Maine House speaker deletes X account after censuring Rep. Laurel Libby
Ryan Fecteau, the Maine House of Representatives’ Democratic speaker, deleted his X account early Thursday morning, just days after censuring Republican Rep. Laurel Libby.
Libby was censured by the Democratic majority Tuesday evening for a recent social media post pointing out that a transgender high school athlete won a girls competition. The censure resolution passed by a 75-70 vote and revoked Libby’s speaking and voting privileges.
Fecteau said during a hearing that Libby’s rights would not be restored until she apologized, but she told him that night she would not be apologizing.
Libby pointed out that Fecteau’s account had been deactivated in an X post Thursday.
“Apparently Maine’s Speaker of the House didn’t like hearing the voices of the people. … State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau has deleted his X account less than 48 hours after the Democrat Majority’s attempt to cancel me,” Libby wrote with a screenshot of his deleted account page.
Fox News Digital reached out to Fecteau for comment.
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Ryan Fecteau greets voters at Biddeford High School while campaigning for a seat in House District 11 Nov. 4, 2014. (Jill Brady/Staff Photographer)
Fecteau left his Facebook and Bluesky accounts active but has not addressed the situation with Libby or the deactivation of his account. Many of his posts on those platforms have been flooded with comments from those criticizing his decision to censure Libby.
“You’re a coward. A spineless, feckless, coward who obviously hates young girls,” one user commented on Fecteau’s latest Facebook post.
“While screeching that Trump and Republicans are Nazis and want a dictatorship, you silence a Representative for voicing her constituent’s valid concerns. Highlighting the usual hypocrisy of Democrats,” another Facebook user commented.
Fecteau has served in his role as Maine speaker of the House since 2020. At the time of his election as speaker in December 2020, Fecteau was the youngest active state speaker in the U.S. at the age of 28 and the first openly gay person to serve as speaker of the Maine House.
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On Tuesday, Fecteau passed Libby’s censure based on the premise her social media post about the transgender athlete identified a minor with a photo and included the athlete’s name.
Libby’s post identifying the trans athlete came last Sunday when she pointed out that a transgender track and field athlete had taken first place at a Maine girls pole vault competition after competing as a boy just one year earlier.
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“It’s a remarkable double standard as there are public photos of this individual in many places on social media and even some posted by his school, and, so, yes, this post went viral, but this was an individual who participated in a public event, who publicly stood on a podium and accepted a championship medal that rightfully belonged to the girls standing on the second-place spot,” Libby told Fox News Digital.
During Tuesday’s vote, Libby also approached the House floor with a prepared seven-page speech on the importance of protecting girls and women’s sports from transgender inclusion. However, throughout the night, her microphone was consistently turned off when she was trying to deliver that speech.
“I was completely unable, from my first sentence, to get a word out, before the other side was shutting me down,” Libby said, adding she had never seen anything like that happen during her tenure in the Maine legislature.
Libby’s revelation of the transgender athlete ignited national conversation and coverage of the state’s policy on trans inclusion after Maine announced it would not comply with President Donald Trump’s recent “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order.
Trump then vowed to cut funding to the state for refusing to follow his order during a gathering last week of governors at the White House.
On Friday, Mills’ office responded with a statement threatening legal action against the Trump administration if it did withhold federal funding from the state. Then, Trump and Mills verbally sparred at the White House during a bipartisan meeting of governors.
Just hours after that interaction, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would be investigating the state for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports and potential Title IX violations.
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