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This is what transgender activists want across the country. Transgenders and their ‘allies’ are sending a clear message to women that they don’t matter. They want elderly women and young girls to be forced to undress in front of males who only need claim that they identify as female.
An 80-year-old woman who demanded that a biological male identifying as a female leave the locker room after catching him watching as young girls changed out of their swimsuits has been banned from the YMCA; she was later shouted down and harassed by transgender activists during a protest.
Last month Julie Jaman was banned from her local YMCA. Jaman, of Port Townsend, Washington, had been a member of the Mountain Valley YMCA for 35 years, until the dispute over transgenders in a woman’s only space arose.
Jaman says she was showering in the locker room when she heard a male voice. She saw an adult male wearing a women’s swimsuit standing near the shower. She claimed he was watching young girls as they changed. Jaman said, “I asked if he had a penis and he said it was none of my business. That’s when I told him, ‘Get out right now.’”
She went to the YMCA’s aquatics manager, Rowen DeLuna, and demanded that the man be removed. Jaman claims that DeLuna told her that she was discriminating. DeLuna not only banned Jaman from using the pool but called the police.
Jaman says that DeLuna told her, “You have not abided by our principles and values,” referring to the “C” in YMCA standing for “Christian.” Jaman claims that the staff then would not let her leave.
“There was no concern for what I was experiencing,” Jaman said of the staff.
The transgender in question, who calls himself Clementine Adams, is apparently an employee. He first announced that he identifies as female on Facebook in March 2022. In his job as a day camp staff member at the Y, he is tasked with escorting girls to the bathroom and other private facilities and assisting them. Jaman said Adams, dressed in a ladies’ swimsuit, wore no badge identifying him as an employee.
The YMCA released its take on the incident by saying:
“On July 26, one of our YMCA day camp staff members accompanied 2 girls to the restroom facilities in the women’s locker room in a supervision role. At the Y, we have a ‘rule of 3’ where staff always accompany children in a group of 3 so a staff person is never alone with a child and children are never alone with each other. The Y staff member and one girl were standing outside the restroom stall while the other girl was using the restroom when the patron expressed her concerns in a disrespectful manner toward the staff person, which violates the Y’s Code of Conduct.”
The YMCA’s Code of Conduct states that all members agree to provide “an atmosphere free of discrimination, hatred, derogatory or unwelcome comments, intimidation, conduct or actions based on an individual’s sex, race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.” It also states that the Y will not tolerate disrespectful words or gestures towards YMCA staff or others.
According to the YMCA, the pool aquatics manager “informed the patron that she had violated the Y’s Code of Conduct due to her disrespectful behavior toward the staff member and that she needed to leave the facility.”
The facility claims that she refused to leave before the police were called.
Erin Hawkins, the marketing and communications manager for the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, says that Jaman’s ban wasn’t just because of the incident with the transgender employee. “Julie Jaman was permanently suspended from the Mountain View Pool due to her repeatedly violating our Code of Conduct, specifically, using disrespectful words or gestures toward YMCA staff or others; abusive, harassing, and/or obscene language or gestures toward YMCA staff or others,” she said.
The YMCA and its facilities, including the locker room, feature Gay Pride flags and signs. Jaman says that a YMCA official told her that these symbols effectively communicated that the organization welcomes all people into all private spaces.
Jaman said it’s not enough. She later wrote the Port Townsend City Council, stating, “The YMCA should immediately post clear signage indicating the existing dressing/shower rooms will be used by the opposite sex who gender identify differently. Also, all parents who send their children to YMCA programs should be informed that men who identify as women are allowed to accompany little girls into the dressing and bathroom areas.”
This week Jaman spoke at a RevFoxxUSA event. RevFoxxUSA, a feminist group, defines itself as “a non-partisan, non-religious collective of like-minded adults advocating for the safeguarding of women & children, observing objective reality in solidarity, and countering the narrative of the gender lobby in the United States.”
As Jaman attempted to speak about her experience, transgender advocates shouted at her and rushed the stage. Amy Sousa, who organized the event and is also a founding member of RevFoxxUSA, said, “All kinds of men were assaulting us and crawling between our legs. They continued to move in on us closer and closer until we were pinned against the wall. They were touching us and stealing our things, trying to turn off our sounds, trying to disrupt our equipment.”
She added, “We were forced to engage with them because we had to try to get back our things. It was incredibly overwhelming.”
The group had been told there would be police protection. Jaman pleaded with police to get involved as the pro-transgender activists drowned her out.
As it stands, Washington State law requires that transgenders be allowed in facilities that were once women-only, meaning this incident is legal; in fact, Jaman’s action to ask the YMCA to step in and stop it is what is considered discriminatory and illegal.
In other words, Jaman, no matter her decades of life as woman and mother and her own desire to have privacy and to feel safe, is, ironically, on the wrong side of Washington law. That means she has no real legal recourse.
Her story, however, is alarming because this is what transgender activists want across the country. Transgenders and their “allies” are sending a clear message to women that they don’t matter. They want elderly women and young girls to be forced to undress in front of males who only need claim that they identify as female. Without any question or concern, biological men are being automatically allowed into a woman’s locker room if they say they too are women— and they are praised and protected for their “courage.” The YMCA employee in this incident announced that he identifies as female in March 2022; less than six months later, he is allowed to take young girls to change in the locker room and to get an 80-year-old woman kicked out for objecting. You have to wonder: Do parents even realize that their young daughters are being escorted into the locker room by biological males, who have the right to watch and even assist their children as they change?
The YMCA, originally known as the Young Men’s Christian Association, was founded as a Christian organization. Now it embraces letting potentially voyeuristic males enter female locker rooms, even citing its “Christian” roots as a reason for allowing it and silencing patrons’ objections. There is nothing Christian about this, and any contrary claim only underscores the need for Christians to gain a true understanding of the biblical view on human sexuality.
Feminism, which sought to abolish the concept of womanhood by pushing for women to do everything a man does and blur the lines between the sexes, is now on its last breath. Feminism has been replaced by the LGBT lobby in the left’s hierarchy and soon the very concept of female will be eliminated. It is time for Americans to wake up and re-establish the uniqueness of womanhood and the inherent differences between men and women. Only then will women again be respected.
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
