#laurel libby

Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

When a transgender female track athlete recently placed first in a high school track meet, beating her second-place cisgender female opponent, Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby publicized it by going onto Fox News and accusing the trans athlete of “pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium.” Now, the trans runner’s cis opponent is speaking out against Libby, saying that her “ugly” and “hateful” actions spoiled an otherwise happy occasion. “Libby … recently used my second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run … to malign Soren Stark-Chessa, the trans-identified athlete who finished first,” Anelise Feldman, the cis freshman student-athlete runner at Yarmouth High School, recently wrote in a letter to the Portland Press Herald. Feldman noted that, at the track meet in question last Friday, she ran the fastest 1,600-meter race that she had ever run in middle school or high school track, earning varsity status by her school’s standards. She added that the happiness she felt in completing her race wasn’t diminished by either her second-place finish or the fact that someone else finished in front of her. “I don’t feel like first place was taken from me,” she wrote. “Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bưlly who is using children to make political points.” Libby went onto Fox News last week to complain about the trans athlete’s first-place finish. Fox News noted that Stark-Chessa, the trans athlete, placed fourth in the state for the girls’ 5,000-meter cross county race after previously finishing 172nd among boys before her social transition. The right-wing media outlet also said that Stark-Chessa won a podium spot in Maine’s High School State Nordic Skiing Championships this past February.

This is how to respond to anti-trans bullies who complain about the “erasure” of women’s sports: Anelise Feldman, the 2nd placed cis girl finisher to the trans girl in a track meet, slammed Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby (R)’s anti-trans bullying ways in a letter to the editor in the Portland Press Herald.

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Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

The U.S. Supreme Court has restored the voting privileges of Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, who was censured and barred from voting in the state House of Representatives after she outed and deadnamed a transgender student athlete. Libby and six of her constituents sued Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau and others over the censure, claiming it had interfered with her work as a legislator and violated her constituents’ voting rights. The high court Tuesday granted her request for a preliminary injunction that restores her vote while the lawsuit proceeds. The court’s vote was 7-2, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the minority. Lower courts had refused to intervene in the case, citing the doctrine of legislative immunity, which protects lawmakers from certain legal actions. “Not very long ago, this Court treaded carefully with respect to exercising its equitable power to issue injunctive relief at the request of a party claiming an emergency,” Jackson wrote in her dissent. “The opinions are legion in which individual Justices, reviewing such requests in chambers, declined to intervene — reiterating that ‘such power should be used sparingly and only in the most critical and exigent circumstances.’” “Those days are no more,” she continued. “Today’s Court barely pauses to acknowledge these important threshold limitations on the exercise of its own authority. It opts instead to dole out error correction as it sees fit, regardless of the lack of any exigency and even when the applicants’ claims raise significant legal issues that warrant thorough evaluation by the lower courts that are dutifully considering them.” Libby had posted a photo of a trans female athlete on Facebook in February and deadnamed her. Libby has frequently denounced the presence of trans girls and women in female sports. “It is fundamentally unfair to allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports, yet that is what's happening in Maine,” she wrote in one Facebook post. She has also praised Donald Trump’s executive order that threatens to take federal funding from any state that allows trans girls and women to compete alongside cis females in school sports. A few days after she posted the photo of the athlete, the Maine House voted 75-70 to censure Libby, with Democrats in favor and Republicans against. That meant she couldn’t vote or speak on the House floor unless she apologized, which she refused to do.

The MAGA Majority on SCOTUS and Elena Kagan ruled in Libby v. Fecteau in favor of restoring the voting privileges of the censured anti-trans extremist Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby (R).

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Rachel Ohm at Portland Press-Herald:

AUGUSTA — The Maine House of Representatives voted Tuesday night to censure a Republican lawmaker who posted photos on social media of a student as part of her criticism last week of Maine’s policy allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports. The resolution, which passed 75-70 in a party line vote, censures Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, for her post on Facebook in which she identified a transgender student as having won a girls’ track championship. Libby included photos and referred to the student by first name but did not use a last name.

Democrats, who brought forward the resolution, argued that it was inappropriate for a lawmaker to use photos of a minor in a political post without their consent and raised concerns that the post targeted the student for harassment. Several Republicans defended Libby’s actions as free speech and said they worried about the precedent it would set to censure a lawmaker for a social media post, though some said they did have concerns about the impact it had on the student. The censure means that Libby won’t be able to speak or vote on the House floor unless she apologizes, something Libby said Tuesday she has no intention of doing. “I will not apologize for speaking up for Maine girls who are having their voices silenced,” Libby told reporters after the vote. During a contentious debate on the House floor, Libby defended her post, saying the state championship was a public event and that photos were already posted elsewhere online. “The reason that folks are upset about this post is that it exposed the truth and now people are mad that after being told this isn’t happening and doesn’t matter, there are boys participating in girls’ sports,” she said. House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, issued a written statement after the vote, saying that sharing images of children online without their consent “is a clear violation of the bond of trust and respect between citizens and their Legislators.”

Happy to see Maine’s House of Representatives vote 75-70 to censure anti-trans demagogue State Rep. Laurel Libby (R) for irresponsibly outing and deadnaming a trans student athlete in a Facebook post. With the censure, Libby is barred from voting or speaking on the House floor unless she apologizes and takes the offending post down, something she won’t be doing.

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LGBTQ Nation: Maine Republican State Rep. Libby punished after deadnaming & posting pics of trans student-athlete

NewsNation: Maine lawmaker censured for posting picture of trans student on Facebook

Newsweek: Republican Being Censured Over Transgender Athlete Post Sparks MAGA Fury