of its lawsuit against Maine.
A similar email exchange took place one week earlier between employees of the Governor’s Office and the Maine DOE when they tried to decide how to respond to a request for comment on the state’s transgender policies from a WGME reporter.
Gina Hamilton of WGME reached out via email to MDOE Director of Communications Chloe Teboe, asking whether she would be willing to speak about the policies.
Teboe forwarded the request to other state employees, including Ogden, and told them that she believed they might need to consult their legal counsel before responding.
Mills Director of Communications Anthony Ronzio then responded to Teboe, trying to shift responsibility for the transgender policy away from the DOE and the governor’s office and onto the MPA.
“I’m not certain where jurisdictions begin or end, but this question may be better suited to the Maine Principals’ Association, which has oversight on athletics,” said Ronzio.
Press Secretary Ben Goodman then followed up with a quote from Burnham, explaining that the MPA has chosen to follow state rather than federal law.
In response, Teboe pointed out that the reporter had already spoken with the MPA and that they had told her to speak with the MDOE instead.
Following the exchange, MDOE Commissioner Pender Makin suggested admitting to the reporter that the MDOE advised the MPA to follow state law.
“I think it’s fair and accurate to say that Maine DOE has advised schools to continue to follow state law (including the MHRA) and that Title IX is enforced at the federal level,” said Makin.
Ogden contradicted Makin’s suggestion, instead urging further deflection.
“I suggest simply saying DOE does not have authority over the programs,” said Ogden.
Ronzio agreed, and Teboe ultimately decided that she would follow Ogden’s suggestion.
While Mills scored political points with radical Trump opponents for her refusal to comply with federal law, her decision may have been less popular among general voters.
Polling from earlier this year shows that 79 percent of Americans, and even 67 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Americans, believe that males should not compete in women’s sports.
The communications reviewed by The Maine Wire suggest that none of the agencies involved in the decision were eager to take the blame for the unpopular push to force males into girls’ sports.
