“Wow! Why are trans rights and trans feelings
more important than any woman’s?
Why are women and children not worthy of protection?”
– Comment from Port Townsend Free Press Facebook post
————————
Dozens of citizens filled Port Townsend City Council chambers and joined by phone Monday night, August 1st, to address the council about the banning of 80-year-old resident Julie Jaman from the city’s public swimming pool. The near-hour of emotional and often impassioned public comments underscored a deep cultural divide in the Port Townsend community.
Jaman’s story, which went viral nationwide and then internationally following the Free Press‘s detailed coverage, involved her shock of hearing a man’s voice in the women’s locker room while she was naked in the shower after a swim at the pool. When she looked out from the thin plastic shower curtain and saw a biological man in a women’s swimsuit, she became upset and demanded the person leave. Rather than de-escalate the situation, the pool manager who intervened told Jaman that she was guilty of “discrimination” and that because of her objections she was banned from the pool for life.
The 60-year-old Mountain View Pool is at the center of this controversy and of a community complex, the Mountain View Commons. The former school campus also includes the Port Townsend Police Department, the Food Bank, and local radio station KPTZ. The Olympic Peninsula YMCA began operating the city-owned pool in 2021 in partnership with the City of Port Townsend. The city is ultimately responsible for all the public spaces at the site and for policies established at the pool.
After the distressing incident, Jaman wrote a letter to the Port Townsend City Council and state reprepresentatives. At the council’s August 1st meeting, she read from a follow-up statement during the 3-minute public comment period.
Julie Jaman leads off public comments about discrimination at the city pool at the August 1, 2022 Port Townsend City Council meeting. Click on this image to watch the archived meeting. Jaman’s comment begins at minute 7.
In measured tones, Jaman asked for “respectful and inclusive” policies for all pool patrons:
“There is no signage informing women the shower room is now all-gender. Have parents been informed of what they can expect with these policies? The Y has not provided any dressing/shower room options for women who do not want to be exposed to men who identify as women.
It is unconscionable that the YMCA would instigate these new policies without clearly informing pool patrons and parents. Although in 2021 the Y reported that they were adding family and all-gender dressing and bathing areas, they’ve not done that. Instead, they’ve usurped the binary designations… with no choices. The staff seems to have received little professional training on how to handle reactions to such a radical cultural change — particularly for the most vulnerable, older female patrons, and children who may be exposed to inappropriate behavior… the dignity and safety of unsuspecting women who have trusted to use these facilities for many years.
This is not right. The YMCA, the city, the police and sheriffs, the parents, the professionals who assist victims of voyeurism, peeping toms, pedophilia and assault need to come together to figure out how to make the new policies work for all pool patrons, not just one group.”
More than 20 people followed Jaman, participating both in person and by phone in a heated comment session.
Half who spoke agreed that allowing biological men to use women’s facilities creates comfort and safety issues, and asked for a third shower and changing area to accommodate trans/non-binary individuals.
The other half believed that trans individuals should have access to whatever facilities they choose as their gender identity. Some went so far as to say that the people who don’t accept that are bigoted, hateful and deserve to lose their Y membership if they can’t get in line with trans ideology.
Some commenters tried to find a middle ground, also asking for additional facilities at the pool to accommodate the divide.
THE MANTRA: Trans Women Are Women, Trans Men Are Men
The reach and saturation of the trans narrative was no more evident than in the parroting of slogans by a small child who came with his family to address the council. The self-described “9-year-old non-binary person” stressed that it is not fair that people didn’t accept that a person is whatever gender they say they are.
At the podium, the nine year old explained through a mask:
“Since I’m so young people don’t often take me seriously. And they will use my pronouns, but I can tell that they are not really respecting me and they don’t actually think that a child can make this kind of decision. But I believe—that imagine this—that you know what gender you are, that’s the gender you are. And if you know you are not in the gender you are born, you know that’s a mistake. You are not someone who identifies as female, you are someone who IS female. I believe that if you know what gender you are and you get sent into the pool and somebody gets mad at you because you’re not in the bathroom they think you should be, then that is not fair. You know what gender you are and if someone else says, Well, sorry we think you should be in this bathroom, how would that make you feel? It’s not fair that we don’t count these as the same as us, these are the same kind of people and I don’t believe that we should be treating them like someone who identifies as someone else. That is not fair.”
Andre Wilson reinforced that assertion. “I am a transgender man who identifies as non-binary. I lived a miserable life as a transgender child.”
“Transgender people are the person they identify as. So when a trans woman says they are a woman, they are a woman. When a trans man says they are a man, they are a man. There is no question about that.”
Washington state law affirms that contention, Wilson said, emphasizing a second time: “Trans women are women, trans women [sic] are men, non-binary people are non-binary. That’s it.”
Variations on that refrain were repeated by speakers throughout the comments. Asserting that a biological male identifying as a woman IS a woman, they championed their right to equal access of formerly binary bathrooms and showers.
Rebecca Horst announced that she had spent three hours in traffic driving from Sequim to get there. “This individual is NOT a man identifying as a woman, this individual IS a woman,” she said referring to the biological male in the swimsuit who had shocked Jaman.
Another person who chanted the trans mantra was Megan Doherty, “a lesbian who grew up in Port Townsend.” After saying how “brave and strong” the trans community was, she concluded her comment with:
“All that I heard today from the opposing side was ignorance and hatred and bigotry… If you don’t like it, you can choose to leave the pool and go somewhere else. But you do not have the right to pick and choose who gets to use the pool based on your own bigotry and your own ignorance. Trans women are women, trans men are men.”
A curious re-direct of the issue — neither Julie Jaman nor anyone else who spoke had ever suggested that trans people shouldn’t be allowed to use the pool. It was Jaman who had been banned from using the facility.
Speaking to the appropriation of the town’s community pool as a “Pride” agenda headquarters, Alby Baker said,
“I just have one question: Why would a public pool be turned into a marketing platform for sexual preference? And I’d like to get an answer from you guys.”
Facebook invitation:
Come down to Mountain View pool from 11-1 this week
to support Trans youth and the YMCA!
Mayor David Faber replied that responses would be given during the council’s discussion following comments. They weren’t.
Lema Constria (this name is hard to make out on the video capture and could not be clarified by the city) said she lives in Port Townsend with “my wife”, and identified herself as one of the counter-protesters at the picket that had taken place outside the pool earlier that day. She, too, said that the people who were standing for biological women’s rights to a private space were bigots. She repeated the falsehood that people protesting Jaman’s treatment were asking for trans people to be banned from the pool. Constria took the victimization a step further, protesting: “Trans people are people, they deserve human rights.”
It was a shift of focus that took place multiple times during the comments, painting the trans community as the ones being maligned in this discussion. No one had ever said or even implied that trans people didn’t deserve human rights; Jaman was appealing discrimination for being banned for a reaction to what she felt was a violation of her privacy as she stood naked in the shower.
“We are accused of hating trans people, of being Christians…”
Alison Hedlund had also been at the Monday afternoon action at the pool. Hedlund expressed surprise over the attacks she experienced from the group of counter-protesters, at the twisting of the story being told:
“The protest at the Y today… was full of rancor and accusations and insults by the people who showed up on the other side of this issue. We are accused of hating trans people, of being Christians at the Young Men’s Christian Association… and when we laughed, that we must be cultists… and then that we must be pedophiles.”
Annette Huenke, who had also attended that protest in the hopes of having productive dialogue, wrote of her experience. It started out, she said, as a civil conversation with 5 or 6 young people:
“The discussion was respectful until a couple of older women arrived and began to ratchet up the tone with raised voices and name-calling. We were accused of saying things we had not said. We were anti-vaxxers, eventually we were pedophiles, rapists, even Nazis.”
As more counter-protesters trickled in, wrote Huenke, the possibility for conversation came to an end:
“Julie’s friends left in frustration, leaving just the two of us. One of the older women began hectoring us, yelling that we needed a hobby… The slanderous name-calling continued. Some younger folks began joining her, creating a non-stop barrage of loud voices intentionally making it impossible for she and I to hear each other.
This is a common bully tactic used by trans proponents, the goal being to shut down reasonable debate and shut out the opponent. It is highly uncivil and undemocratic.”
The anger and rancor perplexed Hedlund. In her public comment, she asked council:
“But what about our needs as women? Do men transitioning to be women understand discrimination and violence are part of being a woman, and that we DO need protection from predators? Do women transitioning to being men understand that they are also vulnerable to male harassment and violence? I would think so. There is absolutely NO privacy in the women’s locker room, which means we are vulnerable.
I haven’t been there for years because of the lack of privacy… When men can decide that they are identifying as a woman, walk in, display their private parts, have the freedom to ogle or harass or assault anyone there, we have seen what can happen when pedophiles or rapists can and do populate careers and locations where they have easy access to women and children. Anxiety and PTSD is not uncommon when women feel vulnerable around men. Women’s concerns about our safety and privacy are and always have been legitimate, and we have long been accorded the natural right to these public facilities…
Locker room facilities should be upgraded to accommodate the safety and privacy needs of EVERYONE, instead of declaring that we now have a free-for-all to enter any bathroom or locker room.”
What became clear over the course of the comments was that the group asking for a shower/changing area that allowed traditional women to feel safe was seen by transgender advocates as an attack on Clementine Adams, the 19-year-old transgender employee who Jaman had told to leave the room while she was naked — and, by extension, an attack on the entire trans community. They were on the offensive to protect their right to use whatever facilities they chose. They were the ones being discriminated against, they said.
Those supporting the all-gender open policy repeatedly shifted the conversation to how oppressed and fragile trans people are.
“I am a transgender man myself,” phoned in Mo Wolfe from Brinnon.
“I have had surgeries, I have done hormones for years, I have a beard and I appear fully as a man. To say that people should go into the facilities that align with their biological sex can cause trans people extreme amounts of violence… Trans people have extreme high rates of suicide and violence. People should go to the restroom that they feel would be safe for them.”
But what about the sensitivities of elderly women? Where is the shower room that they will feel safe in?
Can we speak of pedophiles?
The mention of pedophilia held the biggest charge of the night.
The concern expressed that when men claiming to identify as women are granted intimate access to children, such access attracts pedophiles and other sexual predators, caused Constria to angrily retort: “People objected to being called bigots but are calling trans people pedophiles. Trans people are NOT pedophiles!”
“Calling and comparing trans people to pedophiles is absolutely disgusting,” said Mo Wolfe. A phone-in comment from former mayor Michelle Sandoval added, “People who are expressing fear need to get ‘pedophiles’ out of their language.”
IS there any cause for concern that pedophiles and rapists will use trans-inclusive laws to “identify” as women and gain access to vulnerable women and children? In her letter to the city, Julie Jaman wrote:
“Nationally, women continue to lose their personal rights to choose; they, along with little girls, forced to use non-binary facilities, are experiencing increased encounters with peeping toms and assault in shower, dressing and toilet rooms – at schools, gyms, prisons and now, potentially, at Mt. View Pool.”
But that could never happen here. Or could it? An increase in sex crimes when gender-free access is allowed in formerly gender-binary facilities is addressed in the Free Press article, Mountain View Pool No Longer Safe for Women and Girls. It presents “empirical evidence that unisex dressing rooms, bathrooms, and showers are the sexual predator’s candy store.”
Phoning in from the county, Mary Bond used her three minutes to attack previous speakers who had criticized the Y. She’d taken down their names: “I’m horrified to hear the bigotry quoted by [lists seven names] and others… They are bigots and I am ashamed, embarrassed and horrified. Trans women are women. Trans men are men,” Bond chanted.
Finally, almost an hour in, soft-spoken Addy Thornton, saying she had not planned to comment, carefully summed up what prompted her to speak:
“What I’ve heard is a lot of projection, that those of us who feel discomforted… that feel that decency and morality has been somewhat altered… we’re just hearing things that we’re not doing. The issue at hand is that there is not a place that can be separate, so that everybody is being allowed to be who they are.
Those of us who have grown up for however many years and have never encountered this until just recently—just the past few years where there is this agenda that has been foisted down our throats… I can’t help but feel that this is politically driven, that we are being not asked—but coerced—into accepting that which is impinging on our rights, our freedoms, our ability to operate in a situation where we feel comfortable…
There’s a mantra going on… and just because somebody says so many times that a trans woman is a [woman]… doesn’t make it real. It’s not scientific, it’s biological. So why don’t we agree to disagree… but we have to put conditions into place… for the majority of people.”
The City’s Response
Following public comments, Mayor David Faber opened the council discussion:
“I’m not going to speak to the particular incident that happened a few days ago, I think that the state law on that is very clear.
What I’m going to speak to is that Port Townsend is a welcoming community, and hate and discrimination has no place in this community. LGBTQ people, trans people in particular in this case, are entitled to basic respect. And they have not been receiving that in much of the commentary tonight, calling them pedophiles and rapists and predators. Given the rise in harassment and bigotry that trans persons have experienced recently, it’s important that cisgendered people like me speak out in support of our trans community.”
City Manager John Mauro then reiterated that the Y was following state law, an assertion that has been contested and may result in a lawsuit. He said there were conflicting reports about what had taken place and that the city’s agreement with the Y allows it to ban whoever it wants.
“I couldn’t sit here and say that we are not behind the Y’s decision based on abusive behavior and for the respect of every individual.”
End of discussion.
Faber and Mauro had made their declarations. Evidently, a response had been pre-determined. Circle the wagons.
The script:
- Avoid addressing the treatment of Jaman, question her story;
- Reinforce the Y is “just following state law” excuse;
- Dismiss the outcry for separate changing rooms as trans-hate;
- Focus on pandering to the transgender community.
No other council members spoke up.
Had a meeting been held that the public didn’t know about? Once again we saw the citizenry given their three minutes for public comment to satisfy legal requirements, but the city’s position had already been decided. Sitting through an hour of comments was a formality that had to be tolerated… barely tolerated, as you listen to Mayor Faber’s irritation increase throughout the hour.
Readers are encouraged to listen for themselves to the full public comments. Decide for yourself if you hear bigotry and discrimination from the community members being labeled bigots and trans-haters. Without exception, not a single commenter who appealed for separate public shower/changing areas free from biological men denounced, let alone expressed hatred for, trans people. As Sebastian Eggert said. “I have no problem with alternative lifestyles.”
But he and others drew the line at allowing biological men in women’s private spaces. They voiced fears that biological women have held for millennia and in response were told that their discomfort and fear made them anti-trans bigots.
Jaman challenged this reverse discrimination in her letter to the city:
“The YMCA policies on gender identity use “pride” as a euphemism to prevent discrimination against one group of people but at the expense of another group – women who don’t want to use all-gender bathing/dressing areas.”
As Addy Thornton had put it, “The issue at hand is that there is not a place that can be separate, so that everybody is being allowed to be who they are.” The council never responded to that simple need that had been voiced by every speaker except the few demanding all-gender access.
People had simply asked that their needs be given the same consideration as the trans community.
So where did all that “hate” rhetoric come from?
“The trans-haters are planning to show up at the Mountain View pool…”
Not only did our mayor characterize valid fears as trans-hate, dismissing public outcry in deference to catering to the trans community, Port Townsend City Council member Libby Urner Wennstrom set her own example of how to be a city leader. Her social media posts fanned divisiveness, mirroring the hate language spewed by the counter-protesters who attacked Hedlund and others during pickets at the pool and at the city council meeting.
The day after the meeting, Wennstrom encouraged people to confront the “trans-haters” who were protesting the Y’s treatment of Jaman and the pool’s policy. On the Y’s Facebook page Wennstrom posted:
“The trans-haters are planning to show up at the Mountain View pool picketing again today (Tuesday 8/2) from 11-1.
If you feel that hate has no place at our public pool, and want to support the Y in creating a safe welcoming place for EVERYONE, show up today!”
The Y is meant to be “a safe welcoming place for everyone”… except women and their families who are uncomfortable sharing once-private spaces with biological males. They don’t get a color in the festive rainbow Pride banners permeating the Y. Those people, in Councilor Wennstrom’s words, are trans-haters. Haters who will be put in their place with a new statement forthcoming from the city council.
While no meaningful city council discussion followed public comments, in the final minutes of the August 1st meeting (at 2:41:40), long after the public had left the chambers, Wennstrom requested additional council action on the pool controversy. 
She proposed adopting a statement opposing “discrimination against transgender people and to formally support the Y and its staff in their efforts to assure that everyone feels welcome to use our public pool.” She made a motion directing the council’s newly-formed Culture and Society Committee to draft this statement. The motion passed unanimously with no council discussion.
Free Press writer Jim Scarantino attended the August 10th Culture and Society Committee meeting for the drafting of the city statement. The committee is comprised of three council members — Owen Rowe, Monica Mick-Hager and Ben Thomas. Scarantino’s thumbnail report:
“The entire Port Townsend Police Department, minus one officer, provided protection for 9 citizens in the audience, 3 city councilors and 2 city staff at today’s City Council Culture and Society Committee. I observed 4 uniformed officers, one officer in plain clothes and the police chief also in plain clothes. Nothing happened. Only 1 comment. Safest place in Port Townsend. As for any 911 calls going unanswered this afternoon, or police taking a long time to respond, I suppose you will need to talk with City Manager John Mauro, one of those surrounded by superb law enforcement protection, at taxpayers’ expense. I wondered if they were paying the Sheriff to cover the city while the force was in city hall trying to stay awake. Totally boring. The Committee adopted a resolution in support of undefined transgenders, and was struggling with how to define cisgender, too. Supposedly some definitions will be in the resolution when it is presented to City Council at their next meeting, 8/15/22… Mauro was shaking with anger at Julie Jaman’s KIRO interview.”
The callous, abrupt and abusive treatment of a community elder who had been a pool patron for 35 years is not an issue for our city leaders. But the negative press she is bringing to the city is.
It’s all about damage control now.
What was originally called a statement has now been elevated to a special “Proclamation” from the mayor, formalizing the city’s fealty to the transgender community. As backlash continues to grow, the city is doubling down on its support of the Y’s abysmal handling of this charged and sensitive incident.
Protest planned against Mayor Faber at City Hall – “Zoopity boop.”
Jaman’s ban, the city’s inaction, and the council’s choice to focus its time and attention on a transgender “Proclamation” instead of listening to its broader constituency, has led to a planned protest outside City Hall. Amy Sousa, a nationally-known feminist living in Port Townsend, organized the event.
According to an exclusive in The Post Millennial, Sousa and at least 50 others plan to hold a press conference outside of city hall prior to the August 15th city council meeting. In a recent series of tweets between Sousa and Faber, Sousa posted notice of the mayor’s proclamation.
Faber responded by calling her and others who have issues with the proclamation, “transphobes”.
“The mayor of Port Townsend doesn’t seem to think my concerns deserve respectful consideration. I think women/girls deserve the sex based provisions that our foremothers battled for centuries to attain, privacy, safety, & dignity for our BODIES,” Sousa wrote in response to Faber’s tweet.
Mayor Faber’s reply: “Zoopity boop.”
Sousa described the mayor’s response as “juvenile”.
In the new “gender-fluid” reality, intrinsic fears and discomfort held by traditional women no longer matter. Jaman’s shocked outburst was “discriminatory” and per the YMCA’s “code of conduct” warranted an instant expulsion of her on the spot.
“It’s not fair that this woman here was judged to the extent of being banned from the pool for LIFE in the span of however many seconds it took her to react the way she did,” said Peter Robinson in his public comment. “We need to take into account that a lot of elderly people have lived through a lot of binary years and all of the pressures that society put on them back in those days.”
Much like Orwell’s Animal Farm—where All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others—terms like “inclusivity”, “non-discrimination” and “everyone” appear to be selectively applied in Port Townsend.
All people are entitled to basic respect, but some people are more entitled than others.
Community elders who raise their voices because they feel violated don’t make the cut.
——————————————
I did not vote for the T [in LGBT]… They lumped us all in without us involved. They are using LGBT and PRIDE to oppress, gaslight and bully people. They want more rights not equal rights. Trans women have more rights in today’s society then biologically born women. We fought for equal rights, not to take away the rights of others.
— #LGB
Only a woman who has children or has had children understands this response. That “Mama Bear Instinct” or the feeling of “I will do absolutely anything for the good of my children” can happen anytime… anywhere.
You know the feeling… it’s an emotional rollercoaster that can leave a mom shaking with fear or anger. I have been there!
— Edel Sokol
I know some Y employees who think the Y acted wrongly but they can’t/won’t speak up for fear of losing their jobs plus having to deal with the “mob mentality” that would tear them apart. So much for inclusiveness. Sounds like a hostile work environment to me.
— Nonsensical
It’s good to know somebody cares about how women might feel, especially as abuse survivors. True story, hardly anybody does care about what women experience and there is zero sensitivity. Sad too, because our compassion is often exploited, so we are shamed into remaining silent and putting the needs of others before our own.
— Gabrielle Guthrie
Gender Identity Ideology is a hoax. It masquerades as civil rights and compassion and science, and is the opposite of each of these. It is outrageous that men now declare themselves women, and are allowed to destroy women’s sex-based privacy, sports, etc. It is appalling that “progressives” applaud this misogyny. It is horrific that children are being fed to Big Pharma under the guise of this toxic ideology. See Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy for details.
– Carol Dansereau
(A few of the 300+ reader comments
posted under previous Free Press articles in this evolving story)
Arriving in Port Townsend in 1975 in Sherpa, her Ford van, Ana Wolpin has watched a sweetly funky, diverse and tolerant community increasingly gentrify, polarize and lose its soul. After almost half a century engaged in local business, city politics, county organizations and community projects, she joined with fellow editors to revive the Free Press and bear witness to extraordinary times. For a short sketch of Ana's history in Jefferson County, see “About the Free Press."
So,what can one gather from the City, if a woman is going to identify as a man today, then she will be using the men’s room at City Hall. Right?
All is fair in love & war?
Awake, but NOT woke!
GREAT! reporting — thanks again PTFP for being on it. G’bless.
Welcome to full blown orwellian 1984, where winston smith is forced to finally accede after extreme mental/physical torture that 2 + 2 actually does equal 5.
There you go, he’s “rehabilitated”.
Virtue signaling, an ancient political technique. No virtue, minus-ed further by what gets cobbled together by arrogance & ignorance. Deadly stuff.
Quelle marketing/propaganda scam, eh?
Given the cosmological influenzas swirling around this new universe, there must be trans gods & goddesses, right? Just think of what we have to look forward to.
G’help us.
God help us
Indeed, could use some cosmic assist here for sure.
In the mean time (and it is mean), lets not forget the goddess. I’ve been privileged to know a few of them during my time, two of them our editors.
M.earth included, naturally.
Great spirit conceived it takes two to tango, create & inspire life’s children.
Definitely don’t want to p-o the feminine. Reductio ad absurdum, etc, since the patriarchal arrived. Attempts being made to dilute & delude even further, poolside.
Deep bow to julie too. The heart of courage of mama bears.
emoticon smiles ‘here’.
97.7 percent of us are not trans. Why are we being told we have to cater to trans? Ridiculous.
Great article, this current issue at the YMCA is just a snapshot of the state of our country’s moral compass. They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.
How long has the YMCA been flirting with pedophilia? Back in the 1950’s inner city YMCA facilities outlawed boys from wearing bathing suits. A boy could only use the pools when swimming naked. No flexibility…just naked boys and no exceptions. Attending adults were all suited up.
When did we as a society allow our elected representatives the right to legislate morality? We had covid mandates by politicians without public input. We had the dissemination of 5G towers without public feedback or objective medical safety documentation.
Now we have a long standing socially sensitive issue of gender separate bathrooms and locker rooms being overturned by our virtue signaling politicians even at the expense of possible harm to children and women without ANY public input. Who does Port Townsend belong to, the liberal elite or ALL the people? I want my voice to be heard and considered, do you? Why is it that we have allowed the government to dictate our moral values even when those imposed values put children and adults at risk?
When my friend Darrell and I were about 10 we asked his mother what a ‘queer’ was, being that we honestly did not know. After thinking for a moment, Darrell’s mother responded that a queer was a man who liked to play with other men’s butts. Accepting this answer, we both decided that was not something that we or any other normal person would want to do. And up until a generation ago, that was the position most of America agreed with. Those of us who attended Sunday School and Church were taught that homosexuality was a sin and were shown where this was written in God’s Word, the Bible. Then creepy Hollywood, an increasingly evil media and an equally immoral public education system began a campaign to force the American people to embrace homosexuality as normal and healthy. Through corruption and deception, amoral politicians enacted laws that allowed homosexuals to form legal unions and then to ‘marry’. Being bombasted by the media and entertainment industry on a daily basis, many Americans gave in and accepted an increasingly militant homosexual lobby’s demands that we accept and even celebrate their ‘rights’ and their ‘pride’. This grew to efforts to force transsexuality upon our military, our schoolchildren and even pre-schoolers. Those who resisted were called homophobic, intolerant and worse.
We in Jefferson County now stand at a place where [moderator edit] the local public swimming pool, covering the walls with posters declaring their ‘pride’ and forcing women, children and the entire community to embrace and celebrate their immoral, wicked sexual agenda. Their intent, it appears, is to drive modest, decent women and families to abandon the pool, [moderator edit]. The YMCA and the City of Port Townsend have brought public ridicule and shame…on a national level…onto this community, although many of the town’s residents have seemingly no understanding or capacity to comprehend such shame. God help us.
The Y having “vetted” the cross-dressing person, whose facebook page clearly states that they are attracted to females, destroys their credibility in managing this evolving reality all are thrown into.
The elderly and young are at the center of this specific situation. What of same or similar age females this person is put into close contact with while they should be expecting some privacy?
And what of the same scenario in the men’s/boys’ room?
It seems even the definition of transgender is fluid. Buy a female swimsuit and hang out in bathrooms, lockers, and showers at your leisure. No questions can be asked. Instantly qualify! No wait! No questions asked!
As many have done and will do, passing as transgender and doing damage is far more damaging than wondering what the parameters are to honor the rights of ALL.
As always somewhere in the center is an answer. That is better designed dressing rooms, lockers, and showers that afford all their privacy. Build back better? Probably not. The wedge seems to be what is at play here.
Old man story warning, a golden oldie…. when at Pike Place representing both farmers and craftspeople to the PDA Council, apple farmers came to me who were doing poorly. Staff needed projects and so were recruiting more and more apple farmers. The market for apples was oversaturated. Supply and demand. This drove some long time people away. And caused newcomers to not fare well.
This was a victory statistically for PDA staff who never bothered to get to know the realities. It was a numbers game. More showed up. The presentation to Council showed huge gains. Until I responded having been speaking with those actual farmers.
The damage and failure rates I came up with using the PDA’s own statistics was not welcome input. Much the same here in PT on many fronts.
Similarly, the Y in this case can damage the trans community and not understand. The Y folk are too busy cheering and waving flags to think of things like cause and effect.
And everyone’s rights. Everyone’s.
Here is the platform. Cheer the platform. Damn the details. Unquestioning soldiers.
There are those in the trans community who have more sense. They are and should be wary of those who come to do damage in your name, and so undermine you.
Faber and Mauro along with Council doing the non-discrimination thang is a joke. They discriminate against all business with magic mess tents for insiders, and everyone with insider all day parking that discriminates against the unknowing. They discriminate against affordable housing by wasting all available money on a money pit problem that they simply ignore as it eats more and more money yearly preventing any forward movement.
Mayor Zoopity Boob presides with City Manager Mauro and City Attorney Heidi Greenwood. Is boob in this case a veiled sexist remark?
Tiny little minds in big positions weaving tangled webs. Straight answers nowhere to be found. Transgender answers nowhere to be found. Just shallow thin talking points.
I am pro everyone. Right now, I don’t think anyone has a clear definition of what a trans person is. Fully trans after buying the swimsuit? Fully trans after removing body parts? Fully trans after some counseling? Gay trans? Bi trans?
In this specific case the City and Y let everyone down, including the valid trans community. Upgrade the infrastructure and don’t get sucked into the gap the politically constructed wedge widens.
Respect everyone. No favorites.
Or not.
Aye, the center of a “community complex” . Good work PTFP!
I watched the public comments portion and the Mayor and City Manager’s response.
It’s from the Portland playbook. Politicians legitimately or cravenly appealing to the most seemingly progressive take while dismissing and demonizing any other viewpoints. Comparisons to other human and civil rights causes are trotted in and conflated. The worst assumptions are projected on to people who really are just calling for what was common sense and the status quo as recently as ten years ago. Those calling for compassion and “educating yourself” really just want you to bend and kiss their bible and repeat after them, “A man who thinks he is a woman, is a woman.” And other edicts which change daily on twitter.
The only thing that is missing is Antifa in blac bloc confronting, harassing and attacking people. When that happens you will then see how quickly the mayor and city manager will paint those who were attacked as white supremacists. What? But they’re not racist you will say. Doesn’t matter. Every religious crusade needs non-believers, infidels and martyrs.
Thank you PTFP, again, for bringing the challenging issues to light and showing the insanity of it all. I am so frustrated by the liberal community (whom I used to be a part of before the tyranny and injustice of COVID mandates, discrimination, misinformation etc etc) and the name calling while calling those who they name call the name callers. It is madness for sure. When one brings up any challenge of our times including vax passes and trans movement there is NO discussion allowed. Mind is made up. Uncomfortable with the trans take over of our bathroom and dressing rooms. No discussion. You are bad. Bring up vaccine mandates and justice. No discussion. That one is either totally ignored or one is called an Anti Vaxxer. Anti Vaxxer, trans hater, bigot, science denier on and on. And the ones calling folks these names never look at WHAT folks are saying. Including our city council. Shame on any government official using social media or any platform to create more divisiveness. Look in the mirror City council/mayor/manager. And, good question, why in any universe would a community facility be promoting a specific sexual orientation. There is a fine line between support and propaganda, or potential coercion. Liberals would become wiser if they stopped pointing fingers outward and turned them around to ponder their own role in all of this division and hate. I have started this journey. It is revealing, indeed.
I am so grateful for the PTFP, clear reporting on important issues. Thank you.
I attended the council meeting on August 1st, and did not hear one word of hatred or bigotry coming from Julie Jaman’s supporters. No one accused the young man Clementine of being a pedophile, not there or the protest at the pool. The concern for potential problems is grounded in historical reality. In addition to the 16 instances Jim dropped in his last article, there’s also this:
“Although long heralded for providing a safe haven for children, the YMCA has faced accusations nationwide that there are child molesters within the organization who coached and tutored youngsters, providing them an opportunity to groom and prey upon the children in their care.”
Sexual predators are skilled at finding opportunities. That is a genuine concern that needs to be acknowledged.
I have taken the liberty of posting this article and one that preceded it on my Facebook news feed and in my group Rural Rebels. The author drives a stake through the heart of the problem, as do most of the other persons who commented. While every US citizen has the inalienable right to express their opinion, no one has the right of ANY sort to stifle these opinions. Perhaps mayor Faber has mis read the US constitution.
Please, residents of Port Townsend, submit public comments to the City Council publiccomment@cityofpt.us in advance of Monday’s meeting (by 3 PM) demanding that the Council recall David Faber as Mayor and appoint another councilor who is willing and able to lead with integrity and dignity. A cursory perusal of Faber’s social media, namely Twitter and his Facebook interactions, reveal an individual whose lack of professionalism, maturity, and judgment are causing harm to the very community and constituents he was appointed to represent. He is a community embarrassment. And thanks to the international coverage of YMCA’s leadership debacle, now the world knows it.
While you’re at it, you might drop a line to Herb Cook, president of the board of directors of Olympic Peninsula YMCA. He doesn’t have an email available, but his address in Gardiner is easily found with a Google Search. Ask that Wendy Bart, Executive Director of OP YMCA, be fired. Her lack of leadership in directly addressing how the Y would honor the WAC and its patrons in a center with limited options, the wallpapering of PRIDE throughout the Y- an obvious promotion of a social agenda-and the gaslighting response that leaves the Y shuttered indefinitely, created this chaos, traumatizing her staff, including Clementine, as well as Julie Jaman and the Jefferson County community. Not to mention continued defamation of Julie Jaman as she doubled down on lies.
“Dangers to a society may be mortal without being immediate. One such danger in the prevailing social vision of our time—and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held. … What the prevailing vision of our times emphatically does offer, is a special state of grace for those who believe in it. Those who accept the vision are deemed to be not only merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane. For those who have this vision of the world, the anointed and the benighted do not argue on the same moral plane …. The benighted are to be made “aware” and have their “consciousness raised”, and the wistful hope held out that they will “grow”.”
– Thomas Sowell, Vision of the Anointed
My wife and I attended the City Council meeting on August 1st. We listened to those supporting the YMCA’s decision to ban Julie Jaman. We were appalled by their name calling and utter inability to address the concerns that Julie (truly) bravely raised. No one at the meeting accused Clementine of being a pedophile or sexual predator. The issue was about the policy and the punishment, not about Clementine.
Pedophiles and sexual predators do exist in our society. There is no debate about that. Pedophiles are expert at grooming both adults and children to not see them as a threat. Almost all child sexual predators are known to the victims and their families but were never suspected. The case being made at the meeting was not that all trans people are pedophiles, but that some pedophiles and sexual predators will employ the trans bathroom policy to gain access to victims. Hence a safe place is needed for children and adults. The argument that “trans-women are women”, does not address the issue of men pretending to be “trans-women”. This is a real danger and no one at the city council meeting addressed that issue. The “vetting” done by the YMCA of this employee (or any employee) does not suffice to address the potential danger to women and young girls that arises from this policy. This is a large civil liability and I doubt that the YCMA is able to obtain sexual abuse and molestation insurance with these current policies, opening them up for huge civil suits, that may include the City of Port Townsend. A private changing area would be much cheaper than a civil suit.
All these issues exist regardless of Washington State law. The fact is that the law as it is written does endanger women and children. Some states saw the danger in these laws and did not pass them. Those states were labeled as backwaters by the mainstream press. At least they are safe backwaters.
Of course, there is also the argument for modesty and decency, and respect. But these hardly count for anything in our society today. These arguments would have sufficed to motivate policy change in years past but today are dismissed without thought.
As to the punishment: The mayor stated that the city’s agreement with the YMCA allows the YMCA to ban whoever it wants. Let me propose a thought experiment: Suppose that the YMCA banned a “trans-woman”—for any reason. Do you think that the mayor and city council would just sit on their hands and claim that there was nothing that could be done? That the Y could ban “whoever it wants”?
Finally, for those like me who love irony, the mayor’s quote drips with it: “What I’m going to speak to is that Port Townsend is a welcoming community and hate and discrimination has no place in this community. LGBTQ people, trans people in particular in this case, are entitled to basic respect.”
Well thought & said, john.
It seems the Y makes no attempt at protections, except for trans folk. And it plainly provides no training for “staff” to anticipate & handle delicate/nuanced situations, let alone predacious ones — as every situation is merely lumped into one. With one apparent agenda — the promotion & marketing of sexual ideology.
Given how the system protects its own, i seriously doubt there’s much recourse in the various legislative branches & agencies — chockfull of predators of one stripe or another since america’s inception, if not before.
Speaking of irony, perhaps the saddest most brutal one — the genocided first peoples here would have appreciated “the argument for modesty and decency, and respect”.
The unconscionable & incomprehensible have been going on for a helluva long time. Americans are particularly adept at snoozing through their history.
Good reporting! Well done.
Did everyone see this?
https://lolobrollo.substack.com/p/has-port-townsend-ever-considered?s=w&fbclid=IwAR21QXC-SwEX18iVwnoXsaBUT6ED4XNN12H6KzxTUjeXnmQ2r2hmcZf6nQs
Our editorial team has just had a long and frank conversation about the direction and nature of comments in this thread.
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OK! — thanks again PTFP….. and back to matters at hand.
Voltaire — “Those that can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
While local orwellian “woke” councils & others attempt to obscure or banish such words as “pedophile”, the historical record speaks for itself.
Vigilance & protections for historically vulnerable populations remain essential, especially considering that pedophilia, sexual abuse, and human trafficking have been inherent to human institutions & agencies for centuries. All of it deeply embedded into both state & church, across party lines & demographics, sports & entertainment industries, medias & academias…. while the police & justice systems typically obstruct whatever judicial recourse the victims might attempt, shielding the exposure of bigwigs & networks.
Though never so ubiquitously & enormously as right now. Planned Parenthood, CPS, and the “foster” care system also get included on the institutional roster of abuses & trafficking. As with epstein, every now & then the ptb very publicly throw one of their own under the bus, but the systemic network remains untouched.
The epstein tangles & cover-ups we’ve witnessed are just one thread of a global tapestry & cult — a vast network of sewer lines targeting & capturing girls, boys, and women.
I’d heard about a spectrum of the sexually abused for awhile, but my first deep dive arrived in the 80s with “the franklin scandal” — though the term is hardly adequate for the immensity & complexity of the crimes. The trail led all the way into the reagan/bush white house.
The Franklin Scandal — A Story of Powerbrokers Child Abuse & Betrayal
and
America’s Greatest Child Sex Scandal: Boys Town in Lincoln, Nebraska
Includes a link to the “conspiracy of silence” documentary which was buried at the last minute before airing:
Some numbers:
800,000 children “disappear” in the u.s. every year;
annually around 8 million worldwide.
Farther afield —
As a petrified 9-year-old, I was tormented into silence…
It turns out “Boys Town” is an international porn/pedo ring. There are also numerous “charities” & NGOs promoting the sexualization of children.
BOYSTOWN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SITE BUSTED
and
Trans Charity Mermaids Uses Mr. Men and Little Miss Characters to Promote Gender Ideology to Young Children
Incomprehensible as all this is, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Please do the due diligence of your own research…. especially important now, as “cancel culture” ramps up.
Personally, i haven’t come across an institutionalized ideology yet that wasn’t suspect, that wasn’t about control of one form or another. At the individual level though, if some adult wants to identify as a fence post, it’s none of my concern. Just don’t indoctrinate the children with fence-post-ism. Thanks in advance.
Consequently, none of this is intended to paint/tar individuals with the broad brush of ongoing crimes & psychopathy of institutions & predators. That said, given the world we inhabit, trust is earned, case by case, while fairness & justice remains the practice.
Looking at Marxism again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k7r7Z6Ss9w
The irony of course being, that no communist country on this planet allows the sort of ridiculousness that goes on in this nation. Communist countries don’t put up with this pernicious insanity. Which is hilarious and heartbreaking, at the same time. The truth is, PT liberals are left of communism. Actual communists want nothing to do with people like them.
How topical:
Protecting Women’s Spaces In the Age Of Transgenderism
About this event
Are women’s spaces being erased by transgender activism?
On sports teams; in private places like bathrooms and changing rooms; even in women’s prisons. Are transgender politics eroding women’s rights? And why is this subject so hard to talk about, without being labelled transphobic?
These are some of the provocative questions that will be discussed at a brave panel discussion hosted by The Democracy Fund on Sunday, August 28 at 3 p.m. ET.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/protecting-womens-spaces-in-the-age-of-transgenderism-tickets-396044589027
Harvey, does the last paragraph suprise you?? It just falls into anything the city gets involved in. And the beat goes on.
The first time I became aware of a Lesbian was in Camas, WA. in the 1960’s She was walking down the street, had short hair, wore a black leather jacket jeans ahd smoke a cigar. She had come out. She worked in the Converting Plant with other women. The next time I met her she was at the Reseach Lab. I worked with her there and found out a lot about her. She had been married, divorced and had a son. In our discussions, she told me that if she hadn’t been born that way, life would have been a lot easier. There were several women who had worked with her in the mill and they all were friends with her. One of the guys we worked with told me she was the most conservative gay person he ever knew. We always had a Christmas Party at a place in Portland that included a dance. She wore a Tuxcedo (owned, not rented) and would dance with the women she had worked with and her wife. The only bad thing that I heard a man say that she better not dance with his wife or he would knock her out (I would be caeful if I were him). He might find that harder on him than her. She came over to my and my wife’s table and asked me if she could dance with my wife. I told her, to ask my wife, as I didn’t tell my wife who to dance with. They danced and it was enjoyable to my wife as they both were good dancers (both better than me). My wife and I went out to their house when the mill was closing down. My wife talked to her wife and I went out, and talked to her. They were both going down to Oregon to have a truck farm and sell vegetables I often wonder what happened to her.
My next time I was aware of someone was in the Army in Germany. We had a five man room and a new guy came in to repalce one who was being discharged. He was a nice guy, but I got the feeling he was gay (a big no,no) by his voice and movements. I’m not sure whether he was aware of his situation. However, we all got along and spent spare time and trips off base without any problem. He ended up the Ordery Room Administrative Assitant and even babysat for the Officers in the company. One night when I was on the road to get a man home for medical problems there, I returned the next day and the Company was buzzing. I was asked if I had heard about him. I seems that another guy came into the room and jumped into bed with him. That guy was gone. He took me by surprise as I never saw it comeing. He had hid himself real well. Ater my dischare I kept in touch with him and he said that he was in New York working as a waiter and would llike to come out and bring a friend. They came out and left a few days later. I think my divorced wife either found out or just didn’t feel good about my friendship. He was a very fast driver and it takes a lot to scare me, but he did. I hope they made it back and he’s found a good relationship. All communication had been broken off.
Does being transgender bother me? No as long a they don”t try to change me. It could be gay or of color, it’s what’s inside of them that counts. If they’re happy, I’m happy. If theyre a preditor, I would shoot them down like a mad dog. As a matter of fact( (and my departed wife knew it ) I thought that I would marry Tina Turner in a minute and make sure that abusive husband Ike was beat to a bloody pulp. By the way, I’m white andhave a Japanese exchange student who was with us for three years and her folks and brother came over and stayed with us a couple of weeks. She has two beautiful daughters who, when her father died a few months before my wife, she sent me and e-mail that started out with the word “Dad”, She told me that she always felt I was Dad. So now I’ve been adopted. Does that make me Japanese, no, but I’m very happy and an American Vet who has served to give everyone the ecqual rights to happiness, but don’t tread on my rights and we can get along.
Two important new articles –
From The Distance:
Why is this Man Allowed to Watch Girls Pee, Women Shower at the YMCA Pool?
Meet Clementine Adams, a man
“Is Clementine Adams serious about sex change? Is this a passing phase? Or is Clementine claiming to have a transgender soul-being just so he can raise extra money for college and enjoy eyeball access to female bodies at the YMCA pool?”
From KIRO NewsRadio:
Dad calls summer swim league’s gender changes `child abuse,’ moves family out of WA state
“He cites new rules that mean “girls locker rooms have to open to men” and allow roving “equity officers – unscreened, no background checks” to roam around the league’s 16 swim clubs, asking youth “sexual orientation questions.”
Thank you for posting these news articles.
Dear Ms Wolpin,
I think your nuanced coverage of the 8/1 council meeting is apt, particularly as it underscores the way both sides having been talking past each other and the council has refused to engage seriously with the concerns of Julie Jaman. Leadership has delivered their verdict even as facts around the incident remain completely obscured, and the threat of censorship of dissenting opinions has been overt, including from the mayor himself, who at the meeting’s conclusion spoke of speech crossing “a line” during public comment.
With that said, I take issue with your promotion of the article from The Distance substack. Clementine Adams is not on trial here. Attacking her character does nothing to clarify the events that occurred at Mountain View Pool. Indeed, Ms Jaman could not have known anything about her when they met in the locker room. Linking to this article plays into the hands of the those touting the trans discrimination narrative and undermines the great work you have done above. It also riles up an undesirable element among Jaman supporters. Please continue to choose your words wisely as you have a powerful voice and we are in dire need of reason.
Respectfully,
Yoko S.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Yoko.
This is sensitive territory. I agree that Clementine Adams should not be on trial and in many ways is a victim here. No one I know who is outraged by the Y and city’s response to Julie Jaman’s legitimate reaction to seeing a biological man in the showers while she was naked wants to see this young man hurt. But you said “she” in reference to Clementine, a male teenager who claims on social media to be attracted to women and just in the last year began fantasizing about jumping on what has become a trendy trans bandwagon, now declaring that he is actually a woman. And because he wants to be and says he is now a woman, no one is to question that, lest we cause hurt feelings. They are simply to accept that pronouncement and anyone who objects to their private space being violated by a man who “identifies” as a woman is labeled as hateful, bigoted and discriminatory.
As Harvey Windle said in an earlier comment,
“It seems even the definition of transgender is fluid. Buy a female swimsuit and hang out in bathrooms, lockers, and showers at your leisure. No questions can be asked… Right now, I don’t think anyone has a clear definition of what a trans person is. Fully trans after buying the swimsuit? Fully trans after removing body parts? Fully trans after some counseling? Gay trans? Bi trans?”
Matt Osborne’s substack The Distance is very relevant in addressing these questions. Another substack from Mandy Stadtmiller, just published yesterday, focuses more on Mayor David Faber, but also questions the validity of Clementine’s claim to womanhood. In my experience, those who are being called trans-haters bear no ill will to people caught in what appears to be mass psychosis with a dark agenda at its core. Not Clementine’s fault; he is just a pawn in this manufactured divide that looks to be unbridgeable.
You ask for a voice of reason. Can an angry mob loudly chanting trans women are women!—that will not give seasoned social justice activists the courtesy to even speak—be reasoned with?
Dear Ana,
I thank you for your reply to my earlier comment.
You are mostly preaching to the choir. In fact, I offered a very moderate editorial to the PT Leader that they have apparently declined to publish, in which I specifically criticize oversimplified mantras like “trans women are women” that stand in reasoned argumentation, and the casting of one’s opponents as bigots in order to cudgel them into submission.
I acknowledge Clementine Adams’ biological sex and understand why the fluid nature of transitioning and potential for disingenuous behavior make the state law problematic. However, I think we owe trans people the courtesy and respect of the benefit of the doubt. For example, although I don’t feel the need to declare my own gender when introducing myself, I will gladly oblige the preferences of others without calling their motives into question. I find it unseemly to pick Clementine Adams apart when her character and history have no bearing on the specific incident at the pool.
The mayor, on the other hand, is another matter completely. As a recently arrival to PT, I am not privy to his record of service, but I have been deeply disturbed by what I have seen so far in his and the council’s treatment of the issue at hand. I’m not sure that the Mandy Stadtmiller piece provides enough context for the tweets she cites, but at the very least, it is clear that the mayor lacks the professionalism that his office demands. It concerns me more, however, that he has taken action to effectively shut down voices like ours that diverge from a strict ideological line. I would imagine that the majority of the PT community hold more nuanced views on this topic. Are folks simply expected to keep their opinions to themselves in PT?
Yoko S.
I wrote to the Leader about last week’s coverage. They did not post my letter so I am posting it here. I am putting quotes around the Leader wordage and [‘] around the “new speak”:
August 11, 2022 letter to the Leader.
The Leader appears to have drunk the transgender language Kool-Aid in one big gulp in the 8/10/22 edition. Say it isn’t so!
First the pronoun demands are adhered to in the Port Townsend police report:
“At 1 a.m. Saturday, July 30, a ‘transient woman’ in the 400 block of Sims Way told police that another ‘transient’ had stolen ‘her’ cell phone. When ‘she’’d confronted the ‘person’ about the stolen phone, ‘they’ assaulted ‘her’ and knocked ‘her’ to the ground. Officers located the ‘thief’ and placed ‘them’ in custody for potential assault. The officers also obtained a statement from a witness of the assault.”
[I am not sure but I think this means that the victim was a woman [a bio female] and the thief was a trans [a bio male]. I deduced this because the thief is referred to as they and them when speaking of a single individual thief earlier. This paragraph was not in the letter but I ask PTFPers, did I get this right?]
Then the lead story on the front page identifies one of the parties as “Port Townsend woman…Julie Jaman…” and the other party as “an 18-year-old YMCA employee, who is a transgender woman,” “Jaman said she heard a “man’s voice” and claimed she “saw a man dressed in a woman’s bathing suit”
In a stand-alone paragraph we find this:
“Since the incident, Jaman has continued to refer to the YMCA employee as a man.” Implying that it is wrong to refer to a person with male genitalia as a “man.” Further down the Leader continues this thread with this stand-alone paragraph:
“The incident has since prompted headlines on multiple conservative news and entertainment outlets, with many repeating the false claim that Jaman had confronted a man in the woman’s shower area and was banned by the YMCA because of it.” Note that the Leader took the position that this statement was “false,” even though that is exactly what happened. The Leader confirms its position when it chose to quote only one of the 25-plus advocates on both sides at the Port Townsend City Council meeting as follows:
“This individual is not a man identifying as a woman; this individual is a woman. I think we need to have respect and inclusivity … it is inappropriate for people in this day and age, in 2022, not to recognize what transgender means,” said Sequim resident Rebecca Horst.”
The Leader has used standard English since 1889. Why not continue to use the standard English meaning of words depicting binary sex/gender and invent new ones to express that which in the past dare not speak its name? That name can now be spoken and deserves its own word[s]. No shame attached.
All this BS could have been avoided had they set aside a single-seat bathroom for transgendered people.
Further, a human with a penis is MALE, regardless of what’s inside their heads. They can be surgically altered and then they pose much less of a danger to females.
Instead, these halfwits love drama, so the purple-haired freaks, that lack common sense, can scream and spit into people who just want to be left alone to mind their own business.
Did everyone leave their brains at home? Simply set aside a restroom for transgendered use, where all concerned will enjoy their privacy and no one need be bothered, banned, or screamed at.
When can we finally go after these tyrannical government officials and let them know how much they are not welcome so we can protect our freedom of speech?
If I could have attended city council meeting on 8/15 I would say:
“Let’s talk about beliefs, bigotry and fascism. Disbelief is not bigotry, skepticism about a claim is not bigotry. Nothing we could do can change your beliefs about gender superseding sex: But to be believed as you make an assertion is not a civil right, we have both the right to reject beliefs, and the right to express disbeliefs.
“Bigotry is defined as ‘obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion.’ Julie Jaman is not a bigot for being startled by a person, who in January would not have been permitted to enter that same room full of naked women and girls. The YMCA Corporation requesting State intervention because of opposition to that belief, is bigotry. Banning her was pure bigotry. All Julie had in the moment of the incident were the evidence of her eyes and ears, Julie had no way of knowing Clementine’s invisible gender identity, or unexpress claims. This subjective claim supersedes her rights to privacy and safety? Why?
“A claim which might be incorrect, or delusional, or even a lie: why does Julie have to accept without evidence? Don’t forget that claim made today can be reversed tomorrow. (If someone can identify as the opposite sex today, they can change their minds tomorrow). Again a person who in January who would have been disallowed, forbidden, excluded from the women’s shower can make a single verbal declaration months later: why are we not allowed skepticism?
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That is her civil right. You deny her that right, as well as the right to access a space or to express her beliefs. Again, that makes you the bigots. Rowen Deluna shouting at Julie for her beliefs, is a bigot. Wendy Bard is a bigot, and by oppressing Julie’s public access through combined corporate and state power is the dictionary definition of a fascist, as well.
“In a plural society we are allowed to have conflicts in beliefs, others who may consider their fellow citizens blasphemers, infidels, heathens, pagan, and unbelievers/ unwashed– work together, live alongside and share space every day. But somehow this one belief brooks no disbelief. That is bigotry.”