(The Daily Signal) – A conservative organization for parents is equipping them to challenge their elected representatives who are defying President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting women’s sports.
The American Parents Coalition will send parents a form they can send to their legislators urging them to adhere to Trump’s directive keeping biological males out of women’s sports, The Daily Signal has learned.
The organization will also send parents a notification about blue states, like Maine and Minnesota, refusing to follow Trump’s women’s sports order.
During remarks at a governors’ event at the White House on Feb. 21, Trump asked Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, if the state would adhere to his order. Mills said she would comply with “state and federal law.”
“Well, we are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
“See you in court,” Mills retorted.
“Good, I’ll see you in court,” Trump said. “I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
The American Parents Coalition surveyed about 600 registered Maine voters, and 63% said school sports participation should be based on biological sex.
Some 66% percent agreed it’s “only fair to restrict women’s sports to biological women.”
“Parents in Maine have seen their daughters lose out on championships, scholarships, and recognition while also having their privacy stripped and safety threatened,” American Parents Coalition founder Alleigh Marre told The Daily Signal. “Our latest poll affirms two overwhelming truths: Mainers believe girls sports should be reserved for biological females, and they want schools to stop hiding conversations about gender identity from parents.”
Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, was censured by the Democratic speaker of the Maine House after defending girls sports when a biological male won a Maine high school girls’ pole-vaulting championship.
After her censure, Libby filed a lawsuit against the speaker to restore her legislative voting rights.
“Governor Mills and the Democrat majority continue to demonstrate the ultimate hubris by ignoring [federal Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education] deadlines, so that Maine now faces referral to the Department of Justice,” Libby told The Daily Signal. “By insisting on allowing biological males to participate in girls sports, they are not only rejecting basic principles of fairness and silencing women and girls, but also putting hundreds of millions in federal education funding at risk.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has announced a review of the Maine Department of Education “based on information that Maine intends to defy this executive order” and “will continue to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports.”
“I can attest that Governor Mills’ extreme stance does not reflect the will of Maine people,” Libby said, “but ultimately we will have to bear the consequences for her misplaced priorities.”