Democrats come from the party that stands for feminism and democracy. Unless, of course, you are a female lawmaker and oppose biological males competing in girls sports. Then that all goes out the window.
At least, that’s what’s happening in the case of state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Maine Republican who is facing an undemocratic, and frankly dystopian, crackdown from her Democratic colleagues for speaking out on this issue. Maine has been a hot spot for the debate over transgender girls and women, who are biologically male, competing in women’s sports, due to both the Democratic governor’s public resistance to President Donald Trump’s attempt to end this practice and high-profile examples in Maine of transgender athletes dominating women’s sports.
Libby’s trouble started in February when she made a Facebook post about this subject. The state lawmaker shared photos of a recent high school track meet and wrote, “Two years ago, John tied for 5th place in boy’s pole vault. Tonight, ‘Katie’ won 1st place in the girls’ Maine State Class B Championship.” Libby did not blur or otherwise conceal identifiable information about the high school student from the photo, but everything she shared was already publicly available.
Maybe Libby should have blurred the athlete’s face and other identifying information, such as the school name, before publishing that Facebook post. After all, we’re still talking about a minor here. But nothing justifies the Democrats’ illegal, unconstitutional, and hypocritical crackdown on Libby for her dissenting viewpoint.
Her Democratic colleagues in the Maine state legislature not only censured her for this post, claiming without evidence that she made the student “unsafe” and blaming her for things other people wrote in comments, but they have essentially stripped her of the powers of her duly elected office and disenfranchised her constituents. Libby is prohibited from voting on all legislation and even from speaking on the statehouse floor. Silencing the heretic woman is very feminist.
This is leaving thousands of voters without representation. Her lawyers explain: “[Libby’s] thousands of constituents in Maine House District 90 are now without a voice or vote for every bill coming to the House floor for the rest of her elected term, which runs through 2026. They are disenfranchised. Libby and her district had no vote on the State’s $11 billion budget, had no vote on a proposed constitutional amendment, and will have no vote on hundreds more proposed laws, including—most ironically—whether Maine should change its current policy of requiring girls to compete alongside transgender athletes.”
That’s right: Democrats, who claim to hail from the party that wants women in office and supports “democracy,” have disenfranchised an entire district of voters and silenced a female elected official because she has the “wrong” viewpoint on an emotionally charged issue. Ironically, even in Maine, a blue state, the vast majority of voters agree with Libby’s opposition to biological males in women’s sports.
This is the height of hypocrisy. It’s also blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.
As the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression explains, the Maine Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in the state legislature to remove a lawmaker from office. But lawmakers have essentially removed Libby from her position with a mere majority vote, violating the state Constitution they swore to uphold.
This move also violates the First Amendment, FIRE says, because it is “a clear example of retaliation based on constitutionally protected speech.” Essentially, whether you agree with it or find it distasteful, Libby’s Facebook post is unambiguously protected by the First Amendment, so the state government can’t punish her for it. (Disclaimer: I do a small amount of freelance work with FIRE.)
You know it’s bad because even the left-wing outlet Vox decried what the Democrats are doing to Libby, asserting, “To defend democracy, the courts must rule in [her] favor.”
MAINE ASKS COURT TO REJECT TRUMP LAWSUIT ON TRANSGENDER ATHLETES
Libby is now asking the Supreme Court to restore her voting rights while litigation over the legality of her punishment continues. Here’s hoping it does and stops this hypocritical and illegal campaign.
But, more broadly, Democrats need to realize that they are never going to bully and silence people into accepting obviously unfair, unscientific, fringe ideas — and that the more they try, the more they expose their own hypocrisy and harden critics’ resolve.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.