In what appears to be the latest retaliation against Maine over its transgender policies, U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi announced that the Trump administration is withholding funding from the Maine Department of Corrections. The focus this time is not on transgender athletes but on a transgender prison resident.
Bondi appeared on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday morning and said the state of Maine is continuing to defy President Donald Trump's executive order barring transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. On his first day in office, Trump also signed a sweeping order saying the federal government would only recognize two sexes: male and female.
"And in the case right now — what we did last night, some breaking news, we pulled all 'nonessential' funding from the Department of Corrections because they were allowing a man in a woman's prison," she said.
Bondi did not name the prisoner but her description matches a transgender woman who was convicted of killing her parents in Winthrop in 2018. The Trump administration has sought to move transgender women in U.S. prisons to men's facilities despite several court rulings blocking Trump's policy. Bondi did not mention those cases in her remarks.
"So they were letting him be housed in a female prison. No longer. We will pull your funding. We will protect women in sports. We will protect women in prison. We will protect women throughout this country," she said.
A search on the Maine DOC website shows that the transgender woman is still being held in the women's prison. The Maine Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And since 2023 the Maine Department of Corrections has had a policy that allows transgender prisoners to be housed according to their gender identity.
In a written statement, the Maine DOC said it received a written notice from the U.S. Department of Justice that three grants were being terminated because they "no longer effectuate the program goals or agency priorities." The grants include one that addresses treatment for substance-use disorder for adults leaving prison, one addressing the needs of incarcerated parents and their minor children and one called "Smart Probation: Innovations in Supervision." The DOC said it is evaluating the impacts of the funding cuts to services.
In February, President Trump had a tense exchange with Gov. Janet Mills at a meeting in Washington, D.C., over Maine's refusal to comply with his executive seeking to keep transgender athletes out of girls' sports.
Since then, the state has come under investigation and had federal funding frozen by several federal agencies including the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture for alleged violations of Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal opportunities to girls and women who compete in sports.
This week, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey filed suit against the USDA for freezing federal funds already allocated to feed Maine schoolchildren "without following any of the statutory and regulatory requirements" and without prior notice or an investigation. He's asking a federal judge to restore the funding and to prevent the government from freezing other funding based on alleged violations of Title IX.
Watch Bondi's appearance below. Remarks about Maine begin at approximately 4:53:
