Trump Sends 6 Federal Agencies Against Maine Over 2 Transgender Girls

The U.S. Department of Education opened inquiries into the Maine Department of Education and the student’s school district, alleging they had violated federal civil rights law. The same day, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted the Maine Education Department, too, as well as the state’s university system.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture then launched an investigation into the university system; and on Tuesday, the university said the USDA had halted funding as the agency investigates “prospective” civil rights violations, records show.

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter that “Maine should be on notice” that the agency was poised to sue. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration even pulled $4.5 million for marine research, but it didn’t touch the 33 other grantees who get similar funding.

Then last week, the Social Security Administration briefly became the sixth federal agency to target Maine, canceling contracts that allowed hospitals to automatically report births and funeral homes to report deaths.

Although the Social Security contracts were reinstated, and the state may reapply for the marine research funding, the moves had already wreaked havoc.

Now, more federal agencies are pressing down on Maine than there are transgender girls competing in girls’ sports in the state. Only two transgender girls are competing this school year, according to the Maine Principals’ Association…

Trump’s Feb. 5 “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order asserted that transgender girls can’t play girls’ sports under that federal law. But Title IX has never required schools to exclude them, and Trump’s order can’t rewrite federal law, said Deborah Brake, a professor at University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

“The president can put out an executive order saying anything he wants,” Brake said, but “there has never been a court decision interpreting Title IX to require the exclusion of transgender girls from girls’ sports.”

…Maine’s governor never believed her state would receive an impartial investigation. “I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined,” Mills said in a statement after the Education Department investigation began. She has since declined to discuss her view of Maine’s transgender athlete policy.

But she has reiterated that Trump legally can’t force the state to violate its own law, the Maine Human Rights Act, which prevents discrimination based on gender identity.