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Maine\u2019s Democratic governor Janet Mills<\/strong> clashed<\/a> with President Donald Trump<\/strong> at a White House event Friday over her state’s opposition to his executive order seeking to bar transgender student athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams.<\/p>\n While the president was addressing a bipartisan group of governors, he stopped to single out Mills. \u201cIs Maine here?\u201d Trump asked, \u201cthe governor of Maine?\u201d \u201cYeah,\u201d she responded from across the room. \u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump had been rambling about \u201cmen playing in women\u2019s sports\u201d and inaccurately retelling the story of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif<\/strong>, who received anti-trans hate<\/a> for competing in the women\u2019s cohort at the Paris Olympics, even though she herself is not transgender or intersex.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you not going to comply with it,\u201d Trump asked Mills, referring to his executive order. \u201cI\u2019m complying with the state and federal laws,\u201d she responded quickly. \u201cWell I am, we are the federal law,\u201d Trump said before threatening to withhold Maine\u2019s federal funding if Mills and other leaders in her state did not comply.<\/p>\n In early February, the Maine Principals\u2019 Association, the body that governs school sports in the state, announced<\/a> it would continue to allow transgender female athletes to compete, saying that Trump\u2019s executive order conflicts with the Maine Human Rights Act.<\/p>\n \u201cSee you in court,\u201d Mills told Trump in a rare act<\/a> of public defiance to the president\u2019s face by Democratic lawmakers. \u201cGood, I\u2019ll see you in court,\u201d he responded. \u201cI look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll be in elected politics.\u201d<\/p>\n While brief, the exchange has garnered national attention as the Democratic Party tries to figure out how to respond to the Trump administration\u2019s persistent upending of long-held federal standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Trump\u2019s executive order, which notes several times in the text that it will \u201cprotect\u201d women, used Title IX to justify excluding transgender athletes from playing on the sports team that matches their gender identity (though transgender boys and men are notably absent from the language). This is a much different interpretation from former president Joe Biden<\/strong>\u2019s administration. In 2024, Biden finalized<\/a> new Title IX rules barring schools from discriminating against transgender students.<\/p>\n According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association President Charlie Baker<\/strong>, who testified<\/a> in front of a Senate panel in December, there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes that he is aware of who currently compete in college sports and, nationally, just around 1 percent of adults<\/a> identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law\u2014a reality that highlights the outsized fixation from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nX content<\/h4>\n