Maine AG calls DOJ lawsuit over Trump's transgender athlete ban 'unsurprising'

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said it’s “unsurprising” the Trump administration is suing the state for continuing to allow transgender athletes to compete in girls and women’s sports.

Earlier this year, Maine Governor Janet Mills publicly challenged President Trump on an executive order he signed that bans transgender athletes from women’s sports and withholds federal funds to schools that don’t comply.

“It was unsurprising that the federal government has gotten to this point in which they're filing a case against Maine,” Frey said. “And as the governor pointed out, we were prepared to defend ourselves in court on this because we are confident in our read on Title IX and on the Maine Human Rights Act and what's required of our state.”

The administration says Maine is discriminating against women and endangers the safety of female athletes by letting them compete against athletes who were assigned male at birth. What is your interpretation of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in schools that get federal funding? 

“Our understanding of Title IX is that it allows transgender girls and women to play on a female team. There's nothing about Title IX that prohibits that, and, in fact, quite the opposite. Title IX is about making sure that there is access, just like the Maine Human Rights Act is also focused on access and not discriminating against somebody for who they are as an individual.

‘So not only is our reading of the plain text of Title IX consistent with our position, but we also did cite cases to the Department of Justice. Interestingly, cases that the Department of Justice hasn't even tried to explain away in which courts so far who have had this question before them have also supported that Title IX is supportive of making sure that transgender girls are able to play on girls' sports teams.

"In fact, quite the opposite to this point, the Department of Justice has not offered a single case, a single legal authority that supports the position that they're taking very aggressively, by the way, in the case that they just filed against Maine.”

How much funding is the Department of Education threatening to pull?

“A significant amount. I don't have the exact number, but it is a significant amount. And you know, adding to that, we've seen the acting Social Security administrator try to stop an anti-fraud enumeration program in our hospitals as a result of this exchange between the president and the governor.

“We've seen a sea grant pulled from the University of Maine, unlike other schools that receive the sea grant. We've seen a targeting of Maine. So, it is going to be a fair amount of money, but at the same time, as the chief state legal officer, it's my job to follow the law, and so I'm going to let rule of law take us through this. We will see him in court to determine whether or not our reading is right. I think it is, and I think we'll preserve that money.”

This interview was edited for clarity.