Maine female athlete 'grateful' for Trump's focus on trans competitors after local leaders 'failed' girls
Zoe, who competed in shot put at Maine's Class B state indoor championship meet on Monday, said she is "grateful" for the president's announcement that he will be cutting federal funding to Maine over its defiance of Trump's order to keep men out of women's sports, adding that leaders in the state "have failed our female athletes."
"State leaders have failed our female athletes and there needs to be repercussions for their neglect," Zoe said. "We feel seen and heard because of this announcement and hope that steps will continue to be made to protect women's sports in Maine."
Espn Star Stephen A Smith Makes Stance On Trans Inclusion In Women's Sports Clear
During the state championship meet, Katie Spencer, who competed as a male named John Rydzewski in pole-vaulting as recently as June 2024, out-jumped every other female by half a foot. Spencer's winning pole vault was pivotal in helping Spencer's track and field team at Greely High School in Cumberland, Maine, win the Class B state championship meet by just a single point.
Following news of what happened, Trump announced that Maine would lose public funding until "they clean that up."
Read On The Fox News App
Republican Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby began sounding the alarm after Spencer won the women's pole-vaulting state championship on Monday.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, she reiterated Zoe's concern that without some sort of federal intervention nothing was going to change.
Several years ago, the state amended its state Human Rights Act to include protections for gender-identity, and since Democrats control both chambers of the legislature and the governor's office, Libby said there is "a 0% chance" they will repeal it.
Ca Lawmakers Introduce Bill Protecting Girls From Trans Athletes After State Refuses To Follow Trump's Order
Following Trump's Feb. 5 executive order threatening to end public funding to schools that do not keep men out of women's sports, the Maine Principals' Association, the primary governing body for high school athletics in the state, said that the president's order conflicts with state law aimed at protecting human rights. As a result, the association said it will defer to the latter when it comes to determining athletic eligibility.
Sarah Perry, a civil rights attorney who has extensive experience litigating Title IX issues, said that in addition to Trump's executive order, the association is also flouting directives from the Department of Education and previously established precedent from a slew of cases that challenged former President Joe Biden's Title IX regulations allowing athletic eligibility to be determined by one's preferred gender identity. Perry noted that besides the obvious risk of losing funding, these states also open themselves up to federal Title IX investigations, something she said could potentially force them to comply with Trump's demands.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Maine Principals' Association for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Ncaa Responds As Critics Call Out Potential Loopholes In Its New Trans-athlete Policy
"It is absolutely reprehensible that people in a position of power would allow this against children who are trying to compete," Libby said. "There will not be enforcement from the state level, that is absolutely clear. So the only mechanism of enforcement that we have is for the administration to intervene."
Libby noted that after posting about Spencer's state championship title on social media, a young female competitor at the meet commented that she and her teammates did not even know they would be competing against a biological male until they arrived at the state championship meet on Monday. "It was so disheartening to find out, because, you immediately know the result," Libby told Fox News Digital.
Libby also pointed out that it was illustrative of a larger problem in Maine when it comes to protecting women's rights in athletics.
Trans Athlete And 'Uncomfortable' Opponent Speak Out After Alleged Incident Prompts Civil Rights Complaint
"This is not a first-time scenario here," she said. "There is another boy who has been running girls' cross-country for several fall seasons now. He was a mediocre athlete as a boy, but as a girl he is doing extremely well. This is increasing in Maine. And unless something is done at the federal level, I think we're just going to see more and more of it."
Due to the win, Spencer has now automatically qualified for the multistate regional championships, taking the spot that would have been awarded to the female athlete who garnered second place had Spencer competed in the boys' division.
Trump on Thursday said that Maine will not receive federal funding until it complies with his executive order requiring schools and athletic associations to ensure biological males do not compete on women's sports teams.
"I heard men are still playing in Maine," the president said Friday during a speech at the annual National Governors Association conference in Washington, D.C. "I hate to tell you this, but we're not going to give any federal money. They are still saying, 'We want men to play in women's sports,' and I cannot believe they are doing that… so we're not going to give them any federal funding, none whatsoever, until they clean that up."
'Light It On Fire And Throw It In The Garbage': Former All-american Tennis Player Slams Ncaa's Transgender Policy
Trump met with governors at the White House on Friday, including Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, amid the conference taking place in the nation's capital. For a brief moment, Trump and Mills got into a verbal skirmish over his move to slash the state's federal funding due to its defiance against Trump's executive order barring men from competing in women's sports.
"You better do it because you're not going to get federal funding," Trump said to Mills, to which she responded: "We're going to follow the law, sir. We'll see you in court."
"Enjoy your life after governor, because I don't think you'll be an elected official afterward," Trump shot back.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "Partisan elected officials and judicial activists who seek to legally obstruct President Trump's agenda are defying the will of 77 million Americans who overwhelmingly re-elected President Trump," and added that "their efforts will fail."
"All of President Trump's executive actions are lawful, constitutional and intended to deliver on the promises he made to the American people," Leavitt said. "The Trump Administration is prepared to fight these battles in court and will prevail."Original article source: Maine female athlete 'grateful' for Trump's focus on trans competitors after local leaders 'failed' girls
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Musk Says Trump Should ‘Just Release Epstein Files as Promised'
Elon Musk said President Donald Trump should release the Epstein files as promised. 'Seriously. He said 'Epstein' half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein. Just release the files as promised,' Musk said in a reply to a post on X.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
PSG and Chelsea in the Club World Cup final reflects the state of the game in 2025
There was a temporary exhibit in the lobby of Trump Tower this week, near the 60-foot waterfall, the gold-plated escalator and the gold-plated elevators, and it looked right at home. FIFA's new Club World Cup trophy was crafted in collaboration with luxury jeweller Tiffany & Co, which is based on the same block on New York City's Fifth Avenue. It is plated in 24-carat gold — 'prestigious, timeless,' says FIFA president Gianni Infantino, whose name appears on it. Twice. Advertisement It is certainly eye-catching. Like some expensive toy, it comes with a key which, if turned three times, allows the trophy to be opened up and transformed — in this case from a shield into what FIFA calls a 'multifaceted and orbital structure'. 'Wow,' President Trump said when Infantino gave a demonstration in front of television cameras in the Oval Office in April. 'You've gotta be kidding.' Trump is expected to join Infantino as part of the presentation party that will hand the trophy to the winning captain — either Paris Saint-Germain's Marquinhos or Chelsea's Reece James — after Sunday's Club World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (or 'New York New Jersey' as FIFA appears intent on rebranding it). Quite what the captain does with the trophy at that point — whether he lifts it, or opens it, or opens it and then tries to lift it in its expanded form — remains to be seen. But Infantino will have the moment he craves: fireworks, blaring music and Trump in attendance as the new world champions celebrate with the trophy and the winning club's owners celebrate a windfall in the region of $114million (£84.5million). This summer's Club World Cup has been a strange experience. There has been a lot to take issue with, from the way it was crowbarred into a small gap in a horribly congested calendar to the commercially driven insistence on playing matches in scorching heat at the height of an American summer. The prize fund is only going to compound the issue of financial inequality in the game and then there's the endless bombast from Infantino about how 'the 32 best teams in the world' and their fans have created drama and atmosphere on an 'epic', 'phenomenal', 'incredible' scale, beyond anything previously seen in club football. 'If you want the headline from the beginning — as we are in Trump Tower — the golden era of global club football has started,' Infantino declared on Saturday morning. 'We can say definitely that this FIFA Club World Cup has been a huge, huge, huge success. After the final tomorrow we will have (had) two or three billion viewers all over the world, watching the top, top, top-quality football featuring the best players in the best teams in the world.' Advertisement The tournament has had its moments, but is this the showpiece final Infantino would have wished for the first version of the expanded tournament? Probably not; even if he were to look beyond his lifelong affinity with Internazionale, he might have preferred to see a final involving Real Madrid and/or one of the South American teams. The first would have been for commercial reasons, the second because it would have brought a global dimension, as well as a colour and vibrancy, that an all-European final lacks. In many ways, though, a final between PSG and Chelsea seems to encapsulate the state of the game in 2025: a club owned by a Qatari sovereign wealth fund facing a club owned primarily by an American private equity firm. They are two of the three clubs with the biggest net transfer spend in world football over the past decade. (The fact that the other club in that trio is Manchester United, owned by an American family with a real estate empire, at least serves as a reminder that spending fortunes does not always guarantee success.) Money makes the world go around — and no more than in football. The sport did not anticipate the influx of American and Middle Eastern wealth it has seen over the past couple of decades, but it now actively lusts after that investment, whether direct or otherwise. FIFA, football's world governing body, is at the centre of that equation. This is a tournament on American soil, bankrolled by American and Middle Eastern investment. When, shortly after succeeding Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016, Infantino floated the idea of an expanded Club World Cup with a $1billion prize fund for participating clubs, questions were asked about where that money was going to come from. The answer, to a large extent, is from the United States and the Middle East: big commercial deals with U.S. firms such as Coca Cola, Visa and Bank of America as well as with Qatar Airways and PIF (a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund) and an enormous television rights deal with DAZN, a U.S-based broadcaster that is now part-owned by SURJ Sports Investment, a subsidiary of PIF. Infantino has been unapologetic for chasing Middle Eastern investment. In May he arrived late at the FIFA Congress in Asuncion, Paraguay — to the disdain of delegates from UEFA, European football's governing body — after spending the previous days at various summits and ceremonial events with Trump in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Advertisement At the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, the FIFA president spoke about the 'huge … unexploited potential' — even now — for investment from both countries, telling his audience: 'Invest in the beautiful game! It will be the best investment you can make!' Infantino claims interest in the Club World Cup has been off the scale. But it seems irrelevant to question whether a Qatari airline or a Saudi sovereign wealth fund has extracted value from sponsorship deals if those deals are less about 'value' in the traditional sense than about cementing that nation's government's relationship with FIFA and enjoying whatever benefits might come of that. Next summer the U.S. will co-host the men's World Cup with Canada and Mexico. Three-quarters of the games (78 out of 104) will take place in American cities and the whole affair seems to be shaping into a Trump-Infantino production. Trump has delighted his 'good friend' and FIFA counterpart by becoming the chair of the 2026 World Cup task force — and this at a time when Trump signed executive orders restricting the entry to the U.S. by nationals from various countries while imposing heavy trade tariffs on others, including their tournament co-hosts Mexico. Trump told reporters in March that political or economic tensions between the U.S. and its neighbours and co-hosts might make the World Cup 'much more exciting'. Infantino, alongside him, nodded in agreement. As for Saudi Arabia, it will host the 2034 men's World Cup — despite the concerns raised by various groups about the kingdom's human rights record — and its influence on FIFA and the football industry continues to grow. Infantino's predecessor Sepp Blatter told German TV channel ntv this week: 'We have lost football to Saudi Arabia. We offered it and they took it. Surprisingly, there is no opposition to this within FIFA.' Football revolves around the prestige and profile of the biggest clubs in Europe, which import talent from all over the world but primarily from South America and Africa. But the football economy, increasingly, revolves around the U.S. and the Middle East. Where any of this is leading is anyone's guess. But in a decade that has already seen 12 of Europe's biggest clubs try and fail to establish a breakaway Super League, it is easy to imagine a scenario in which the game's established structure comes under serious threat once more. Advertisement The scene in the VIP section at Wednesday's semi-final at MetLife (below) — Infantino, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi and Turki Al-Sheikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority — left you wondering just how four of the most influential figures in football in 2025 might proceed if, hypothetically, they felt they had the opportunity to change the game's landscape to their design. It is hard not to imagine that Infantino's vision for the future goes much further than a 32-team tournament every four years when he has been talking about this tournament as a 'big bang' and a 'new era of club football'. At Saturday's chaotic media event at Trump Tower, The Athletic asked the FIFA president if he might push for it to be played every two years. 'In the future we will see what it brings us. We will make it better,' he said, a vague answer that will cause consternation among traditionalists. Infantino sounds like someone who is looking far beyond the game's traditional structures and architecture, in which everything is built around national leagues. The football business has changed hugely — and some of us would say not for the better — over the first quarter of the 21st century. It threatens to change far more dramatically over the next 25 years. He claimed the Club World Cup has broken all records when it comes to the revenue generated per match, saying that 'no other club competition in the world today comes anywhere close'. Those enormous commercial deals have certainly helped at a time when the organisers have found themselves putting the 'dynamic' into 'dynamic pricing' by slashing ticket prices in a bid to minimise the number of empty seats in the knock-out rounds. Whether the tournament has captured the imagination of the typical football fan — or, to generalise less, of the typical cross-section of football fans — is a different matter entirely. A Champions League or Copa Libertadores semi-final and final is an enormous event that stops people in its tracks and dominates conversations; a World Cup final even more so. Was the football world captivated when PSG tore Real Madrid apart on Wednesday? It didn't feel like it. Will it be any different when PSG take on Chelsea on Sunday? It is hard to imagine so. The Club World Cup has its showpiece event, one that promises to be illuminated by a PSG team that has taken its game to another level since the turn of the year, excelling under the stewardship of Luis Enrique. But whether Sunday's final will represent a showpiece for the game, or merely for FIFA's success in milking it, is another question. In the post-match festivities, that key will be turned three times to unlock the trophy. Infantino might say it is symbolic of club football's true potential being unlocked as part of this new 'golden era' he has been talking about. But … oh, what's that saying? All that glitters is not gold.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Lakers' Different Treatment of LeBron James, Luka Doncic Revealed in New Report
Lakers' Different Treatment of LeBron James, Luka Doncic Revealed in New Report originally appeared on Athlon Sports. When the Los Angeles Lakers pulled off their blockbuster trade in February to bring Luka Doncic to LA, it signaled a major pivot in the franchise's vision. By sending Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks and pairing Doncic with LeBron James, the Lakers hoped to extend their championship window while setting up a future built around a younger superstar. Advertisement However, that bold move could be coming back to bite them. Speculation about James' long-term future in Los Angeles has only grown in recent weeks. Per ESPN's Shams Charania, his agent, Rich Paul, openly admitted that James is considering what's best for his career, leading to rumblings that his time in purple and gold may be coming to an end. The Lakers' front office, on the other end, has yet to officially announce his player option decision, further fueling talks that the relationship between the two sides may be more strained than it appears on the surface. Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic and forward LeBron James speak during their game against the Chicago Bulls at Arena on March 22, Hui-Imagn Images Now, a new report from ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Ramona Shelburne reveals just how James really feels about the Lakers' recent decision making. Advertisement 'James understood the Lakers taking advantage of an opportunity to pivot to the younger superstar,' they wrote. 'But from James' perspective, nuance was sometimes lost during the transition. Doncic had never asked to be a Laker. James, for his part, had chosen L.A., coming in 2018 when the team had missed the playoffs five consecutive seasons, the worst run for the franchise since it moved from Minneapolis. Two years later, James had helped deliver a 17th championship.' Additionally, James was reportedly not informed about the Lakers' team sale, yet Doncic was. "When the Buss family agreed to sell a majority stake in the franchise to Mark Walter on June 18, Doncic was given a heads-up and notably posted a congratulations on social media afterward," ESPN reported. "James was not given the same notice and did not post any public acknowledgement afterward." Advertisement This shift has placed LeBron in an unprecedented position: for the first time in his career, under contract on an expiring deal with no extension in sight—while the franchise runs forward centered on Doncic. While James is still under contract with the Lakers, it remains to be seen if the franchise will prefer to keep him beyond next season. James, 40, averaged 24.4 points, 8.2 assists, and 7.8 rebounds in his 22nd NBA season. Related: Steph Curry Has New Message for LeBron James Amid Warriors-Lakers Trade Rumors Related: Lakers Fans Excited After Nikola Jokic News This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
