A blue state’s insistence on promoting extreme gender ideology has cost it tens of millions of dollars in federal funding, as the Trump administration has withheld taxpayer funds over state policies that endanger women and girls everywhere from prison to the playing field.

In the latest flashpoint, the state is keeping a male murderer in a women’s penitentiary in violation of President Donald Trump’s executive order.

“We pulled all non-essential funding from the Department of Corrections in Maine, because they were allowing a man in a women’s prison — a giant, 6’1”, 245-pound guy who committed a double murder with a knife,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning. The perpetrator “stabbed his parents to death, and the family dog. And he identified as a woman, so they were letting him be housed in a female prison,” explained Bondi.

Bondi called the administration’s action “breaking news” that occurred “overnight.” The funding comes to more than $1.5 million, according to News Center Maine. 

The Trump administration plans to use every tool at its disposal to assure states enact policies that expose women to violent male murderers “no longer,” said Bondi. “We will pull your funding. We will protect women in prison. We will protect women in sports. We will protect women throughout this country.”

The latest executive action comes as Democratic state officials in Maine have sued the Trump administration for the right to continue receiving taxpayer dollars while flouting federal laws protecting female athletes from having to compete against, or change in front of, boys and men.

Trans-Identifying Double-Murderer: ‘Oh, I Stabbed the Dog, Too’

The Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) placed a double murderer, who was born Andrew Balce but now identifies as “Andrea,” in the Maine Correctional Center’s Women’s Center, according to MDOC’s online inmate database.

Balcer was 17, nearing his 18th birthday, when he stabbed his parents, Antonio and Alice Balcer, both 47, to death on Halloween night — October 31, 2016 — in Winthrop, Maine.

In a chilling 911 call, a seemingly euphoric Balcer sometimes laughed uproariously as he told operators his mother had come to his room to comfort him, when he literally stabbed her in the back. When his father investigated, “I stabbed the f*** out of him,” said Andrew matter-of-factly. “Oh, I stabbed the dog, too. It was barking.”

Balcer told officials his parents had not supported his gender transition, at times claiming they abused him. But family members denied his allegations, and neighbors say his parents actually supported his choice. He ultimately entered a guilty plea to two counts of intentional or knowing murder and one count of aggravated cruelty to animals. In December 2018, he was sentenced to 40 years in jail.

MDOC initially classified Balcer as a male, but during the Biden administration, MDOC reclassified the 245-pound man as a female and transferred him to a women’s prison on November 29, 2022. Although his records accurately preserve his name as “Andrew Taney Balcer,” they now list his “gender” as “F.” The earliest date Balcer can be released from prison is July 6, 2051.

During that time, state taxpayers will foot the bill for Balcer’s clothing fetishes. In 2020, MDOC Commissioner Randell Liberty made it state policy for taxpayers to give inmates clothes of their preferred gender, including push-up bras.

Maine Department of Corrections: Holding Men in Women’s Prisons

Maine prison officials’ actions violate President Trump’s executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which he signed on his first day in office. “The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers” anywhere in the nation, it states. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has blocked that executive order by judicial fiat.

The Justice Department alerted Maine officials Monday evening that it would cut off the flow of money from the federal government effective immediately. “The Department has changed its priorities” in order “to focus on ... combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and better coordinating law enforcement efforts at all levels of government,” said the April 7 email. Grants to a state that houses at least one male in a women’s correctional institution “no longer effectuate Department priorities.”

MDOC has 30 days to appeal the loss of funds.

The Trump administration’s strong pro-woman stance contrasts with that of the Biden-Harris administration, which strongly supported placing trans-identifying men in women’s prisons, sued states that refused to comply, and attempted to promote judges who placed male sex offenders in cells with women. Numerous assaults ensued. Shortly before President Trump took office in January, 15% of all inmates in female correctional facilities were men.

Since becoming president, Donald Trump has initiated a revolution of “common sense,” which has trickled down to the states. Last month, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey (R) signed the Riley Gaines Act (S.B. 456) which, among other things, bars officials from housing men in women’s correctional institutions.

But Maine remains intransigent, suing the federal government for the right to continue housing male prisoners with young women at taxpayer expense.

Maine Sues as USDA withholds Tens of Millions of Dollars over Title IX Violations

The news comes as Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) filed a lawsuit Monday trying to stop the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding.

In the latest blow to the state’s budget, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins halted some funding of unspecified “administrative and technological functions in schools” last Wednesday over the state’s violations of Title IX provisions protecting women’s sports from trans-identifying men.

The Trump administration’s “USDA will not extend the Biden Administration’s bloated bureaucracy and will instead focus on a Department that is farmer-first and without a leftist social agenda,” wrote Secretary Rollins in an April 2 letter to Governor Janet Mills (D).

In March, the USDA briefly held up funding to the University of Maine System, which totaled $100 million, including almost $30 million to the main university, until administrators certified their compliance with Title IX.

The battle between the states and the federal government burst into public view in February, as President Trump called out Mills for her contempt of the law. “See you in court,” Mills taunted Trump.

“Enjoy your life after government, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics,” he replied. 

Days later, on February 25, Bondi wrote Mills a letter explaining, “Let me be clear. Requiring girls to compete against boys in sports and athletic events violates Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972.”

State officials insist they must uphold the so-called “Maine Human Rights Act,” which defines “gender identity” as a protected class in the law. But Bondi reminded officials of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI , Paragraph 2).

“[W]here federal and state law conflict, states and state entities must follow federal law — not because we live in a dictatorship but because the Constitution requires states to follow the supreme law of the land,” wrote Bondi. “The Department of Justice does not want to have to sue states or state entities, or to seek termination of their federal funds. We only want states and state entities to comply with the law. And federal law requires giving girls an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by ensuring that girls need to compete only with other girls, not with boys.”

Bondi referred to an executive order Trump signed on February 5 titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which made it “the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

On March 31, the Department of Education gave the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) final notice that it will refer MDOE to the Justice Department for legal action unless the state rectifies matters to the Trump administration’s satisfaction by April 11. “By refusing to comply with Title IX, MDOE allows — indeed, encourages — male competitors to threaten the safety of female athletes, wrongfully obtain girls’ hard-earned accolades, and deny females equal opportunity in educational activities to which they are guaranteed under Title IX,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “Under prior administrations, enforcement was an illusory proposition. No more.”

That would make the state’s second such referral, after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., asked the DOJ on March 17 to take legal action against the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School for violating Title IX’s protection of female athletes.

Mills and Maine Democrats Holding the ‘State Hostage with This Extreme Stance’: Embattled State Representative

By advocating for transgender ideology above all, Janet Mills and the Democratic Party “are holding the entire rest of the state hostage with this extreme stance that insists on allowing biological males to participate in girls’ sports regardless of the consequences. And these are severe pending consequences, to lose potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for Maine students,” embattled Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby (R-90) told “Washington Watch,” hosted each Friday by former Congressman Jody Hice. Democrats censured Libby in February for sharing a social media post criticizing a trans-identifying boy who won a female sports competition. Under its conditions, Libby cannot vote or speak on the House floor in most circumstances.

But 64% of Maine residents do not believe men who identify as women should compete in women’s sports, according to a poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. On the national level, a New York Times/Ipsos survey found 79% of all Americans — including 67% of Democrats — said female athletes should not be forced to play against males who identify as female.

“I’ve heard from many Democrats across the state of Maine who don’t agree with what Augusta Democrats, the folks in power in our capital, are doing,” Libby told Hice. “That includes a vast number of Democrats who think that this agenda is crazy. They don’t agree with this denial of basic biology, and they want to see common sense restored. And the folks in Augusta simply are not listening to two-thirds of Mainers.”

But Libby holds out little hope for change as long as the Democratic Party, and its strong orientation toward transgender ideology, holds sway in the state capital.

“I would love to tell you that common sense is going to prevail in Maine and that Governor Mills is going to follow federal law and ensure that Title IX is upheld. But that would require a level of humility I don’t think we're going to see here. So, I think this will go to the courts,” Libby told Hice. “I’m hopeful that at some point we will get enough pressure from the federal government and from the people of Maine, whether it’s through the courts or through the electoral process next year, to make real change and ensure that common sense prevails for the long term here, on behalf of both girls and our students. I don’t see resolution coming through Governor Mills and the Democrat majority.”

“Mainers are probably going to feel some pain before we can change who is in the majority in Augusta and resolve this issue for the long term,” she concluded.