Censured Maine lawmaker urges Supreme Court intervention as transgender athlete dominates girls' track meet
One Maine lawmaker is urging Supreme Court intervention as she remains entangled in a legal battle for her voting and speaking rights in the state legislature after speaking out against allowing transgender athletes in girls' sports.
Republican State Rep. Laurel Libby, who was banned from voting on bills and speaking after a viral social media post related to the trans athlete debate, sounded the alarm on the nationwide issue while pleading for the highest court to intervene.
"I, along with two-thirds of my fellow Mainers, agree that it's absolutely not fair, that biological males are dominating in women's sports, are pushing girls aside," Libby told Bill Hemmer on Tuesday. "And consider this, for a state where we're told this isn't happening, it's not a big deal, stop making an issue of it, this same athlete has been dominating in girls cross-country running, in Nordic skiing, and now in track."
A girls' track meet in Maine became the subject of widespread controversy after a trans athlete dominated multiple running events last week.
The trans-identifying athlete who competed for North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth, Maine, won the girls' 800-meter and 1600-meter events. In October 2023, Fox News Digital reported that this athlete was transgender. Fox News Digital has reached out to North Yarmouth Academy for comment.
The athlete has been making national headlines in Maine dating back to that month after jumping to 4th place in the 5k division in the girls' category after previously finishing 172nd among boys. The athlete again made national headlines for competing in Nordic skiing and taking a podium spot in Maine's High School State Nordic Skiing Championships this past February.
"We're talking about just one athlete," Libby said. "Just one of these biological male athletes pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium."
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau and Maine's Democrat majority censured Libby for a social media post earlier this year, in which she identified a trans athlete who had switched from competing with boys to competing against girls. She pointed out that the athlete finished fifth in a boys' competition just two years earlier.
They originally offered to restore her voting and speaking rights if she apologized for the post, but Libby told them right away she wouldn't apologize.
"It's been more than two months that my constituents have not had a voice and vote in the legislature," she said. "Two months of every time that there's a roll call vote, including on the Equal Rights Amendment, which addresses this issue, among others, I was not allowed to vote. So my constituents are being harmed."
"I will not be allowed to represent their interests because of exercising my First Amendment rights," she continued.
Libby filed a lawsuit against Fecteau on March 11 in response to the censure, but Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose ruled against Libby in her case on April 22.
DuBose, appointed by former President Joe Biden in January, ended up presiding over the case after every district judge in Maine refused to take it. He ended up with the case, and ruled in favor of Fecteau. Then, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled against Libby.
She is not letting the legal setbacks stop her, however, in her fight to protect First Amendment rights and fairness in women's sports. She wants her case to be heard by the Supreme Court to officially set the record straight.
"Just as we saw the United Kingdom, the Supreme Court ruling over there, that, indeed, a man is a man and a woman is a woman," she said. "We need the highest court in our land to address this and answer that question once and for all, so that Maine girls and girls across the country have a fair, safe, and level playing field."
Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced a lawsuit in April against the state of Maine for its continued defiance of Trump's executive order to keep biological males out of girls’ and women’s sports and violations of Title IX.
Libby attended the press conference alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
The Department of Agriculture cut federal funding to the state, which then sued the administration. A federal judge has already ruled the funding must be unfrozen.
Fox News' Jackson Thompson and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.