Maine unions and community unite for May Day

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched and rallied on May Day—International Workers Day—making it the largest International Workers Day since 2006 when two million immigrant workers left work to demand their rights. Protests were organized in 1,300 locations, large and small; no doubt the first May Day protest in most of these sites. Maine stood out with more than 5,000 participating spread over 26 towns and cities, from Madawaska to Orono to Portland, where almost 2,000 marched and rallied. And in Wayne—population 1,000—seventy people turned out for both morning and evening rallies, one of the highest per capita demonstrations in the country. 

Memory and sacrifice play a role in sustaining working-class culture. No 1886. No Haymarket Martyrs. No May Day. More recently, the 2006 May Day protests provided a living link to the past. And UAW president Sean Fain’s call for unions to align contracts and lead a 2028 general strike has introduced May Day to a whole new generation of labor organizers.

As the saying goes, the best organizing tool is a bad boss and Trump is one of the worst bosses possible. Repression and mass layoffs do not always provoke resistance, but this time targeted workers put up a critical mass of opposition. For instance, thousands of teachers from across the country responded to a call by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for walk-ins in March to protest Trump’s destruction of the Department of Education, including teachers at Deering High School and Rowe Elementary in Portland.

And many unions have been fighting the bosses all along, linking struggles in specific workplaces to the more general need to defend working-class rights today. The Maine State Nurses Association led a rally to protest Medicaid cuts in March, organized a mass town hall meeting to prevent the closure of the obstetrics department in the small town of Houlton, and saw some of its most active members take a leading role in May Day. 

Pair these factors with decades of bi-partisan misery in necessities such as housing, health care, education, inflation, and union busting alongside escalating racism, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, nationalism, genocidal militarism in Gaza, and anti-immigrant bigotry and it’s not surprising young workers are angry. But objective conditions do not create action on their own. Organized forces with the credibility and capacity to think through a strategy and then put it into practice are required. Fortunately, Chicago’s working class has created this necessary element. 

[Read next: The future of housing is public]

According to Jesse Sharkey, past president of the Chicago Teachers Union and lead organizer with the newly-formed May Day Strong coalition, “Chicago became a center of May Day organizing this year for two reasons—first, there was a local coalition that got a lot of people involved. Activists from the immigrants rights community were extremely important in initiating it, and they held open meetings. They invited anyone who wanted to help organize. That drew in trade unionists, and many others. On a second front, Chicago was in the middle of initiating a national call for May Day protests… The call for that effort came from the Chicago Teachers Union and a handful of allied organizations such as Midwest Academy, Bargaining for the Common Good, and the Action Center on Race and the Economy. The NEA also played an extremely helpful role. In late March, we had about 220 people from over 100 organizations join us in Chicago to start planning for May 1 actions. The reason we were able to initiate such a widespread effort was because we have a past practice of closely linking trade union fights to wider working class demands. In places where local unions have worked with community and activist groups, we had networks of communication and trust. Then, once that effort had reached a certain critical mass, some of the big national networks like Indivisible and 50501 got on board and that really grew the reach of the day.”

It’s not that the CTU and immigrant community organizers in Chicago were the only ones thinking about May Day, but their action provided a framework to draw together and amplify similar efforts across the country and to nationalize the protest by providing a framework and resources for labor and community organizers in hundreds of towns and cities. Chicago didn’t create May Day 2025, but it did open a door. Here in Maine, a broad group of organizers came together to walk through that door. 

Maine DSA’s Labor Rising working group began discussing May Day plans late in 2024 and we eventually decided to help initiate an organizing meeting open to all community groups and unions. UAW graduate students participated in a preliminary meeting to brainstorm ideas and leaders from the Maine AFL-CIO convened statewide union conference calls. On April 12, more than 70 people attended a meeting in the South Portland Teamsters’ Hall where the group democratically planned Portland’s May Day and adopted the slogan Strength in Solidarity. Working groups took up all aspects of the action and all important decisions came back to the coalition for votes. By the latter part of April, the Maine Education Association and AFL-CIO leaders called for actions all across the state, amplifying the Chicago May Day Strong call and dramatically broadening what the Portland May Day committee could organize on its own. 

May Day in Portland began with a rally at the University of Southern Maine to back UAW graduate students’ demands for a first contract, which the administration has stalled for more than 500 days. UAW graduate worker Miranda led the crowd chanting “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” We marched to the Post Office to hear from postal workers, including APWU president Scott Adams. “When our postal service is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” Members of the Portland Education Association led the rally at Portland High School and teacher Bobby Shaddox taught everyone to sing an updated version of Billy Bragg’s There is Power in a Union. “The union forever, defending our rights, down with the tyrants, all workers unite!” Headlining the stop, The Pelikanne, a trans high school student poet, shared their own revolutionary vision with all those assembled. From there, we went up the block to Monument Square to hear Jay Gruber, a member of the librarian’s union, and others at a brief rally before taking Congress Street to march to the final rally at Congress Square Park. Highlights at the final rally included Alana Schaeffer, president of the Metal Trades Council, representing 4,000 workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, members of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, Osgood from Portland Outright, Anthony Abdullah from the Maine State Nurses Association, and others. Twenty-five other towns held actions, bringing the total number of Maine participants to over 5,000, the largest Maine May Day anyone can remember. All in all, it was a good day for Maine workers.

[Listen to Maine Mural, DSA’s podcast, latest episode featuring Presente! Maine immigrants rights organizers]

We face a long, complicated road where political pressures to return to passivity and demoralization will persist. Trump is happy and he is strong. There’s no point in underestimating the damage he is going to inflict on working class communities in the coming years. We are not yet powerful enough to stop him. But May Day 2025 constituted a small step towards healing deep wounds in the American working class and it points us in the right direction. 

What did May Day teach us? Fittingly, the last word goes to Kirsten Roberts, a rank-and-file Chicago teacher. “The most important element of May Day 2025 is the explicit entry of organized and unorganized labor into resistance to Trump. Trump’s attacks are aimed directly at dividing the working class and turning ordinary people against one another while the billionaires rob and plunder us all. An agenda for working class unity can be built when we stand up for those most victimized and vilified by the right wing bigots AND when we stand together to fight for the things that the billionaire class has denied us—the fight for healthcare, education, housing, and good paying jobs for starters. For decades we’ve been told by both parties that funding war, incarceration, and border militarization are their priorities. May Day showed that working people have another agenda. Now let’s organize to win it.”

*Parts of this article will appear in an extended form examining May Day 2025 beyond Maine in DSA’s journal Socialist Forum.

We need an anti-Trump united front in Maine

The April 5 Hands Off! protests were not the first against Trump and his cronies and they won’t be the last. Indeed, April 5 would not have been possible without unionized federal and postal workers and teachers and students marching and sticking up for themselves. But Saturday saw more than a million people demonstrate their willingness to fight back and that has changed the mood. Millions of people passed over from shock and awe to hell no!

But our unions, communities, and social movements are suffering from decades of free-trading and neoliberal attacks and racist, sexist, and anti-LGTBQ+ bigotry, all of which have weakened our organizing capacity. Trump does not yet care about opposition from below. He’s golfing. We’ll see which way the markets go in the coming days. Big investors may force Trump to modify his tariff trade war in their favor, or they may simply ride it out in exchange for massive tax cuts. And if the courts have shown a willingness to slow down his blitzkrieg, when it comes down to it, relying on the Supreme Court to reign in Trump means relying on Brett Kavanaugh… a grim prospect indeed. Either way, it would be a mistake to underestimate MAGAism’s staying power and the administration’s willingness to stick to its guns. Remember, Reagan used the 1981-82 recession to smash unions and attack social spending.

How do we confront this situation in the immediate and medium term? The long term matters as well but it will be conditioned by what we are able to accomplish in the coming few years.

[Read next: Thousands say Hands Off Maine!]

We all belong to some kind of organization or community. And some have deep roots and traditions anchoring them in decades or centuries of struggle. For instance, the Wabanaki people have endured 500 years of colonial assault and today form one of the most effective and sophisticated political powers in what we call Maine. The Maine AFL-CIO brings together more than 200 unions, representing 40,000 workers across the entire state with a proud history of strikes and struggles. The Maine Council of Churches builds bridges between congregations and faiths and has long stood for social justice. Advocacy organizations like Maine People’s Alliance, Equality Maine, and the League of Conservation Voters shine a light on discrimination and speak up for poor and marginalized communities. The Maine Immigrants Rights Coalition, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, and Presente! Maine all give voice and provide legal and mutual aid to New Mainers. The Maine Coalition for Palestine and Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine have forced us all to confront our own elected officials support for the genocide in Gaza. The Maine Democratic Socialists of America is one of the new kids on the block, but has demonstrated an ability to work on multiple fronts, including winning office and important reforms in Portland. And Indivisible and Maine Resists provided the infrastructure for the April 5 protests themselves. There are, of course, hundreds of local and statewide groups I can’t list here. The point is, Maine does not suffer from organizing capacity. 

All these organizations have different levels of capacity and bring different expertise, resources, and priorities to the table. It is rarely possible to agree on everything, but under certain conditions, a great deal of unity can be created—not in the abstract—but in action. And this is exactly what we need today. Maine needs a united front to defend ourselves from Trump’s attacks and build a powerful enough movement to turn the tide back towards The Way Life Should Be for all of us. 

[Read next: Solidarity against Trump means joining an organization]

The first thing to keep in mind is that a united front is a process. Building unity between different social and political forces takes time, both to build up a set of common experiences and develop the necessary trust to withstand setbacks and differences of opinion. Some may say that time is precisely what we don’t have, instead, we must act now at all costs without patiently building up the durability of our own peoples movements. This is how Trump wants us to think. We can’t fall for it. This doesn’t mean we can’t act quickly, but it does mean that we must move together and, like it or not, that takes time to plan.

Here are some ABCs to begin thinking about how to accomplish this. 

Bring together organizations facing a common threat who see the need to build solidarity to defend themselves and to defend the rights and well-being of others. No one organization or community claims to speak for all of Maine. If we want to create a real democratic power, we must recognize that power can only be assembled by mutual recognition. 

Make decisions openly and democratically. This is easier said than done, but it is essential for building an effective movement. Trump wants to destroy democracy, if we want to transform our community groups, unions, and organizations into centers of people power, then we should give people a place to practice it. We open the DOOR: Discuss and decide. Organize and act. Observe and assess. Repeat and improve. 

March separately, but strike together. Partners in a united front can agree on basic points of unity and basic norms of cooperation. All groups should promote common objectives and actions, for instance, we will all cooperate to organize at X time and Y place or places on May Day. However, each group retains the freedom to publicize and promote their own particular political program and organize their own independent actions. Trust and credibility are the ties that help bind us together when inevitable stresses arrive. 

Solidarity and action are the keys. A united front is not a political party. It is not a debating society. It is not a walk in the park. It is an agreement between organizations to take concrete action to defend one another and to tilt the balance of forces towards the common good. Rather than writing long treatises, united fronts work best when they focus on concrete action. 

Leaders, organizers, artists, participants all play a role. We ought to make it as easy to participate as possible. This means publicizing events and inviting people through all available means, but especially through face-to-face discussions. We need organizers who are willing to dedicate time to running committees. We need artists who can make our work beautiful and fun. And we need leaders. Leaders in a social movement are not appointed. They have to earn their stripes by strengthening common bonds and articulating mutual aspirations as well as developing useful strategies and tactics. 

Organize locally, coordinate statewide. Maine is a big state and no town or region has to wait for anyone’s permission to call a local meeting and start organizing. United fronts can begin in a town, a county, or a region, or among students at different schools, or members of different unions or community groups. The more organizing going on at the local level, the more powerful our efforts will be when we combine into coordinated statewide action. Local and statewide actions can be mutually reinforcing. 

What does this mean in Maine? A couple weeks ago, the Chicago Teachers Union hosted people from more than 200 organizations to plan for a mass action on May day. As Bernie might say, it’s going to be HUGE! We face different circumstances here and there is no ready-made blueprint. We may fail or only partially succeed at first. But practice makes perfect. And what other choice do we have? May Day in Maine is a good place to start. 

If you’re looking for a place to get involved, email info@mainedsa.org

Solidarity against Trump means joining an organization

Sophie Garner is the state co-chair of the Maine Democratic Socialists of America. She spoke to thousands on April 5 assembled to demand Hands Off! federal union contracts, trans rights and immigrant rights, and democracy. More than 10,000 people gathered across the state in more than a dozen cities and towns. As Trump provokes a global trade war and continues flashing the green light for genocide in Gaza, protests look set to continue on International Workers Day, May 1.

Thank you for being here. I’m Sophie Garner, Chapter Chair of the Maine Democratic Socialists of America. I’m a grad student at Northeastern University and an advocate focused on violence prevention policy and research. I work for a national gun violence prevention organization, and most recently, I was a lead organizer on a ballot initiative to put an extreme risk protection order on Maine’s November 2025 ballot. I hope you vote yes this fall to protect our schools and communities from gun violence. 

When writing this speech, I realized I don’t need to list all the horrific things Trump and his billionaire buddies are doing—you already know. That’s why we’re here. 

[Read next: Thousands say Hands Off! Maine]

However, I want to talk about another reason we are here. We are here because we know that change doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in the streets, in our neighborhoods, in conversations among people who refuse to accept the status quo. It happens when we build community, not as a concept, but as a force that moves us forward.

But what does it mean to build community? And more importantly, where do you fit in?

Community isn’t just about showing up—it’s about bringing what you have, when you can. Every one of us has a skill, a strength, an experience that can push this movement forward. Maybe you’re an organizer who unites people, a strategist who crafts a plan, or an artist who shapes the message. Maybe you’re a teacher, a healer, a researcher, or a builder. Whatever your skill set, the movement needs you. If we want to end this nightmare and rebuild, we need our own infrastructure.

Too often, we think activism belongs to those with the loudest voices or biggest platforms. But history tells us otherwise. Movements are built by ordinary people showing up, consistently, with intention, and together.

And that’s the key: together.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the labor movement, where unions have proven that collective action wins. Better wages, safer conditions, dignity on the job. That same power of solidarity applies to every fight we’re in today—whether for reproductive rights, trans liberation, Palestine liberation, or any of the struggles happening right now. Not only are they interconnected, but they require the same commitment from all of us.

But let’s be real, while this might resonate with many of you, many of us are also exhausted. Change feels daunting.

I know many of you wake up, turn on the news and think: This country is so fucked—but at the same time, I need to walk the dog, finish work, and have free time? You ache for change. But you wonder, Where would I find the time to do anything? What could I even add to this?

I get it. We all do. Life is overwhelming, especially now. But here’s the hard truth: nothing changes if we don’t make the time.

Movements are built by people just like you—people with jobs, families, responsibilities. You don’t need to give up everything. You don’t have to burn out. But you do need to commit. Because no one is coming to save us. We have to save each other. 

So when you go home today, ask yourself: What do you bring to this movement? Who will you stand beside? Will you stand up for workers fighting for fair pay? For renters demanding affordable housing? Organizers knocking on doors, making calls, building the resistance? And after you reflect—act.

Because solidarity isn’t just a word, it’s an action. And it’s the foundation of every victory we’ve ever won, and WILL ever win.

Building a better world starts with small, powerful decisions—to contribute what you can, when you can. When we bring our skills, energy, and commitment to the movement, we turn collective power into real change.

One important step we can all take together is celebrating May Day, International Workers Day, which is May 1st. We’re planning a protest in Portland, and we’d love to see actions all over the state supporting workers. If you’re interested, please get in touch with us. 

[Read next: New England DSA protests ICE detentions]

But my big ask here today: Join an organization. If you don’t have a political home, make one. We’d love to have you—Maine DSA needs you. Join us at mainedsa.org/join. If not us, then plug into an organization that’s already doing the work.

Please do not just go home and wait for the next protest. Protesting is only one piece of this. Make a commitment today towards building this resistance movement. 

Show up. Bring your skills. Be part of the fight.

Because movements don’t just need supporters—they need builders. And that means you.

What do we do when workers are under attack? Stand up, fight back!

What do we do when immigrants are under attack?

Stand up, fight back!

What do we do when our LGBTQ friends are under attack?

Stand up, fight back!

What do we do when our communities are under attack?

WE stand up, and WE fight back!

[Read next: The method to Trump’s Medicaid cut madness]

The method to Trump’s Medicaid Cut Madness

Maine unions are speaking up for their members and their communities in the face of Trump’s attacks. Just this week postal workers organized multiple protests in Bangor and Portland, teachers rallied at Deering High School and Rowe Elementary for full funding of public education, federal workers spoke out against mass firings in Brewer, Social Security workers denounced layoffs that could paralyze the system, and nurses marched on Sen. Susan Collins office, calling on Mainers to defend Medicaid. 

After two months of MAGA blitzkrieg, it’s encouraging to see Maine labor taking to the streets. We’ll need to raise our organizing efforts another order of magnitude to begin to limit the damage Trump and Musk are inflicting on public education, health care, federal workers, and workers in general. But this was the first week where it felt like there were two sides to this fight and marked a stark contrast with the pathetic spectacle of 3 out of 4 (Golden, King, and Collins) of Maine’s congressional delegation voting for Trump’s budget the week before. 

As unions ramp up the fight, it’s worth thinking through what Trump hopes to achieve in the coming year and what drives him. 

First, there’s his obvious thirst for revenge against enemies, real and imagined. It would be a mistake to underestimate his uniquely self-centered vision of politics. This means there is not always a larger objective at play. He might well strip Maine of tens of millions of public education money just because he’s enraged that Gov. Mills had the gall to stand up to him in public. Even if that were to ruin Laura Libby’s run for the Blaine House. 

[Read next: We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine]

Second, Trump’s journey from apolitical playboy to MAGA fascist began when he realized his path to power passed through the right-wing evangelical church and white nationalist movements. Now that he has united and empowered these forces for his own gain, he must feed the monster. Trump’s campaign against immigrant workers will disrupt tourism, construction and agriculture in Maine and most likely lead to higher inflation, but he will reap political power from the fear it instills. 

Third, what is Trump’s economic game plan? This is a big question, including tariffs, foreign investment, AI, and a lot more. But I will focus on just one part of it here: the federal budget and taxation. Trump wants to extend tax cuts for corporations and the richest 1 percent. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts reduced corporate taxes from 35 to 21 percent and cut individual income taxes on the wealthiest from 39.6 to 37 percent. Those cuts cost the government approximately $2 trillion in revenue between 2018 and 2025. Extending the cuts to 2034 will cost another $4 trillion in revenue. The 2017 tax cuts (and COVID spending) ballooned the deficit, and this cannot be done again without threatening the value of the dollar as the global reserve currency—the secret power to the American financial system. So, this time around, Trump has to slash the federal budget in order to pay for his tax cuts. 

When the infamous gangster Sonnie Hutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Where will Trump find $500 billion per year to hand over to his rich pals in the federal budget?

Not all parts of the budget are equally vulnerable, nor equally lucrative. Take Trump’s decree abolishing the Department of Education. Firing the few thousand federal education workers might save about $250 million. That’s not even a rounding error in the $6.9 trillion federal budget. In fact, if Trump succeeds in firing, let’s say, 20 percent of the roughly 3 million current federal employees, that would save approximately $60 billion per year. That sounds like a lot of money, but it’s just 8 percent of the Pentagon budget. 

Eliminating the Department of Education, USAID—he can cross that off his list—and the FBI would free up about $100 billion. Eliminating bigger targets like the Departments of Transportation and Agriculture would cut around $300 billion from the budget, but there’s virtually no chance Trump will cut what are effectively huge subsidies to Big Ag and the auto industry. That leaves the big ticket items like paying the interest on the national debt ($892 billion), the Department of Defense ($872 billion… and rising), and veterans benefits and federal pensions ($500 billion). Trump either can’t, or won’t want to, strip significant funds from these pools. 

[Read Next: Tax the rich, it’s a decent start]

What does that leave? Social Security accounts for 21 percent of the federal budget ($1.5 trillion) and Medicare is about 15 percent ($912 billion). Trump has promised—promised!—not to touch those popular programs, even if his billionaire Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik might well be more eager to pick seniors’ pockets. It would be foolish to pretend Trump won’t eventually try to cut these programs, but he’s most likely to look for an easier target. 

Which brings us to Medicaid and the associated Children’s Health Insurance Program, which account for about 8 percent ($626 billion) of the federal budget. Medicaid disproportionately serves economically vulnerable portions of the working class, providing subsidized prenatal care, medications, nursing homes and elder care, and serving as a critical safety net for people with disabilities. At the same time, Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals and health care facilities deliver much needed resources to every county in the country. Without Medicaid, rural health care will suffer quickly and drastically. The closure of Northern Lights hospital in Waterville is a canary in a coal mine. Cutting Medicaid by 25 or 50 percent would devastate health care in Maine. Be that as it may, $626 billion must look awfully tempting to Trump.

At the rally to defend Medicaid organized by the Maine State Nurses Association last week, Julianna Hansen, an RN in the neurosurgical and trauma unit at Maine Med asked, “Our seniors, those with disabilities, and our young people are the ones who would most be hurt by cuts to MaineCare [Medicaid in Maine] and CubCare. How can Sen. Collins and our elected representatives even consider taking away this life-saving care?”

It’s a good question. Sonnie Hutton had an answer. Unfortunately, we know what Trump’s will be. If we want a different one from Sen. Collins—or whoever replaces her in 2026—we’ll have to build on what we did this week in the months and years to come.

[Read next: Jared Golden leads, Schumer follows, Trumps wins]

We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine

Pine and Roses’s Todd Chretien sat down with Rose D. and Marianne M-W. to talk about Trump’s attacks on trans athletes in Maine.

TC: We’re here at Otto’s pizza in Portland with Rose and Marianne and we’re gonna talk about trans liberation and Trump. To begin with, Donald Trump has gone on the attack against Maine, threatening to withhold $260 million in education and state funding all over the question of trans athletes participating in sports in Maine. So, first question, do you think Trump is serious and how should we respond? 

M M-W: I think that sometimes Trump is just vibing on the mic, but now that the Justice Department has threatened a lawsuit against the state, I think the threat is transitioning from free association into something real that we need to be prepared to respond to. What actually comes of this is a different question. Is the state violating Title IX? No. Can the federal government withhold federal funding without the consent of Congress? No. But will the courts stop him? It’s unclear. 

TC: I’m glad you mentioned the courts. Gov. Janet Mills was completely right to stand up to Trump and say, “I’ll see you in court.” She’s gained a lot of credibility for that and rightly so. But the Supreme Court is run by a supermajority of ultra conservatives. So when Mills said, “I’ll see you in court,” it became a rallying cry, but also pointed to a weakness. 

M M-W: I think there is a pretty significant chance that this goes all the way to the top and the Supreme Court rules in Trump’s favor. Then what happens? Will the state just immediately fold or does that create a further crisis? I think that’s more of an open question and might be something we need to consider strategy wise. I think the liberal reflex to take things to the court has been a relic of the postwar liberal Warren court years. With a couple of notable exceptions,  the court has not been a friend to progressives and socially liberal causes in a long time. We need to move away from relying on the courts to enforce or establish progressive social liberties. For the moment, however, there’s not a lever that a moderate Democrat governor like Mills has to pull other than the courts. We will probably need popular resistance. I hesitate to suggest that anyone should make a high school basketball game a site of protest, but we will need popular resistance to demand that trans kids be allowed to play. We will need regular members of our communities—parents of the cisgender kids on the teams—to say, “this kid is just one of the kids on this team and they deserve to play.”  We need to ensure that whatever the Trump administration throws at us meets popular resistance in Maine as well as legal and legislative pushback. We shouldn’t look to Governor Mills to lead that. 

TC: Rose, you’ve been doing a lot of organizing work in the more rural District 2. There’s a stereotype that the state is split into a blue part and a red part around Portland. Based on your experience, do you see the potential for solidarity with trans athletes and trans people in general that Marianne is referring to, not only in and around Portland, but also in District 2? 

RD:  Absolutely. Right now I’m helping some students who live in northern and central Maine get ready to testify on a bill that would codify trans rights into the state Constitution, and queer people live in all parts of our state. There are definitely people outside of greater Portland who really care about these issues. Whether that’s because it affects them personally or they know people or it is something that they are really passionate about. There are people who are willing to speak out and stand up. 

TC: That’s a very important point to stress. But we do have a political problem in the state. State Rep. Laura Libby from Auburn has made a name for herself by outing a trans athlete minor. She has been censured by the state legislature for doing so, but is also raising millions of dollars for her gubernatorial campaign and has been championed endorsed by Trump. They are not just relying on the courts to push this through. They want to take the state back for MAGA. Do you see somebody like Laura Libby as purely opportunist? Or is there support for what she’s putting forward? Do we have a majority on our side in defense of trans rights in Maine? 

RD:  I think it might be both. There is definitely a way in which a lot of this has been manufactured from nothing. Yet it has become a flashpoint issue for the Republicans. And I think you’re starting to see that in opinion polls. Unfortunately, Trump’s attacks on LGTBQ+ rights is one of the only things that Trump’s not losing support around. He’s really dropping off on the economy. But he’s maintaining support for attacking immigrants and trans people. So I think both. The trans attack was manufactured, but I also think now that it has been manufactured, it does present a more serious risk. We need to figure out a way to confront it. It pains me to say we’re very lucky to have Janet Mills because she’s been such a frustrating governor for progressives and socialists in so many ways. But LGBTQ+ rights in general and abortion rights in particular are the two things where she has been consistently really good. However, specifically trans rights seem to be the one area where some elected Democrats seem more willing to throw us under the bus. So I think there will be a danger. If Libby runs for governor, it will be important to watch what Democrats do. Will they take on trans rights as an issue to be fought for or an issue to avoid and concede, like Kamala Harris did on so many issues during her presidential run. 

TC: I think it’s a really good point. Some of the Democrats who voted in favor of censuring Libby say things like, I don’t agree with the state policy supporting trans athletes, but I’m against outing minors on social media. District 2 Congressman Jared Golden is the prime example. How can the left construct a coalition of people who are strong enough to stand up for trans rights without cutting deals with those Democrats who are willing to throw people under the bus?

M M-W I think one thing we have going for us is that Democratic primary voters are more supportive of trans rights than Democratic elected officials. I think we need to do everything we can to make sure that Jared Golden is not the Democratic nominee for governor. I think we also need to reaffirm social liberalism as a left wing value. As a trans woman, I don’t need the general public to really know a lot about what it means to be trans, but I need people to respect my right and the rights of all other trans people to live the lives that we want to live. And we need to affirm that letting people live the lives that they want to live as a core value for socialists and progressives more broadly. 

I’m from away—as we say in Maine—so I’m a bit hesitant to speak about Maine values. But I’ve lived here for six years and it seems to me that letting people live their lives without interference as much as possible is the way people like it in Maine, whatever their political backgrounds. And so I think that if we frame this as a fight to allow people to be who they are and live the lives that they want to live, we can rally a lot of people. We’re not gonna convince Libby or any of her hardcore supporters. We’re not gonna convince MAGA people who claim to support freedom or whatever. But I think we can win over a coalition from mainstream liberals to Berniecrats to socialists. 

TC: A silver lining to Trump carrying up this attack and Libby carrying his torch is that he’s in danger of overreaching, for instance, now he’s threatening all Title IX support for sports. He’s really threatening all sports, threatening all schools, threatening the entire system of government. He’s already laid off VA workers in Maine. He’s already laid off park rangers. He’s already laid off USDA workers and Farm Service Agency workers. How do we talk to people about the real danger he poses to trans people and expose how he’s trying to divide and conquer. 

M M-W: What we need is to act with the understanding that trans rights are a working-class issue, not an abstract concept. Trans rights are made up of the same things that all working class people need, healthcare, education, housing, secure employment with a living wage, etc. How do we convince people that eroding trans people’s rights will set the stage for eroding every working class person’s rights. And fighting for trans liberation means fighting for universal healthcare and housing. It means fighting for workplace protections and unions. If you sacrifice trans people, you’re only opening the door for Trump to attack you. 

And look at who is attacking all the groups you mentioned. It’s the same guy who can’t shut up about trans women on Twitter. The billionaires removing transphobia from the hate speech policies on their platforms are the same ones backing Trump’s evisceration of the federal government and his plans to privatize everything. I don’t necessarily expect everyone to make trans rights their own personal cause, or really even understand anything about trans life, but we do need to understand that giving the billionaires an inch on anything emboldens them and furthers their agenda.  

RD: I feel like part of it, at least, is that they don’t like trans people, they hate trans people because of how we represent a kind of broader shift in culture. What it’s ultimately about is gender politics. Thinking back to during the election—JD Vance and the childless cat ladies and all that—the thing that threatens them is women in general having any rights. They want to end abortion rights! They’re coming for us because we’re an easy target right now, but it’s part of a broader push. And it’s not just trans women who are affected by these kinds of policies. Think back to the Olympics when conservatives generated controversy over an Algerian boxer, a cis woman, basically just because of how she looks. It’s about policing everyone. I think we need to train people to know who the real enemy is, because it’s the same no matter who you are if you are a working person in this country.