Attorney General Pam Bondi warned officials in Maine, California and Minnesota Tuesday to comply with President Trump’s executive orders to bar transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, promising swift legal action.
“This Department of Justice will hold accountable states and state entities that violate federal law,” Bondi wrote Tuesday in letters addressed to Maine Gov. Janet Mills, California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Executive Director Ron Nocetti, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Erich Martens, executive director of the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL).
Officials in each of the states have said state anti-discrimination laws protecting transgender people prevent them from complying with Trump’s order, one of several the president has signed targeting trans Americans since his return to office.
Trump sparred with Mills at a National Governors Association session last week at the White House over Maine’s refusal to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. The previous evening, Trump told a meeting for the Republican Governor’s Association that he would withhold federal funding from Maine if the state continued to ignore his order.
“See you in court,” Mills told Trump during the White House event, responding to the president’s threat to the state’s funding.
Both the CIF and MSHSL have said they will follow state laws that allow transgender students to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity, and Ellison, in an opinion issued last week, said Trump’s order violates the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.