This Essay was posted on 4/24/2025.
Donald Trump is withholding legislatively allocated Federal funding to the State of Maine to intimidate Governor Janet Mills and the State of Maine into banning the participation of transgender people in female high school athletics. Most of the cuts are in education, and they are being challenged in the courts, but the issue is far from being settled.
The transgender issue needs context. In Maine high schools there are 2 or 3 transgender females participating in athletics along with about 22,000 other girls. In comparison, the state All-Maine Schoolgirl basketball team has 10 players between 5-foot-10 and 6-foot-3. No one is complaining that these girls have an unfair height advantage.
The fight between Trump and Mills isn’t really about transgender females. The dispute is over how far Trump’s Executive Orders reach. Trump tacitly claims that his transgender Executive Order has jurisdiction over Maine laws and practices, and he claims that he is the sole interpreter of federal laws. Neither claim is valid. The place to resolve this issue is through court rulings and legislation, not by executive orders. That is what this case is really about.
The transgender issue can be a very personal one for most people. To paraphrase the words of Pope Francis: Transgenders are as much a part of the human race as the rest of us, so who am I to judge?