U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi attends a press conference, as she unveils actions against the state of Maine, which is locked in a dispute with the Trump administration over transgender policy, at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 16, 2025. Leah Millis/Reuters

The Justice Department is suing Maine over its refusal to comply with President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender athletes in high school sports, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Wednesday.

The lawsuit, which alleges that Maine is violating Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal aid, is the latest action in a public feud between the Trump administration and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.

“We have exhausted every other remedy,” Bondi said Wednesday of the suit. “We tried to get Maine to comply. We don’t like standing up here and filing lawsuits, we want to get states to comply with us.”

“The undeniable physiological differences between males and females provide boys with inherent advantages in strength, speed, and physicality that pre-determine the outcome of athletic contests,” the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maine, reads.

It continues, “the results are stark: girls are displaced from podiums, lose opportunities for advancement to regional and national competitions, and miss out on critical visibility for college scholarships and recognition.”

Early in his administration, Trump threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding should the state not comply with his directive, entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports. Bondi sent letters soon after to Maine, California, and Minnesota earlier this year, saying that the Justice Department “will defend women and does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law.”

Maine has faced the challenge on several fronts. Last month, the US Department of Education concluded the Maine Department of Education violated Title IX by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ sports teams. The US Department of Education referred its findings to DOJ, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said Wednesday.

The Justice Department this month also pulled more than $1.5 million in federal grants from the state’s department of corrections, according to DOJ, over a transgender woman’s placement in a women’s correctional facility. And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said earlier this month that the Department of Agriculture was pausing some funds for Maine educational programs because of what she described as Maine’s failure to comply with the Title IX law.

Still, the state has not backed down from its policies. Mills has also rebuffed threats of continuing lawsuits, telling the president: “see you in court.”

The state last week secured an emergency court order requiring that USDA unfreeze the funding – which supported the state’s Children Nutrition program – with the court finding the administration failed to go through the proper regulatory procedures in its mauver against Maine.

At Wednesday’s news conference announcing the suit, Bondi said that the DOJ is also asking a judge to “have the titles return to the young women who rightfully won these sports,” adding that the department is also “considering whether to retroactively pull all the funding that they have received for not complying in the past.”

The news conference also featured Riley Gaines, a former college athlete and outspoken critic of the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports. Gaines tied transgender swimmer Lia Thomas for fifth place in the women’s 200-meter freestyle final at the 2022 NCAA swimming and diving championships.