Maine high school athlete sends message to governor amid trans-athlete policy controversy

Maine high school athlete Cassidy Carlisle expounded on her message to Gov. Janet Mills as the state continued to thumb its nose as President Donald Trump and maintain its transgender-athlete policies in girls' and women’s sports.

Carlisle opened up to Fox News Digital last week about how the state’s transgender policies affected her childhood, revealing she was changing in front of a transgender student for gym class while in middle school.

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Carlisle, now a high school senior, has become a voice for change in her state. She met with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last month and shared her story about having to compete against transgender athletes in sports. She also spoke in front of the Maine State Capitol earlier this month as hundreds protested against the gender-inclusion policies.

She appeared on "Fox & Friends" on Monday and explained further what her message to Mills was.

"My message to the governor was just to think about all of us women in your state," she said. "If she can genuinely look at us and say I’m not gonna fight for you, then, you know, that’s really heartbreaking because we had to fight a long time for her to have the position that she has and a lot of women fought hard for her. So, for her to look at all of us and say I’m not gonna fight for you is heartbreaking."

Carlisle added that she knew something was wrong when she was first exposed to the state’s transgender policies. However, she said she did not know at the time how to speak up.

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"I think it’s one of those things, when it happens, you don’t know what to do, but you definitely know something is wrong," she said. I was 13 years old that I know something was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do. 

"I didn’t have the platform to speak, and I think that makes it really hard because you feel like you don’t have a voice, but that’s not true. And I hope that by speaking up that a lot of younger people know that it’s OK to speak up."

Carlisle wrote in an op-ed on Fox News Digital describing how she was worried for the future of women’s sports if the policies continued.

"I truly fear for the future of women’s sports if states like my own continue in this direction. Girls of all ages are watching women be erased from sports – they can no longer have confidence that their effort and dedication will be honored with a fair shot against their physical equals," she wrote.

"We have to win this battle for them. This is a competition we cannot lose."

The Trump administration has given Maine until Thursday to comply with its executive order to keep biological males from women’s sports or risk losing federal funding to its public schools.

Fox News' Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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