{"id":8853,"date":"2025-05-05T10:20:36","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T10:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-administration-backs-down-in-dispute-with-maine-over-trans-athletes\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T10:20:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T10:20:36","slug":"trump-administration-backs-down-in-dispute-with-maine-over-trans-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-administration-backs-down-in-dispute-with-maine-over-trans-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration backs down in dispute with Maine over trans athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Trump administration has agreed to restore<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/trump-administrations-intensifying-feud-maine-arrives-court-rcna201594\" target=\"_blank\"> federal funding for education programs in Maine<\/a>ending a freeze sparked by the president&rsquo;s opposition to the state&rsquo;s policies on transgender athletes.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement settles a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/nbc-out\/out-politics-and-policy\/trump-administration-sues-maine-transgender-sports-rcna201502\" target=\"_blank\">lawsuit<\/a> filed last month by Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey against the U.S. Agricultural Department, after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usda.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/maine-letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">froze funds <\/a>for nutrition programs.<strong> <\/strong>The dispute between Trump and the state arose over trans athletes&rsquo; participation in women&rsquo;s sports.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s unfortunate that my office had to resort to federal court just to get USDA to comply with the law and its own regulations,&rdquo; Frey said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maine.gov\/ag\/news\/article.shtml?id=13179940\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a>. &ldquo;But we are pleased that the lawsuit has now been resolved and that Maine will continue to receive funds as directed by Congress to feed children and vulnerable adults.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration had made repeated threats to strip Maine of funding over state officials&rsquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-maine-transgender-title-ix-funding-cd726ba387c499daf690dbfa2deb8210\" target=\"_blank\">refusal to comply with its push to bar trans athletes<\/a> from participation in women&rsquo;s sports under Title IX, which is meant to prevent sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs. In February, the president and Maine Gov. Janet Mills <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/trump-tells-maines-democratic-governor-are-federal-law-rcna193237\" target=\"_blank\">clashed publicly at the White House<\/a> when <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AP\/status\/1893077998288454044\" target=\"_blank\">Trump told her that she had &ldquo;better comply&rdquo;<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AP\/status\/1893077998288454044\" target=\"_blank\"><strong> <\/strong><\/a>or risk losing federal funds for her state.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see you in court,&rdquo; Mills responded.<\/p>\n<p>Neither side appeared willing to back down. In mid-April, a federal judge presiding over Maine&rsquo;s lawsuit against the USDA ordered the Trump administration to <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/maine-usda-funding-freeze-title-ix-c50bdfa491f11273353844ecf43f4aeb\" target=\"_blank\">temporarily unfreeze funds <\/a>for the state&rsquo;s education programs.<\/p>\n<p>At a news conference on Friday, Mills, a moderate Democrat, celebrated the administration backing down.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I told him I&rsquo;d see him in court,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Well, we did see him in court, and we won.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-activity-map=\"expanded-byline-article-bottom\">\n<div data-testid=\"byline-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/clarissa-jan-lim-ncpn1307846\" tabindex=\"-1\"><picture data-testid=\"picture\"><source media=\"(min-width: 320px)\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_focal-60x60,f_auto,q_auto:best\/newscms\/2024_08\/3635688\/clarissa-jan-lim-msnbc.png\" alt height=\"48\" width=\"48\"><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span data-testid=\"byline-name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/clarissa-jan-lim-ncpn1307846\"> Clarissa-je Lim<\/a><\/span><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking\/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/top-stories\/latest\/trump-maine-funding-freeze-settlement-trans-athletes-usda-rcna204609\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration has agreed to restore federal funding for education programs in Maineending a freeze sparked by the president&rsquo;s opposition to the state&rsquo;s policies on transgender athletes. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed last month by Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey against the U.S. Agricultural Department, after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins froze funds for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}