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laurel libby
2nd-Place Runner in High School Race Rips Maine GOP Lawmaker for Attacking Trans Winner
"I don't feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points."
May 15, 2025
A high school runner in Maine who finished second to a transgender competitor at a recent track meet said this week that a Republican state lawmaker's "hateful" crusade targeting trans athletes—not the fact that she had to compete against one—dampened her sporting joy.
Anelise Feldman, a freshman at Yarmouth High School in southern Maine, finished second to Soren Stark-Chessa, a multisport standout at rival North Yarmouth Academy, at a May 2 intramural meet.
"I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school's standards," Feldman wrote in a letter to The Portland Press Herald published Wednesday. "I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn't diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race."
"The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn't diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race."
Feldman's letter was prompted by State Rep. Laurel Libby's (R-90) comments during a Fox Newsinterview earlier this month in which the lawmaker, while not naming Stark-Chessa, referred to her accomplishments and accused transgender athletes of "pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium."
Feldman stressed: "I don't feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points."
"We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school," she added. "Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren's participation in the girls' track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are."
Maine has found itself at the epicenter of the fight for transgender rights as President Donald Trump's administration renews its first-term campaign to roll them back via policies including: redefining Title IX anti-discrimination law to cancel protection for trans and nonbinary people, trying to reinstate the ban on openly transgender people from military service, ending "X" gender markers on passports, banning federal support for gender-affirming healthcare, pressuring schools to censor lessons and materials about trans and nonbinary people, erasing transgender people and stories from government-run institutions and websites, and much more. Bowing to pressure from Trump, the National Collegiate Athletic Association also banned trans women from competing on female sports teams.
This, as hundreds of anti-trans bills have also been passed or proposed in nearly every state in the nation. Maine, however, has been moving in the opposite direction by expanding an anti-discrimination law to protect transgender student-athletes.
This has made the state a target of the Trump administration. Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills first stoked Trump's ire for defying his threats to cut off federal funding if she did not ban transgender women and girls from female teams, a move that would violate state anti-discrimination law.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state for rebuffing Trump's efforts to ban trans women and girls from scholastic sports. The lawsuit followed the Department of Education's move to cut off federal K-12 funds for Maine and the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) freeze on $100 million in federal funding over the trans athlete issue. The Trump administration also temporarily forced new Maine parents to register their newborns for a Social Security number at a government office rather than at hospitals, a policy quickly reversed amid public outrage.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration quietly settled with Maine, agreeing to scrap its planned cutoff of USDA funding.
"A few months ago, I stood in the White House and, when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I'd see him in court," Mills triumphantly said following the settlement. "Well, I did see him in court. And we won."
Libby—who is currently banned from voting on legislation until she apologizes for endangering a transgender high school runner by posting a photo of her winning a race without blurring the face—misgendered trans athletes and portrayed them as violent and dangerous during a legislative hearing earlier this week.
"Girls are being asked to accept second place as their ceiling, not because they didn't work hard enough, but because someone else's belief has been elevated above their right to compete fairly and safely," Libby said.
However, the stats don't support her assertion. None of the 10 fastest times ever run by a U.S. high school girl in either the 800 or 1,600-meter races have recorded by a transgender runner. Nor does any trans runner appear on the list of the 10 fastest athletes in either race.
Stark-Chessa's 800 meter time was 2:43, a full 44 seconds behind the all-time high school girls' record of 1:59. Her 1,600 meter time of 5:57 was over a minute-and-a-half slower than the girls' high school record.
Meanwhile, some of the athletes that do appear in the record book—and their parents—have condemned the backlash against trans competitors, who sometimes face open hostility including incitement to violence.
Opponents of trans women and girls in sport often fixate on genitalia and the notion that unsuccessful male athletes decide to "go trans" in order to escape mediocrity in men's sports.
A peer-reviewed 2023 study noted "the disproportionate focus on the relatively small portion of the population who are trans seems based on the belief that [cisgender] men, who cannot succeed in sports among other cis men, would choose to misidentify as trans women to gain an advantage in sports against cis women."
"However, there are no legitimate cases of this occurring," the paper stresssed.
More importantly, research has shown that trans women who undergo testosterone suppression and gender-affirming medical care do not have any biomedical edge over cis women in sports.
Trans youth do, however, face harassment, violence, discrimination, and other barriers to success and even participation in sports and in general scholastic endeavors. According to the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey, 22% of visibly transgender girls were abused so badly they left shool because of it, while another 10% were expelled.
"The idea that women and girls have an advantage
because they are trans ignores the actual conditions of their lives," Chase Strangio and Gabriel Arkels wrote in a myth-busting ACLU explainer.
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'See You in Court,' Maine Governor Says to Trump's Face After Funding Threat
The president threatened to cut off federal funding to the state for respecting the identities of trans student-athletes.
Feb 21, 2025
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills stood up to U.S. President Donald Trump at a Friday event in Washington, D.C. after the Republican threatened to cut off federal funding because the state allows transgender youth to participate in sports in line with their identities.
While at the podium, Trump asked if Maine's governor was at the event. After Mills confirmed her presence, he asked if she will comply with his executive order intended to use his administration's interpretation of Title IX—a federal law barring discrimination on the basis of sex at educational institutions that get federal funds—to block trans girls and women from competing as female athletes.
"You better do it, because you're not gonna get any federal funding at all if you don't," Trump said to Mills—who replied that she would follow state and federal laws. She also told the president, "See you in court."
Mills also released a statement vowing that "if the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides. The state of Maine will not be intimidated by the president's threats."
Maine Morning Starreported Friday that the state's attorney general, Aaron Frey, said in a statement that any attempt by Trump to cut federal funding over the issue "would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders."
"Fortunately," he said, "the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine's laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us."
"It is disturbing that President Trump would use children as pawns in advancing his political agenda," added Frey, who earlier this month joined other Democratic attorneys general in vowing to protect access to gender-affirming healthcare, another GOP target.
While the National Collegiate Athletic Association swiftly updated its policies to align with Trump's order, the Maine Principals' Association—which governs athletics for all public high schools and multiple private institutions in the state—confirmed earlier this month that it will continue allowing trans athletes to compete in girls' sports. Mike Burnham, executive director of MPA's Interscholastic Division, cited a 2021 update to state law.
As the Bangor Daily Newsdetailed Friday:
Between 2013 and 2021, the association allowed kids to compete in a manner consistent with their gender identity as long as there were no safety concerns. An MPA committee assessed cases one by one, and there were 54 such cases during that period. Only four involved transgender girls.
In 2021, the Democratic-led Legislature added education-related protections for gender identity to [the] Maine Human Rights Act. Since then, the MPA has allowed students to compete with those of their identified gender.
The Friday exchange between Mills and Trump—whose administration is engaged in a sweeping effort to erase trans people—came after the result of a recent pole vaulting state championship for high schoolers and one Republican lawmaker's Facebook post about it garnered national media attention.
State Rep. Laurel Libby (R-90) on Monday posted a pair of photos identifying one Greely High School pole vaulter as trans and put the teenager's preferred name in quotation marks. She later toldMaine's Total Coverage, "I think we have a responsibility to protect girls' sports, to protect Maine girls, and to ensure that they have a level playing field."
The outlet noted that state House Minority Leader Katrina Smith (R-62) "shared on her Instagram the names and email addresses of the Maine Department of Education commissioner, the state attorney general, and the executive director of the Maine Principals' Association telling constituents to call on them to follow President Trump's executive order."
Libby—who on Friday made several more Facebook posts highlighting Trump's threat to Mills and thanking the president—has faced strong backlash from Democratic lawmakers and various other critics for her initial post bullying the teenage athlete.
"We have been reminded this week of the importance of respecting the privacy of Maine kids, and the value in treating people of all ages with kindness and decency," Rep. Ryan Fecteau (D-103), the first openly gay speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, wrote in a Friday opinion piece for the Bangor Daily News.
"To young people who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, know that I see you and I stand with you," he said. "After the events of this week, I ask all my legislative colleagues to recommit to keeping kids out of the political fray. They deserve better. There is a time and place for policy debates. That time and place will never be a social media post attacking a student. Full stop."
Later on Friday, the Trump administration sent a letter to Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin announcing a federal investigation into the state agency and Maine School Administrative District #51, which includes Greely High School.
"Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX," said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the federal level. "If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice."
Responding in a lengthy statement, Mills said that "no president—Republican or Democrat—can withhold federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold."
"Maine may one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his administration, but we won't be the last," warned Mills, a former district attorney and state attorney general. "Today, the president of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: Who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the president is neither a king nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it—and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so."
"I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined," she added, again pledging to fight Trump in court. "But do not be misled: This is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a president can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot."
This post has been updated to include the Trump administration's letter to the Maine Department of Education and the governor's response.
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