The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that it notified Maine and California of its plan to investigate whether the states’ housing transgender women in women’s prisons is unconstitutional.
The investigation continues the Trump administration’s efforts to bar transgender women from spaces designated for women, which the administration defines exclusively as those whose sex was female at birth.
“Keeping men out of women’s prisons is not only common sense — it’s a matter of safety and constitutional rights,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release. “The Trump Administration will not stand by if governors are facilitating the abuse of biological women under the guise of inclusion.”
A Maine law passed in 2021 requires that corrections facilities have prisoners’ “consistently held gender identity respected and acknowledged, irrespective of anatomy or physique.”
Maine has one women’s prison, Maine Correctional Center in Windham. Last April, the Trump administration pulled “nonessential” grant funding from the facility because it had permitted a transgender woman to be incarcerated there. The Department of Corrections appealed, and the federal government reinstated the funding in June 2025.
Jill O’Brien, director of government affairs for the Maine Department of Corrections, said the reversal was never explained.
The woman used to justify the initial funding cut, Andrea Balcer, was convicted of a double murder in 2018 when she was six weeks shy of her 18th birthday. She stabbed her mother and father, Alice and Antonio Balcer, to death, as well as the family dog. She later told a psychologist that she didn’t believe her parents would accept her as a trans woman and that led to the slayings.
Recently, the Sun Journal reported that a number of inmates at Maine Correctional Center have accused Balcer of harassment, including groping and offering to impregnate them, and said their complaints have been largely ignored.
O’Brien said the Department of Corrections “takes resident safety concerns very seriously,” and investigates any acts of physical violence or harassment that are reported to staff.
“If the conduct that occurred rises to the level of a crime, it is referred to the DA for prosecution,” O’Brien said. “If it violates the Department’s disciplinary policy, the residents involved are disciplined.”
O’Brien declined to disclose the exact number transgender inmates at the Windham facility, saying “given that it is a low number, individuals could be identified, in violation of the confidentiality statutes governing the department and violating those residents’ privacy rights.”
“Transgender residents’ housing decisions are made by a multidisciplinary team, under Department policy, in compliance with state and federal law,” O’Brien said.
Last year, the Trump administration launched a multiagency campaign of withholding funding and investigating Maine institutions in an effort to press the state to bar transgender athletes in women’s and girls sports, which Maine allows, though few such athletes exist.