Supreme Court sides with lawmaker punished for post on male winning girls' track meet
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Maine state lawmaker who was barred from voting on legislation over a Facebook post sharing a picture of a trans-identified male athlete winning a girls' sports competition.
In a 7-2 ruling published Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, an injunction pending appeal.
"After 2+ months of being silenced for speaking up for Maine girls, I can once again vote on behalf of the people of House District 90," Libby said in a post on social media Tuesday.
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The injunction notes that Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application, meaning that Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to grant the injunction.
The injunction contains a dissent from Jackson, highlighting the issue at the center of the litigation.
"The Rules of the Maine House of Representatives — adopted by the 132nd Maine Legislature long before the events at issue here took place — contemplate stripping a legislative member of the ability to vote as a sanction for certain ethical violations," Jackson wrote. "The House determined that Representative Libby violated those rules, thereby triggering this sanction, when she engaged in behavior that a majority of the House determined 'endanger [a] minor.'"
Libby was censured by the Democrat-controlled Maine House of Representatives in a Feb. 25 vote over a Feb. 17 Facebook post she made expressing outrage over a trans-identified male athlete winning a girls' high-school track championship. The post in question showed a picture of the student-athlete when he came in fifth place in the boys' pole vault two years ago, alongside a picture of the athlete competing as a girl two years later.
The resolution censuring Libby said she "identified the student athlete by name and shared pictures showing the minor in an athletic uniform with the school name clearly legible and blurred the faces of other students to protect their privacy, while intentionally and deliberately leaving the named student's face exposed."
Citing statistics about threats to violence faced by trans-identified individuals, the resolution identified Libby's post as an example of "disorderly behavior" that the Maine Constitution authorizes the Maine House of Representatives to "punish its members for."
The Maine House of Representatives voted 75-70 to censure Libby, making her unable to vote or speak in the chamber.
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau was required to turn her voting device back on, Libby shared in an X post on Wednesday.
"I look forward to voting tomorrow, when we are back in session, on behalf of my 9,000 constituents, who have had their voices silenced for the last three months," she stated.
The state has feuded with the Trump administration over its executive order directing executive agencies to take "all appropriate action to protect all-female athletic opportunities" and promising to withdraw federal funds from schools that allow trans-identified males to compete in women's sports.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Maine earlier this year.
Several weeks later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture froze federal funds to Maine because the state allows trans-identified male athletes to compete in women's sports. Earlier this month, the Trump administration agreed to unfreeze funds intended for Maine's child nutrition program after the state filed a lawsuit.
In recent years, major athletic bodies have altered their policies regarding the participation of trans-identified athletes.
USA Powerlifting, which enacted a policy requiring athletes to compete in competitions that align with their biological sex as opposed to their stated gender identity, identifies biological differences between males and females that give men, on average, an advantage in athletics as "increased body and muscle mass, bone density, bone structure, and connective tissue."
The differences between the sexes, as well as real-world examples of trans-identified male athletes winning in women's sports, have led several states to ban the participation of trans-identified males on women's sports teams: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
