Liberal state gives ridiculous reason to justify refusal to ban men from women's sports



Despite warnings from the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services, one liberal state is still defying federal orders.

Since February, the Donald Trump administration has required a return to normalcy through the presidential action titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." After many public battles with left-leaning states — including Maine, which recently passed a law banning men from women's sports — one standout midwestern state is still refusing to comply.

The federal actions feel like 'retribution against a state that is proud of its defense of communities that have been marginalized.'

After the Office for Civil Rights and HHS announced the Minnesota Department of Education and its high schools were in violation of Title IX, the federal government offered a resolution that would require the state to revise gender guidance, mandate Title IX compliance, and adopt "biology-based definitions," among other terms.

However, the state is now openly stating that it actually has no statement at all.

As reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Minnesota Solicitor General Liz Kramer sent a letter to the Trump administration stating that it would not offer a "substantive response" to federal demands due to a lack of clarity surrounding the government shutdown.

The solicitor general reportedly added that "if the federal government intends to follow the law, it would need to follow an extensive, multi-step administrative process before any federal funding to Minnesota education programs or activities could ever be terminated."

RELATED: Transgender softball player gets reality check after dominating female opponents all season

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

White House assistant press secretary Liz Houston issued a statement in response to Minnesota's claims on Friday.

"While Minnesota officials continue to intentionally endanger female athletes with their radical embrace of gender ideology, President Trump is committed to restoring commonsense policies and keeping men out of women's sports," Houston said.

At the same time, school board members from across the state have issued statements in support of keeping boys in girls' sports. For example, St. Louis Park School Board member Sarah Davis said there exists a "need to be standing up for transgender children, especially right now when they are under attack."

Rachel Hartland from the Hopkins District School Board said the federal actions feel like "retribution against a state that is proud of its defense of communities that have been marginalized."

The school board member added that the letter she signed was a symbol of her willingness to "stand up for each other and our kids against anyone, including the federal government."

RELATED: Transgender state rep defends boys playing in girls' sports — immediately gets proven wrong by male athlete

Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Minnesota has been in the national spotlight regarding this issue for quite some time. Specifically, a male baseball player dominating female athletes in softball has garnered widespread attention.

Charlie Rothenberger, who goes by "Marissa," is a 6-foot male athlete who has dominated the sport over the last two years and unsurprisingly led his team to a state championship in 2025.

Minnesota state Rep. Leigh Finke (D), a male that purports to be transgender, defended the idea of boys playing in girls' sports while Rothenberger's team was in the playoffs in early June.

"Trans girls are girls," Finke said at the time. "They deserve the right to play sports and engage in physical wellness activities, just like every other child growing up in our beloved state."

Hours later, Rothenberger pitched a complete game and had two doubles to send his team to the state finals.

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The woke party’s favorite costume: Moderation



I usually enjoy David Harsanyi’s critiques of the left. But in a recent column, he drew a distinction I can’t accept. Quoting Rahm Emanuel’s plea for Democrats to rally behind “Build, baby, build!” Harsanyi praised politicians he believes embody a centrist alternative to the party’s radicals: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein.

Harsanyi presented these figures as the future of a Democratic Party that might rediscover moderation. He contrasted them with open socialists like New York City's Zohran Mamdani, whom he regards as the party’s worst tendencies made flesh. In his telling, Beshear, Spanberger, Shapiro, and Stein represent a kind of Democratic “loyal opposition” that conservatives should welcome.

Abigail Spanberger shows how the Democratic ‘moderate’ label works: not as a rejection of cultural radicalism but as a smoother delivery system for it.

That picture collapses under scrutiny. On social questions, the supposed moderates fall squarely in line with the party’s most zealous activists. Beshear, though personable and pragmatic on some issues, is an LGBTQ fanatic who promotes woke causes across Kentucky. Spanberger has been a reliable ally of the gender-identity movement and has now gone so far as to support biological men competing in women’s sports. Stein in North Carolina vetoed four separate bills meant to curb DEI excesses and limit radical gender programs in his state.

These aren’t minor disagreements tucked around the edges. They reveal a deeper truth: The “moderates” whom Harsanyi and Fox News commentators now flatter are not moderates at all. They dress the same ideology in calmer rhetoric. Spanberger, the supposed pragmatist, sounds indistinguishable from Tim Walz or Mamdani when she explains her social positions.

So why do some on the right elevate them? Because these Democrats don’t call themselves socialists, don’t chant slogans for Hamas, and don’t traffic in the same racial agitation as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, or Omar Fateh. But the distinction is cosmetic. On gender, DEI, and race politics, the so-called moderates embrace the same policies.

This misreading exposes a larger problem on the right. For years, the Republican establishment avoided direct confrontation on cultural issues, preferring to rally donors around national defense, Israel, or deregulation. On marriage and gender, Republicans surrendered the ground years ago. When the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, Conservatism Inc. shrugged. Now, some seem relieved to pretend “moderates” in the Democratic Party represent a saner alternative. They don’t.

And the Democrats know it. Clinton-era strategists at the Third Way think tank now tell their party to tone down the woke jargon and talk more about housing or infrastructure. But Third Way doesn’t advise abandoning cultural radicalism — only camouflaging it. The goal is simple: Keep core constituencies like college-educated white women and black urban voters while soothing independents with bread-and-butter messaging. Beshear, Stein, Spanberger, and the others know their futures depend on that balancing act.

This is where Republicans must stop indulging illusions. They will be forced to fight on this terrain whether they like it or not.

RELATED: Radical left poised to redefine America’s cities

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

In Virginia, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — a black conservative who supports Trump’s immigration policy and holds traditional views on marriage and gender — trails Spanberger despite Spanberger’s increasingly open embrace of the left’s cultural program. In Northern Virginia’s suburbs, her positions do not hurt her. They energize her base. The clearer she becomes, the more firmly those voters rally to her side.

That is the lesson Republicans cannot ignore. Spanberger shows how the Democratic “moderate” label works: not as a rejection of cultural radicalism but as a smoother delivery system for it. Sears, to her credit, understands the stakes. She knows she cannot avoid the social questions. If she does, she loses. Her only path forward is to expose Spanberger’s record and force voters to confront it.

What’s happening in Virginia is the same fight Trump is waging nationally — against a cultural left entrenched in the administrative state, NPR, and the universities. These battles connect. They will not fade, and the right cannot win them by pretending “moderates” exist in the Democratic Party.

If Republicans cling to that illusion, they won’t just lose a governorship here or a Senate seat there. They will lose the defining fight over culture, identity, and the moral core of the nation. The Democrats’ so-called moderates are not the antidote to radicalism. They are the mask that allows it to advance.

Virginia Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Refuses To Condemn Letting Boys In Girls’ Bathrooms

When recently asked about her stance on allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their “chosen identity” instead of their biological sex, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger refused to condemn such policies. Late last month, the U.S. Department of Education found five counties in Virginia to be in violation of Title IX […]

Maine Democrat says transgender athletes make women better



A Maine state representative made a confusing claim about transgender athletes and men competing in women's sports.

The state has had a tumultuous 2025 during President Donald Trump's second term, as state representatives have battled the president over his executive order to keep men out of women's sports.

Although Maine's university system eventually fell in line with the order to protect its federal funding, irreversible damage had already been done by letting boys compete in girls' sports, particularly in February, when a boy won a girls' pole vaulting competition.

'It takes a lot of guts for someone to say, "I'm not going to accept male privilege."'

Democratic state Rep. Rafael Macias from Maine's District 51 appeared on the "Muddy Waters Podcast" to discuss that very incident. Macias started by claiming that fellow state Rep. Laurel Libby (R) had "doxxed a young man" who simply "wanted to play sports" when she posted a picture of the transgender athlete competing against boys first, then girls.

It was soon after when Macias made a bizarre claim about how men competing in women's sports actually makes women better.

"It's an individual sport, so if you're worried about who you're competing [against], particularly if they're stronger and they can jump higher, I think that makes everybody in the field better, you know, jumping higher, running faster," he claimed.

Macias then cited the fact that while many men cannot complete a "four-minute mile," there are female athletes who can come close.

"They can run faster than me. They can run faster than you and probably most men that I know who can't run the four-minute mile," Macias claimed. "There are women that are doing that. So, you know, you can compare men and female and say men are stronger, men can jump higher, run faster, longer, all that good stuff, and that women shouldn't play in men's sports."

Confusingly, Macias then stated that women not being allowed in men's sports is "the whole reason behind Title IX."

RELATED: University of Maine System falls in line with Trump's prohibition on men in women's sports

Host Chuck Ellis immediately retorted, "Let's be clear about a couple things. Nobody on our side in any way is saying that we have any problem with women trying to compete in men's sports. That's not — nobody's saying that at all," he began. "The reason for Title IX wasn't that people didn't want to allow women to compete in male sports but that they couldn't."

Ellis noted the obvious truth that "men are stronger" and "faster" than women on average, and national stories of transgender athletes breaking women's records have highlighted this.

Macias himself admitted in the interview that the pole vaulting athlete in question came in first when competing as a girl, but when the height he jumped against females is compared to the male athletes' results, his height would have landed him in 10th place against boys, as Blaze News previously reported.

Still, Macias expressed that he had an issue with Rep. Libby posting a photo of the teen, who was in 10th grade at the time.

RELATED: 'A lot of people say it's not happening!' Blaze News investigates: A definitive list of men who have dominated women's sports

Field hockey players run on the track at Greely High School in Cumberland, Maine. Photo by Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

"She posted a picture of him when he was competing with boys and then a picture of her when she was competing with girls. And I'm using the pronouns out of respect for this person," Macias explained. "It takes a lot of guts for someone to say, 'I'm not going to accept male privilege.' And I'm using that term 'male privilege.'"

Macias and the host briefly debated what male privilege is, and Macias cited the example of a woman feeling afraid while walking through a parking lot at night while a man may not feel afraid.

Ellis replied that this was simply more evidence that men are more likely to be stronger or larger and, as such, less likely to be afraid in a similar situation.

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The old-guard GOP dropped the ball for decades. Trump delivered in 6 months.



On Sunday, the second Trump administration turned six months old.

President Trump’s first four years in the White House were already a big success, which is why I fought so hard to bring him back for a second go-round. Yet I think Trump’s second has already surpassed it in just one-eighth the time.

The administration hasn’t just said the right things. It has done the right things.

Completely and instantly securing the U.S.-Mexico border after the four-year Joe Biden invasion is one of the most important and impressive accomplishments in American presidential history. TV news said the president’s tough trade talk would crash the economy in days; instead, the stock market hit record highs this very week, and blue-collar wages are rising faster than they have in nearly 60 years.

Under any other recent president, I am convinced the June Iran crisis would have ballooned into a full regime-change war, with far more money spent and many American lives lost. But under President Trump’s measured hand, America managed to strike a crippling blow to Iran’s nuclear program while suffering zero casualties and even bringing a ceasefire between Iran and Israel as part of the bargain.

Celebrating wins, big and small

Yet when I think about the events of the past six months, it’s not the big wins I think about the most — it’s the small ones. They’re the triumphs that don’t necessarily grab the largest headlines, but they show that this administration really is committed to systematically throwing out the suffocating groupthink and stagnation that have ruled in D.C. for decades.

Time and time again, this administration has been doing things that past Republicans could and should have done, yet inexplicably never did. For instance, back in 1981, the outgoing Jimmy Carter administration engineered a court ruling that abolished the federal government’s hugely successful hiring aptitude test because it was (you already knew this was coming) racist. Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, or Bush 43 could have fought to restore merit-based hiring. Yet they never did. Subsequently, over 45 years, our government went rotten as diversity, equity, and inclusion replaced merit.

Now, this administration is finally acting to bring back merit in government. Imagine that! From Harvard to Hennepin County, this administration has begun toppling the race- and sex-based discrimination that had taken root all over America in flagrant defiance of both our Constitution and historic American values. It is purging DEI commissars from federal agencies, imposing uniform standards on the military, and sending out warnings to the private sector as well. This isn’t superficial — it’s the destruction in detail of a rotten, anti-American ideology.

It would have been easy for Donald Trump to make a few speeches and sign a couple symbolic orders about “protecting women’s sports” — past Republican administrations would have settled for exactly that. But this administration has genuinely done the work to protect American children from the transgender mania, one of the great evils of our time.

Actually delivering on promises

Across America, health care providers are ending their involvement in child mutilation and similar treatments because of the dramatic increase in regulatory hostility from this administration. Children’s National Hospital in D.C., Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Stanford Medicine, and others have stopped providing surgeries or puberty blockers to minors in the face of this administration.

Where it matters most, the Trump administration has stepped up to save children from predators calling themselves “doctors.”

For my entire life, Republicans loved to make a show of complaining about America sending billions in aid to foreign countries. But they never stopped it — until Trump. He actually delivered by cutting USAID down to size and keeping more of America’s money in America. The same goes for defunding NPR, PBS, and Planned Parenthood: long years of talk, until the Trump administration fought to make it actually happen.

RELATED: In 6 months, Donald Trump has done the impossible

Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

It was obvious for almost 20 years that the TSA’s policy requiring passengers to remove their shoes before boarding a flight was a pointless bit of security theater, yet Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden all kept the policy in place anyway. This administration finally got rid of it.

While the Biden administration treated the cryptocurrency industry as a borderline criminal enterprise, Trump signed the GENIUS Act, which positions America to lead this innovative industry.

The administration hasn’t just said the right things. It has done the right things, in detail, to ensure its promises are delivered at the micro level. The administration even made showerheads great again. And it’s that commitment to the small things and common sense that will pay dividends over the next three and a half years. Because an administration that cares about the details of governing will make all of America great too.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on RealClearPolitics.