An angry white crowd screaming at a Black woman pleading for civil rights. Threatening her. Intimidating her. Senior women linking arms to protect a rape survivor trying to speak. A lesbian being shouted down by a mostly male mob decked out in Pride colors. A man with an AR-15 imposed over a Trans flag on his ball cap, the impression of a handgun in his left cargo pants pocket, hiding behind sunglasses and a mask that made identification difficult.
This was the face of rage and hate Port Townsend showed to women who asked for equal rights, to have their spaces respected, to be able to go to the bathroom and showers in pubic facilities and not suffer PTSD flashbacks from memories of being raped and assaulted because there is an adult male human being where they once could feel safe.
Most of the jeering, intimidating mob of hundreds pressing elder women against the wall of the Cotton Building appeared to be from out of town. According to another journalist covering the event, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club was there, the group that provides armed “security” at Antifa riots. Antifa was there, clusters of men dressed in black with black face coverings. Several women were knocked to the ground by large men who broke through their linked arms. They tore down flags and tried to steal equipment being used to amplify and record the event.
Notice a pattern to the violence? Men attacking women. “They must be very afraid of us,” says Amy E. Sousa, the event’s organizer. “Strong women speaking for their rights are very threatening to them.”
The event was billed as a press conference at the Pope Marine Park on August 15, 2022, for supporters of Julie Jaman. Her story went viral and international after it was first reported here. Jaman says she was showering in the Mountain View pool’s women’s showers. The pool is owned by the city of Port Townsend and managed by the Olympic Peninsula YMCA. Jaman heard a male voice. She saw a man in a woman’s bathing suit not far from her shower opening watching little girls peel off their swim suits. He was able to see her nakedness. She asked him if he had a penis. He told her, “None of your business.” Thereupon she shouted for him to leave. The man in the bathing suit was the only other adult in the shower area initially. Unbeknownst to Jaman, he is an employee of the YMCA. Another Y employee entered the room and yelled at Jaman that she was being “discriminatory” and was prohibited from ever using the pool again and that the police were being called.
Jaman says the pool needs to provide an area where women—adult female human beings, not males who identify as or claim to actually be women—can dress and shower with dignity and privacy.
Sousa is a local women’s rights activist with an international reach. She has been a leader in the movement to reclaim and protect women’s rights against encroachments and appropriation by Trans ideology. One of the organized chants of the angry mob was, “Trans women ARE women.” Not “men who identify as women,” but women. As Jaman said in an interview with the feminist publication Reduxx, if the man she saw in a woman’s bathing suit is a woman, “Then what am I?”
Sousa (white-on-purple outfit) holding hands with weeping supporter of Julie Jaman,
The event began with Sousa and two other women singing a refrain from Sarah Hester Ross’s Savage Daughter: “I am my mother’s savage daughter. I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice.” At this point a wide circle of women holding hands surrounded the singers. Sousa next spoke and the mob that numbered in the hundreds closed in tightly around her and her group, forcing them backwards. Their once wide circle collapsed so that they were pressed into each other. When Sousa spoke about the foremothers of the women’s rights movement the mob screamed to drown her out. When she spoke words honoring mothers, the crowd booed her.
Port Townsend police had previously been there, stationed loosely between the groups. But as soon as Sousa started speaking they disappeared. The crowd closed even tighter when Jaman spoke. It was impossible to hear her over screams, whistles, banging on metal and a cacophony of other overpowering sounds. She was assaulted when she finished speaking, with the live feed going black during the scuffle.
The assaults on other women in the group began immediately when Jaman finished, ratcheting up from being screamed at, face-to-face, to pushing and shoving and grabbing at and breaking through the perimeter of linked arms. Dr. Elizabeth Kreiselmaier, the GOP candidate running for Congress against Derek Kilmer spoke inside a small protective circle of women.
When I saw a large man pushing an elder woman up against the wall, then another woman being knocked to the ground, I ran out to Water Street to look for the police. Earlier I had seen maybe ten officers in Highway Patrol and Port Townsend police uniforms, including Chief Tom Olson. Now all I found was Port Townsend Police Officers Kamal Sharif and Marc Titterness across the street, a good ways from and out of sight of the growing melee. I asked them if it was their policy to do nothing. They said they wanted both sides to be able to “protest.” I told them things were getting violent. They did not move.
When I got back to the speakers I saw things getting worse, as the mob had completely enveloped the women, some of whom were using open umbrellas to protect themselves. It was madness and many of the older women were being pushed around, with more stumbling to the ground. One woman went sprawling on the ground when she was pushed from behind.
At that point I called 911 and described the escalating violence. The dispatcher said words to the effect, “Law enforcement is on the scene.” I replied, “No they’re not. They left.”
Thankfully, in several minutes a line of highway patrol officers followed by PT police marched in from Water Street and removed several of the mob from entanglements with the speakers and their protective perimeter. I had to wave for police again when some of the mob grabbed a man’s camera and a scuffle broke out. It is hard to describe how bad things were as men pressed into and pushed elder women, some frail, as they blasted air horns in their faces.
But the nine or so speakers did not fail in their resolve. Every one got through their statements. Some of the elder women linking arms to protect the microphone were weeping. The Black woman the crowd had jeered draped herself over the amplifier to protect it from being stolen.
The women supporting Jaman stood there bravely in the face of hatred and rage that sent one or two supporters’ men home.
This man attacked multiple woman supporting Jaman, including Rachelle Merle who he knocked to the ground.
The Black woman the White mob tried to silence and intimidate is Gabrielle Clark, a Nevada mom who filed a lawsuit against her biracial son’s school for retaliating against him when he resisted forced indoctrination in Critical Race Theory. She describes herself as a fighter for civil rights against woke oppression. That includes erasing and subjugating women to satisfy Trans ideology. After she was done speaking she calmly faced a muscular male provocateur who hurled insult after insult into her face. This same male provocateur body slammed Port Townsend Free Press editor Annette Huenke from behind and knocked Rachelle Merle to the ground.
Half of the woman who pleaded for safe spaces for women are survivors of sexual violence, according to Sousa. We have written why the Mountain View pool is no longer safe for many women and girls who have suffered such violence and abuse from men.
When Crystal Cox spoke from the perspective of a lesbian who believes males should not be in women’s showers and bathrooms, the crowd did not relent. If anything, they grew louder as an air horn let loose about a yard from Cox’s head.
Four Highway Patrol officers walked Julie Jaman and her daughter to their car to ensure their safety.
I am old enough to remember the civil rights movement for Black Americans. What I saw in Port Townsend is similar to what happened at Woolworth’s lunch counters, bus stations and voting registration lines. I can’t say that I saw the birth of the next phase in the struggle for women’s civil rights in Port Townsend on August 15, 2022. But I did see history made when these brave women stood up against a maelstrom of hate and intimidation. They were attacked for making a simple request that should be noncontroversial. As their press release for the event stated:
We support the sex based rights of women/girls’ to facilities designated to us based on our sex. We are against sex based discrimination, which includes depriving us of rights and provisions on the basis of our sex. We support women/girls’ right to boundaries around our bodies. We support women/girls right to say NO to men in our spaces/sports. We support the right of consent for all women/girls. We demand that men respect the boundaries we have around our bodies!
I spoke to Sousa afterwards. “If it had just been me and our 30-40 supporters holding a press conference, this would have gone nowhere. But by their actions [the mob] made this go viral, around the world.” She ended our conversation saying she had to respond to the media inquiries pouring in. Before I had finished drafting this story Matt Osborne’s widely-followed The Distance had already published, “Angry Gender Activists Disrupt Speakers, Assault Elderly Women to Celebrate Diversity.”
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our "About" page for more information.
I watched the entire Livestream on YouTube and it was just terrifying. Mobs of angry men screaming and pushing at women. Total lack of police intervention as far as I could see. How do these guys think they are on the right side of history while shoving elderly females?
The same sort of masked thugs who weren’t touched by the leftist “Just Us Department” after burning cities while liberating sneakers, booze and TVs the last couple of years? Nobody except Kyle Rittenhouse seemed to object to any of those attacks very much; this is tame by comparison.
Here’s some of what you could not see on the Livestream, video from another angle:
At timestamp 30:25 forward:
https://rumble.com/v1g6dap-part-two-port-townsend-press-conference-by-amy-sousa-knownheretic..html
It shows some of the violence against Julie’s supporters (including repeatedly headbutting a man’s crotch, trying to forcibly unplug the AV equipment and stealing another woman’s shoe)
The police intervention and arrests of the trans supporters follows.
I hope we get better video soon, but so far this is the best I’ve found. Pass it on.
Scott Hogenson, former PTFP contributor, informs us that coverage of the protest/near riot is on East Coast morning radio.
You’re probably aware by now since PTFP is credited for some of the photos, but it’s gone international now as an article on the UK Daily Mail website. PT is back on the map, as an object of ridicule, derision and disbelief – as it should be, given the makeup and actions of the ongoing clownshow City Council.
I wonder if Julie has any regrets about supporting leftist lunacy like this for decades, now that it’s turned around and bit her? And the end result is that boys get to define what a woman is now, even if they’re just faking it as part of their own little delusional fantasies.
Congratulations, radical leftist feminists; we tried to warn you.
True, we were warned. Whether or not the realization will come is the question. Women of Julie’s age were the ones most committed to the feminist movement. I have been waiting for the last 20 years for a response from feminists. I waited through the burka years when I couldn’t believe the silence coming from them; I waited out the female circumcision years; I waited out the degrading debate concerning ‘gender,’ and pronouns–crickets. This is full blown spectacle and it does seem as if they are being devoured by the beast they created.
I do wonder how many of the same people who thought it was funny when antifa/blm attacked white republicans/conservatives and got away with it are now upset it’s happening to them. What, you didn’t think you were a fascist? Newsflash, antifa = fascists calling themselves anti-fascists, and you now have the ‘wrong opinion’ so guess what that makes you?
They’re not going to be charged now, either. If your local attorney supports gestapo thugs, he’s not going to press charges against them for assaulting you, that’s how America works now.
Tim, who do you think you’re talking to? Do you live here in Jefferson County? Do you know any of the people you’re suggesting are “getting what you deserve because you thought it was funny when antifa/blm attacked white republicans/conservatives and got away with it…” — a single one of us?
Your veiled accusations do not apply to me or anyone else I know who was in attendance last night, and they don’t belong in this comment thread. However, we’re leaving your post here so that our readers may take a measure of you as a man.
If you choose to check back in here, kindly leave your axe at home. Our grinder is out of order.
After decades of activism, i’m weary to the bone of the same-old divided & conquered antics and shouting match. You fall for it every time — the completely engineered divisions & conflicts between humans, sexes, races, cultures, religions, nations, ideas, etc, and whatever other vogue polarizations that endlessly serve the PTB.
“Jim”, etc — you need a good look in the mirror, if not an invite for moving out past personal & group-think echo-chambers. And no doubt some history lessons…. detailing the previous century’s social justice and anti-war movements, inspired by their myriad change agents. Extraordinary heroines & heroes — many marginalized, more than a few assassinated. During much of that time, the “right” stood for little, and did even less, except pad its own nests.
You manage to come off as ignorant, bitter & vengeful as the “woke” folk. Not to mention continuing to belittle entire swatches of activists & causes you plainly know nothing about.
“Congratulations” — great move, mate, and proud-making stuff, eh? — kicking julie when she’s down, while she’s actually walking the talk. How short a distance is that stance from the thug hassling last night’s line up of speakers — not only older women, but actual wisdom-keeper elders?
Truly, at this point it’s hard to tell which is more pathetic, the “left” or the “right”. At the hierarchical echelons of so-called “democratic” institutions — two wings of the same sick bird.
We really should know better by now.
Given all that’s at stake, and the late/dark hour, perhaps it’s time to start opening eyes, taking in the larger picture & contexts….. as divided we surely fall.
Or perhaps there are those who prefer to exist in a uni-lateral vacuum, and toss the rest.
Amen, sister.
THANK YOU.
I grew up in Bellingham and spent many years of my young adult life around Seattle, Whidbey Island and the Olympic Peninsula, including Port Townsend. What is happening now in Port Townsend is a horror for any liberal who has ever cared at all about women’s rights.
I am a lifelong political activist, firmly on the side of women’s rights. Nothing has changed in me. What has changed is that men’s rights activism has spread from the Right to the Left.
Heaven forbid either side simply let girls and women live our lives in dignity as equals in our own world.
Men’s rights shifted from right to left? Uh, no. That makes no sense. What does make sense is that straight liberals have continued to push LGBTQ+ rights issues too far in a desperate attempt to out-woke and out-virtue signal everyone else. It’s literally the dopamine of self-satisfaction; “I’m so good because I’m so caring.” Well, you all pushed it so far that now you have trans rights squashing women’s rights. And ironically, almost all the people fighting on the streets aren’t even trans. Congratulations, you played yourselves.
Eleganta, slight correction — happy to be an older feller, with an x & y chromosome configuration since inception (best i can recall). Always thought of it as a pretty damn good balance.
Fine gumshoe investigative reporting here, with LOTS of excellent commentary shared, as well built upon. Thanks everyone, and especially the fine folks at PTFP steering through rough waters & times. Compensations at the soul level, apparently.
That’ll do.
Deep bows all around.
Unfortunately, we are in a time where this type of lunacy is widely celebrated. LGB(TQIA+LMNOP=2) is here to stay and anyone who opposes will be labeled as a whatever the phobia of the day is. Like I have said before, the YMCA is in a catch 22 because if they do not bow to the left, they get sued and canceled. If they do not bow to the right, they get sued and canceled. Other organizations do the same thing, the Y just happened to be in the crosshairs at the time. There was a time, not to long ago when Target was put in this same situation. Don’t hate the business/organization, hate they politicians that cater to the 1% of the population.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/17/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-international-day-against-homophobia-transphobia-and-biphobia/
https://lgbtq.wa.gov/about-us/news/2022/governor-inslee-signs-2022-lgbtq-pride-month-proclamation
So much for Port Townsend being a welcoming city. Another mess created by City Hall. All this could have been avoided if the city had ran the pool. YMCA is a men’s only organization. I’m surprissed that women were even allowed in the pool. If the city hadn’t beem so bent on makeing more money, the pool would be open to all people with definate rules for both men and women. I woluld suggest that these men back down because as Kipling wrote, The Female Of The Speicies Is More Deadly Than The Male. In this case you’re not only getting between them, you’re getting between them and children. That, guys is a really bad place to be.
I stand in awe and respect for the women who persisted and resisted last night in the face of the hateful white men. I am with you and I am praying for your continued strength and inspiration.
I just noticed something. It’s the picture of the guy with a cap with an automatice weapon patchon the front witha\ “Defend Equality” underneth it. That’s all the women are asking for.
Also,guys,. if you’ve got to hide your face, you’re either up to something no good, you’re ashamed or you’re a coward/ You take your pick.
I arrived early at the rally, watched the gathering mob, and spoke to a police officer (I believe Titterness) about the potential security problems. I was especially concerned about the aggressive, obviously hostile bicyclists riding near the mostly elderly #LetJulieSwim supporters before the rally started. I warned the people I knew at the rally about the coming assaults.
I watched the police walk away. Maybe the rally organizers were incapable of recognizing that the police had deserted them or maybe they were hoping to sacrifice an elder as a martyr for their cause. I have NO respect for anyone who allowed or encouraged a mob to threaten law-abiding residents.
Organizer Amy Sousa contacted the police prior to the event to request support. We all expected them to stick around and felt they ditched us when we needed them most.
Does it strike anybody else as odd that the delusional fantasies of boys are now not only accepted, but insisted upon as the authoritative definers of what a woman is, after allegedly-intelligent probable-women have been unable or unwilling to do so on national TV? Check out Matt Walsh’s online documentary “What Is A Woman?” for horrific supporting evidence.
I’ll have an order of Schadenfreude, please, with a large popcorn topped with garlic butter on the side.
Sad to see this continue to play out in Pt. Townsend.
The police aren’t going to do anything. Same thing happened in Portland.
Even before the police were defunded/demoralized it was a no win situation.
A police officer using reasonable force or being in an impossible situation and using what looks like excessive force is catnip to agitators. Especially disaster tourists who do this for a living. For years political extremists on both sides used Portland as a weekend gladiator game where they would engage in “mutual combat” as the police stood by and did nothing. When a national or big local event happened (police killing, homeless camp being cleared, BLM march, etc.) both sides would use that as excuse to continue and escalate. In the beginning one side (the antifa types) do it because they genuinely believe they are fighting fascism and fascists, but they really just football hooligans who are supporting an imaginary team, and when real fascists are not found they create them. A cycle of violence happens where they engage with other provocateurs, and it becomes a grievous revenge cycle like the Hatfield & McCoys except with cell phones and social media. The disaster tourists want a line of riot cops to square off against so they can be justified in burning Pt. Townsend to the ground. That sounds like hyperbole and I would have laughed at you 5-6 years ago, but living in Portland has taught me humility and the power of negative thinking.
I was also sad to read in these pages Pt. Townsend also went all in a few years back and defunded their police. Now you are having to deal with people radicalized from years and years of extremism who will read articles in the Seattle Stranger like “Transphobic Bullying Incident Prompts Port Townsend YMCA to Ban Member” and swoop down to do what they think is the right thing (pushing around and screaming at elderly women). It doesn’t matter that Pt. Townsend is a liberal enclave and many of those standing up believe they are protecting theirs and others civil rights. You may think this is your “Freedom Ride” (and I agree with you) but others think it is their Freedom Ride, ironically mostly for confused white males who think they really are the other sex and you are Goebbels if you simply think, “thinking or feeling something doesn’t necessarily make it so”.
I would suggest hiring private security that is clearly uniformed, trained, not reactive and set up clear barriers that delineated when someone is breaching them. Clearly visualize and verbalize at all times you are a non-violent protest group protecting women’s civil rights and are not anti-trans. You need people recording at all times and I would try to pull in peaceful groups who have a history of looking meek and not loosing their cool (pastors, nuns, etc.) to help chill out both sides. But you need someone documenting agitators and bringing private lawsuits against them if they do assault or damage property. You also need public assurances from the local government that it will protect its citizens equally and not to smear one sides as bigots, transphobes, white supremacists, etc. But good luck with that. As most current politicians would hug Charles Manson if he was covered in blm and pride stickers. Also have a clear, snapply message/slogan of what you want, “A safe space for everyone at the YMCA”,
“Respect Biological Women’s Hard Won Rights”.
But honestly, unless you want to make this a full time job/lifestyle with all the including doxxing, harassment and emotional toll that is included, I would try to collectively raise money to have a separate unisex changing facility constructed.
As I watched the livestream in horror, as women being physically assaulted and trying to speak above the noise of the angry protestors. I am shocked and disturbed at the level of violence still used against women but now it has another disguise as politically correct fascism.
“A Tourist” makes a very good point As I’ve watched these events all over the world & see the path we’re on, we’d be wise to just start planning and crowdfunding the construction if our own pool – a private club – with membership granted only to those who abide by the rules.
The Y and the Council are not even entertaining the very sensible idea of creating individual shower/changing rooms for all. So, funding our own pool is really the only solution here. May as well cut to the chase.
The small group of women who so bravely and courageously shared their views, albeit to a heckling and violent crowd, speak for so many others who have been bullied and peer pressured into silence. Every single human that attended are only able to be there because of one thing and one thing only they were birthed by a WOMAN! From a biological uterus! Lets not also overlook that these biological women are standing for womens’ rights to have a voice and be heard, do these transgenders who claim to be women not realise that they will be the new voiceless women if they so ignorantly and violently make their pathway on the backs of women rights as we know them to be now!!The political support/agenda is not personalized to the trans movement but just using it in a ‘creeping gradualistic’ way and that they themselves( trans people) will be the next victims of loss when they are not of any use anymore!! A government that cares and is inclusive, with the care of the people at its core, does not take away from one to give to another it adds more to the table.
Keep in mind ladies, that these are not Christian and/or conservative men who are degrading, threatening and assaulting you. They are hard leftists and homosexuals, who for the most part hate traditional women, who ask for little more than common decency and respect from this community’s males. Treat all women as you would your own mother.
Yes, that is true. Not all white men are women haters, but we can clearly see who are.
Lest we forget, your ideologies are your own, not necessarily mine. But if attempting to preach or proselytize, best be a damn good example…. especially while deflecting fault elsewhere.
Considering s.herring’s comment: “Keep in mind ladies….”
Lets keep in mind that christians tend towards very selective memory, if not historical amnesias (ditto with nationalists). Religious institutions have a stark reputation for being amongst the most oppressive agencies on the planet.
I may be a bit touchy on the subject, but fwiw, s.herring comes across as another patriarch looking down an ideological schnozola. Amidst other sins, “original sin” belongs solidly in the church’s court & shenanigans. Even with the competition, has any institution sinned more widely & thoroughly?; and consistently gotten away with it?
The historic & psychic damage done in limiting & belittling woman, kept in servitude, “in their place”, alongside the other serfs impelled to serve their “masters” throughout millennia — these would be recognized as slavery to anyone with a sovereign, coherent heart & mind.
“Witches” burned by the millions — mostly women… often the healers, if not matriarchs of their clans.
The church was encumbered long ago with housing & protecting pedophiles. Just one facet of the history of sexual abuses & trafficking, which is horrific to behold, not to mention profoundly upsetting & dangerous to experience (never more apparent than our current moment — hence these ongoing articles & discussions at PTFP).
It took patriarchal ideologies thousands of years, but eventually managed to genocide most/all native/elder races & cultures around the world. Initially in the name of ‘god’, then ‘god & country’ — canonized in the “doctrine of discovery”/etc.
https://christianhegemony.org/the-doctrine-of-discovery-manifest-destiny-and-american-exceptionalism
Similar justifications here as well, aka “manifest destiny”. One of the solutions to “the indian problem” was stealing tens of thousands of first peoples’ children from their families, tribes & lands. Transported hundreds of miles, then “rehabilitated” in missionary schools. Many ended up in mass grave sites adjacent to churches.
Most/all the myriad ancient cultures & peoples were robbed blind, betrayed, enslaved & destroyed. Today’s “christian” empires, a list which mercilessly includes “america”, with massive ill-gotten fortunes, entitlements & militaries — all dwell, as well manufacture business models atop the mass graveyards of those originally inhabiting their own sovereign lives & landscapes.
Humans. Children. Women.
S.herring: “….. women, who ask for little more than common decency and respect from this community’s males. Treat all women as you would your own mother.”
This kind of “decency” might use a long look in the mirror. I’d suggest it’s the time to do better, if not begin making amen/ds. Certainly mother earth would appreciate it.
Bottom line — we need each other, need allies in this (final?) contest with the darkside…. simultaneously needing to be clear & honest, setting & keeping the record straight…. including who/what the enemy really is, and has been for millennia:
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
(ephesians 6/12, taken from an earlier gnostic text)
Currently, that would be the technocrat/globalist monster class, global to local (cue pt city council “woke” idealogues — dangerously out of touch and out of reach).
NOT each other. Haven’t humans seen quite enough of divide & conquer?
I was sad to see what looked like bullying of the planned press conference. I would rather the pro-trans crowd would have let the speakers speak.
Those of us who were there in support of trans people (though I am trying to remain as neutral as possible, given my role) feel the need to show support for a group of people who we feel are particularly vulnerable to violence, either from others or self-inflicted. But there is no intention whatsoever of sacrificing the rights of women or endangering children. It doesn’t seem impossible that we could continue to work for women’s rights without negating trans people if we’re compassionate and willing to think out of the zero-sum box.
Most of the people I’ve seen showing pro-trans support are women (including the crowd yesterday, despite what this article implies). Those that I’ve talked to feel that supporting trans women doesn’t diminish their own womanhood. But I realize not all women feel that way. And I do believe we should take seriously the concerns of those who don’t. In fact I would agree with most readers here that publicly shaming them does reek of misogyny.
But this has obviously gotten much bigger than reconfiguring public showers down at the local Y. The flying monkeys have been summoned on both sides. Eyes are narrowed and jaws are set for a fight. But I hope we’re better than that.
https://mandystadtmiller.substack.com/p/rabbitholed-46-why-is-self-described?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
Our mayor is no better than that, Ben. In fact, he’s at the heart of what’s worst about a terrible situation. Faber must go.
Ben Thomas – Reconfiguring showers at the Y is a perfectly workable solution , one that I was disappointed to hear wasn’t discussed by the council at. Overhauling the current binary showers to individual family-style shower/toilet/changing rooms would guarantee privacy and dignity for all, including intersex, non-binary, androgenous, women, and transgender people who are in transition alike, equally. It’s a win/win. I respectfully proposed this solution in my written comment to the council.
The reply I received from the city was, “Your comment has been forwarded to the City Attorney” with a contact number for the City Attorney’s office.
Is that standard protocol? It feels like intimidation.
Ben Thomas, I appreciate your comment here – it’s refreshing to see someone engage substantively across the aisle, so to speak.
Faber’s persona/way of presenting himself- which seems essentially unchanged since we were in high school- is…unfortunate, here, to say the least. I hope the rest of council will actively attempt a more professional, inclusive stance on this issue rather than simply bow to the social pressure to virtue signal.
Thank you for your courage in speaking up for these brave women! I stand with Julie!
Women’s sex-based rights in the law are recent and fragile. It is only in my lifetime that women have been allowed by law to have financial independence through having their own banking accounts, lines of credit, mortgages, etc. in their own name. Additionally, equal opportunity in employment laws and scholarship and leadership opportunities created by Title IX sports also helped to usher in the beginnings of the end of discrimination on the basis of sex in America. Now gender identity ideology threatens the progress women made and seeks to remove women’s and girls’ sex-based rights.
Gender identity ideology, based upon a collection of regressive, sexist stereotypes, harms women and girls by eliminating our sex-based rights, spaces, and safeguarding, our ability to organize and speak as a political class, our name, and even our very humanity. Women aren’t a feeling in a man’s head nor a hormone level. Women are adult human females.
We don’t dehumanize men in popular discourse nor in medical fields or journals by calling them “ejaculators,” “prostate havers,” “penis people,” “people with a prostate,” or “bodies with testicles.” Why should women have to put up with being called “menstruators,” “uterus havers,” “vagina people,” “people with a cervix,” “birthing bodies,” or “bodies with vaginas?”
Why should we have to put up with a man who demands we pretend he is a woman in a woman’s locker room overseeing girls changing and using the restroom? Why should we have to put up with the cancelation of a brave woman, Julie Jaman, who speaks out against this lack of safeguarding? Why should we have to put up with teaching girls and women to ignore their eyes, drop all of their boundaries, survival instincts, and rights of voluntary consent and agree to be in a state of undress in women’s single-sex spaces in front of any man who demands we pretend he is a woman?
It is offensive and horrifying to see the erasure of women and girls’ sex-based rights, spaces, and safeguarding and the destruction of their humanity on the altar of gender identity ideology. Women and girls deserve dignity, safety, and privacy provided by single-sex spaces and provisions, including restrooms, locker rooms, rape and/or domestic violence shelters and therapies, hospital rooms, college dorm rooms, retirement home rooms, prisons and sports.
Truth matters. Evidence-based science matters. Biology matters. Sex matters. In humans, sex is dimorphic and immutable. Sex is not a spectrum. There is no third sex. Men are not women and cannot become women, regardless of “gender self-identification,” mutilating surgeries, and/or cross-sex hormones. It is a fiction, a fantasy, to believe otherwise. I do not consent to participate in said fantasy.
Follow the money on gender identity ideology. Understand why there is no debate allowed. Speak up if you value your freedoms and vote accordingly, before gender identity ideology is enshrined further into law.
Future daughters and granddaughters will thank you.
Excellent encapsulation — thanks renee.
Couldn’t agree more. Hear Hear! This needs to be shared more widely and fingers crossed many would read and gain some better understanding of the truth of this matter.
these events – and there are an increasing number of them – are very conflicting for me. i’m disgusted by the toxic “masculinity” of these “people” yet my first thought is “since the cops are useless (imagine that!) i’d love to provide security”. i’m a large fellow (6’4”/200lbs) with years of security experience and martial arts training yet i abhor violence. i also know as soon as i tried to provide a line of defense THEN the police would magically appear. i don’t want to be a misandrist yet that 5’1” cliche with his “tough” tats and his raybans is a living distillation of everything i hate about other “men”. i’d bet money i don’t have that he’s ex-military and has a punisher skull somewhere on his body and/or vehicle and/or wardrobe.
as for the “cops don’t want to give antifa/black pampers types catnip” there is a grain of truth to it since imaginary victimhood is the lifeblood of this movement. that said, the job of the police isn’t maintaining good PR; it’s maintaining order. if we have to do our jobs every day to pay their salaries then they need to do theirs. plus the narrative of “they might get in trouble for protecting old ladies from guys in dresses” is slightly laughable…”slightly” because i do realize entitled bourgeois white males in drag are a holy and untouchable class to some. still: it is a fringe group and increasingly so as they show their true face.
as a smart woman once told me: “a lot of people say they want ‘equality’ but their true goal is ‘supremacy”.
At last, someone who is grounded in reality.
So much for expressing ones view point in a peaceful demonstration, I watched those in support of the trans community get caught up in the mob mentality and vehemently hurling profane insults and being disruptive at those who wish to have a voice in this community as well.
I believe the best video of of what happened yesterday is this one on odysee: “Feminists And LGBT Protest 80 Year Woman Banned From YMCA For Kicking Man From Woman’s Locker Room”
https://odysee.com/@thecommonsenseconservatives:8/feminists-and-lgbt-protest-80-year-woman:b
1:25:24
The videographer had the best overall video coverage of the events on all sides of the speakers.
When is attacking old women ever a good look? I don’t care what they believe, it’s never appropriate for men to attack women. Have we lost our minds?
The women who were knocked down or jostled by the tattooed man in the picture should go to the DA and say they want to press charges for assault.
There were no flying monkeys on the women’s side at the Port Townsend event.
There are none at any of these women’s events. They are all on the TRA side. And most of them are men, using their size and muscle to commit male violence against women and silence women’s voices.
Like most liberals, I came to this issue believing that trans rights activists must be in the right. However, I researched it copiously and discovered that they are absolutely NOT. It is a political lobby deliberately masquerading as a grassroots social justice movement, financed by a small handful of billionaires invested in the medical/pharmaceutical industry, including Trumpster billionaire JN Pritzker.
Feminist Jennifer Bilek has followed to money on the 11th Hour Blog: https://www.the11thhourblog.com/
The men financing this lobby are destroying girls’ and women’s rights (and decimating an entire generation of LGB youth who are being told they should “trans the gay away”) in their efforts to build a massive billion-dollar medical/pharmaceutical industry on the backs of innocent people.
Everyone who believes the transgenderism lobby is a liberal movement is believing a shameless lie. JN Pritzker is a long-time Republican donor who financed every Republican Presidential candidate of the past 30 years and gave a quarter of a million dollars to Trump. Pritzker’s lobby is a conservative lobby, enforcing gender stereotypes with dangerous, irreversible drugs and surgery, while destroying girls’ and women’s hard-won rights.
Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.
Well-researched & considered, & elegantly said — thank you eleganta
Great response
Thank you, Annette.
Thank you, Ben, for being present here and open to constructive dialogue.
I was there last night and I am heartsick today. I would like to believe that we are better than this, but I feel nothing but despair for our community. I saw hate, violence, cruelty coming only from the side that wanted to silence those speaking for women’s rights. I saw men—big, strong, imposing men—harassing, threatening and manhandling women, young and old, as well as those gentle men who formed that circle of protection. Yes, these were out-of-town, organized bullies, but I saw people I know, your friends and neighbors, dressed like antifa bots (I had to laugh at the black masks and caps- as if we didn’t know who they were), pretending to be for trans rights, but really, anyone who would don that ridiculous uniform is simply out to cause chaos, to hurt, to destroy. They are without a moral compass. And they live right here.
I believe that everyone has the right to live their lives to their own unique and full expression, but not at the cost of anyone else’s equal rights or physical safety and wellbeing. I have trans friends I love. Not because they are trans, but because they are human beings worthy of love, as are we all. I am well aware of their particular vulnerabilities in this wrecked and violent world. I can love and protect and support them as humans, but I don’t not have to agree with their assumption of a gender they are not.
Body dysphoria is a mental illness. We don’t tell skeletal anorexics who look in the mirror and see an obese person staring back at them, “Yes, you’re right. You are as fat as you think you are. So let’s get you some liposuction, pharmaceuticals for life, major surgery, and, oh yes, keep starving yourself to death.” No, we recognize their body dysphoria for what it is- a mental illness-and if we love and support them, we guide them toward mental health resources and healing. We should not reorder all of society, change our language, deny scientific fact, call in Stormtroopers, threaten women, children and male allies, and pretend that people born with penises are women and people born with vaginas are men. We should not allow our children to believe they were born into the wrong bodies and encourage them to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lifelong surgeries and meds, to sign up for a lifetime of physical and psychic pain. We should not allow men to co-opt women’s spaces (there doesn’t seem to be much of the vice versa, so pardon me for focusing on trans women). We should not equate female and femininity with pornographic “Womenface” (aka the radical display of drag queens in family, public spaces). We SHOULD celebrate feminine men and masculine women- the whole range of diverse and beautiful qualities of male and female human animals. We SHOULD celebrate the bodies our children are born in, because those are indeed their very own correct and precious bodies. Wear a dress, wear all the Maybelline you want. I’ll share my heels with you if we have the same shoe size. I’ll fight for your right to express yourself in any way you choose. But makeup and heels do not make a woman. Body dysphoria does not make a woman. Deciding you are a woman does not make you a woman.
Ben, the City Council must recall David Faber as mayor. He is not just an embarrassment to this community, he is a menace. He uses his social media platforms to incite and bully, and he uses the platform of mayor to get away with it. He has done nothing but to make a bad situation truly awful and he seems to get off on his perception of power.
Law enforcement completely abandoned the group supporting Julie Jaman and the antifa/antifa-cosplayer monsters took advantage of it; they swarmed the left side of the Pope Marine building, knowing they were out of sight of the officers congregating across the street at the courthouse corner. It was a shambles; law enforcement did not arrive until after repeated pleas of people running across the plaza, begging for assistance. Then they came en masse, but did very little, eventually wandering away again. There must be accountability for this lack of the most basic crowd control.
What I saw last night was men terrorizing women to silence them. What I saw last night was a community, my community, shaming and shouting down their mothers, sisters, and grandmothers who simply want a safe space in public facilities to undress and move about freely, without the presence of men. Mothers, sisters, grandmothers who simply want to be recognized, respected for what they are, what they have been from birth to menstruation to pregnancy/motherhood (if that was a part of their journey) to menopause to goddess sage: women.
Alby, I have thanked you so many times in my mind for writing what I am thinking but neglect to ever “say it outloud.” I love the space that PTFP has created for such a wide diversity of opinions and beliefs, but weary of the partisan backbiting that often rears its tiresome head.
Let’s please stop this rearview mirror red/blue nonsense and move forward together.
Did anyone other than the antifa crowd get in to the City Council meeting? Is there report on that? Thanks for all you do Jim.
I watched the city council webinar from home. The comments from those present were 100% pro-trans and took up the majority of the 40 minutes or so they allowed public comment. After they got through everyone who wanted to comment in person, they went to webinar commenters. I’m not sure how many, but about 10 minutes worth, all pro-trans but for one single comment from a well spoken woman from Seattle in support of Julie.
Interestingly, I went through all of the written public comments that were recorded on the official meeting agenda from the city website. The comments are a mess because there are a lot of duplicate comments. But if you go through name by name, eliminate duplicates and tally the results, written public comments were :
24 in support of Julie
18 in support of The Y/ trans rights.
At least as of about 4PM yesterday.
Radical feminists were disowned by liberal feminism a long time ago. Actual feminism (which is now referred to as radical, for some reason) seeks to protect the women who were being attacked here and preserve female-only spaces, and we see the violence that trans “women” are visiting upon every woman who speaks up about it, same as the men who beat their wives for stepping out of line. The left says we’re evil bigots who should be put in gulags, and the right doesn’t like the rest of our politics, so we have no political home.
I know nobody wants to hear this, because it’s easiest to pretend all feminists are terrible people supporting gender ideology and erasing the meaning of the word woman, but our own movement threw us by the wayside when this trans thing started. We have no space but our own anymore, and many are afraid to speak up at all because of what you see above – men attacking women, other women shunning us, getting doxxed, losing jobs, being threatened with rape and murder. Anyone who doesn’t bow down at the alter of gender should be destroyed, according to these people. It’s absurd.
Not sure why you feel those of us in the Women’s Liberation movement of the 70’s have been silent. We have been writing and speaking out for decades and decades. Julie is 80. I am 70. There were other women at this event that are also elders and feminists. Real feminists… those that center the rights and safety of women and girls…. not this FAUX Feminism that so many younger women seem to feel is ok to embrace… where males and their rights are centered above those of women – adult human females. WE FOUGHT this fight. WE WON this fight in so many areas… Abortion rights, Title Nine, single sex spaces – shelters – clinics – prisons, the right to home homes and have cars in our own names… And HERE WE ARE AGAIN. Doing this AGAIN. This BS did happen on our watch. So, frankly, until you want to get out there with us, your critique holds little weight.
Some possible parallels between Portland and Pt. Townsend currently when dealing with polarizing public issues.
Weak and/or complicit mayor who is afraid of not appearing progressive that only condemns one side for violence, incitement or harassment on one side. And has already determined what side is right.
Council members who are as radical or more than the mayor.
Police force that has been defunded/demoralized/demonized and knows that enforcing the law may mean litigation or losing their livelihood.
Citizens who believe any criticism by mainstream or right wing media is unfounded.
Citizens and government that are more concerned with damage to the cities “brand” and unwanted attention then the issues being raised.
Well meaning citizens who not wanting to offend the current trending ideology adopt labels that instantly assume guilt and bad motives on their neighbors (intolerant, anti-fill in the blank, hateful, bigoted, -wing, -ist, etc.) Also, doing so in the fear they maybe likewise labeled.
Many citizens & families adopting the “we don’t talk about it” and “it isn’t happening here” stances as violence and dangerous rhetoric increases.
Being influenced by more non-local news sources and narratives than local or first hand reports/ing.
Adopting a “the youth will guide us” approach, a.k.a. the Children’s Crusade.
Making public proclamations of support for righteous causes that frame others as against those causes (human rights, civil rights, gender equality, etc.)
Belief that all outside agitators are on the other side, from out of town.
Determining some classes of people rights, preferences, wishes, kinks have more standing than other peoples rights and respect. These protected classes, even when they do something wrong, is due to the current “unwanted” attention and ongoing oppression.
Allowing seasoned, professional activists to co-opt the issue for their own agenda.
Unending “protests” that quickly become screaming matches and physical confrontations.
Cooling out of friendships, associations, with those who are “on the other side”.
The inevitable “I’m moving” unless the current leadership is recalled/replaced/voted out.
The allowing of unpermitted, violent and property damaging events, marches (riots) and confrontations if done by the “righteous side”.
I hope everyone reading takes note of the wisdom in your experience-based comments.
I get the impression that most of the incredulity expressed here is because people don’t actually understand what they’re up against this time around. They think that surely, the other side can be reasoned with, if only they understood. That this must all just be some misunderstanding. Commenters here don’t yet understand that from the other side’s perspective, if you’re not with them, you’re against them. There is no middle ground. You are the aggressor. And because, in their minds, words = violence, they are perfectly justified in using physical violence in return against you for speaking out.
Neither the council, mayor, nor the police have indicated they care one iota about women’s right to speak out on this issue. That’s what we saw yesterday at the gathering, and it seems that many are having difficulty digesting this fact.
Every time the council, police and larger community look the other way with regard to violence against the women, the other side is validated and emboldened. They become bolder and more self righteous.
One might be wise to stop using their real names in comments, lock down all their privacy settings across social media, and google their own name and email address + “Port Townsend” to see what information is already publicly available. The other side already has access to it if you’ve used social media or your real name online while commenting in support of Julie. They attempted to doxx me, I know. Don’t make it easy for them to make you a target. If that sounds paranoid because you think it couldn’t happen here, I’ll bet when it all started in Portland, lots of folks thought it couldn’t happen there either.
I am so sad for these brave women.
So sad to see reasonable discourse shouted down
So sad to see men defining themselves as manly by attacking elderly women, verbally, physical.
Where has the courtesy of communities gone?
How can men believe this is OK?
What is their inner hurt, their unmet needs, their childhood traumas & deprivations that allow them to permission themselves in this way?
What has the greedy unfeeling world of capitalism done to make these men SO damaged that they feel righteous in being violent to women, women who are like their mother/ their sisters/ their daughters?
Hello Paula, I attended the PT City Council meeting last night. It was a love fest for the Trans as they prefer to be understood. Mayor Faber, John Mauro and Council members heads nodded in unison as the “public comments” were made. Faber presented the “Proclamation” in hard copy to one of the Trans supporters and this person read it. The comments were all pre-arranged as Faber gave the name of the next speaker who then went up to the mike and spoke. All were supportive of the YMCA and Trans issues as they prefer them to be understood. After in person speaking ended, they had people who called in. This also was pre-arranged as Faber said the name before the person spoke. The sound quality was not very good. One person was supportive of Julie Jaman but the sound was not clear thus difficult to know what was exactly said. The entire meeting was manufactured.
“Learning happens when we listen.”
Spoken by an unnamed Comanche
Thank You
NO Flying Monkeys on the Side of Equal Rights. Amy’s folks had no flying monkeys, Amy had victims and others speaking up for equality and women’s rights. May want to reword that or look at footage.
Annette, the bottom line is that if you supported the leftists and voted for the progressive platform, you own this. You brought it upon yourself. If you don’t like it, then stop voting for Democrats.
Eddie, do I know you? I don’t recognize your name or email address. How do you know who I vote for, or if I vote at all? What makes you think I vote Democrat?
Enter this discussion further with your braggadocio assumptions, and we’ll say buh bye…
“Have we lost our minds?”
Nope, the same minds are at work that always maintained the order we rely on. It’s a good thing the young women referred to below weren’t gymnasts, eh?
” ‘I felt trapped’: sex abuse of teens in military’s JROTC ”
BY MIKE BAKER, NICHOLAS BOGELBURROUGHS AND ILANA MARCUS
NEW YORK TIMES Jul 10, 2022
For more than a century, the JROTC program has sought to instill U.S. military values in American teenagers, with classes in thousands of public high schools that provide training in marksmanship, life skills, hierarchical discipline and military history.
But a New York Times investigation – which included an examination of thousands of court documents, investigative files and other records obtained through more than 150 public disclosure requests – has found that the program has repeatedly become a place where retired military officers prey on their teenage students.
In the past five years, the Times found, at least 33 JROTC instructors have been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students, far higher than the rate of civilian high school teachers in jurisdictions examined by the Times. Many others have been accused of misconduct but never charged.
The senior military veterans who make up the JROTC ranks are certified by the military but deploy to high school classrooms with little oversight and scant training for the actual work of being a teacher. Many states do not require JROTC instructors to have a college degree or a teaching certificate. Schools are expected to monitor the instructors and investigate complaints, but they have struggled to adequately over-see a program that largely operates on the fringes of their campuses.
Victims have reported sexual assaults in classrooms and supply closets, during field trips or on late-night rides home, sometimes committed after instructors plied students with alcohol or drugs. One former student said her instructor told her that sexual submission was expected of women in the military.
A recent cadet in Tennessee said her JROTC instructor warned that he had the skills to kill her without a trace if she told anyone about their sexual encounters. In Missouri, a student said she was forced to kneel at her instructor’s bedside, blindfolded, with a gun to her head.
The Times interviewed 13 victims, many of whom had strikingly similar stories: They were teenagers who came from disadvantaged backgrounds or who otherwise saw the military as a pathway to a promising future, then found that the instructors who fashioned themselves as mentors exploited their positions to manipulate and abuse.
https://buffalonews.com/i-felt-trapped-sex-abuse-of-teens-in-militarys-jrotc/article_af846765-d375-5e49-8528-049d004afa16.html
See also:
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/guestposts
Am pretty sure that was just a detention “catch and release” for less than ten minutes, not an arrest. A quick look at https://www.co.jefferson.wa.us/sheriff/jail/inmateroster.asp shows no booking, but perhaps I am misreading.
I live in Port Townsend and decided to go to City Hall on Monday to see for myself what was happening. I didn’t hold any sign, didn’t engage with anyone, but I wanted to listen and document the scene. The man in the photo of this article (burly, muscle guy with lots of tattoos) got right up in my face and covered my phone with his hat while yelling various slurs. People came in on bicycles riding through the small gathering, yelling, blasting horns, doing everything to silence the women attempting to speak. One man told me I should be ashamed of myself. For what? Listening? Apparently, not only are we not allowed to speak; we aren’t even allowed to listen. Shut down and labeled “trans phobic” for any failing to echo the mantra and for listening to anyone who deviates from the “progressive” script.
I am deeply ashamed of the hateful rhetoric, the intolerance and insufferable self-righteousnes. Port Townsend is a welcoming town ONLY to those who fall right into step with currently mandated woke views.
“If you are screaming “trans women are women,” you might as well be screaming “I do whatever the mob tells me.”
I genuinely feel sorry for people who are so brainwashed that they are repeating patent falsehoods as a thought-stopping mantra.
But I do not feel sorry for the mayor of Port Townsend nor the YMCA nor anyone in a position of power who uses that as a cudgel to silence and terrorize women.
They are dangerous. They have no place in positions of power.
Thank God for the women who refuse to shut up.
As the Voltaire warning reputedly goes: Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Like supporting a braying mob that surrounds, attacks and terrorizes an 80-year-old woman.
Because to be sure: That is an atrocity.”
https://mandystadtmiller.substack.com/p/rabbitholed-46-why-is-self-described?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
If you all have not read this link yet, that AJ shared, you really need to. You really need to see with your own eyes the tweets your mayor is sending out into the world. This young man is a seriously sick individual and he should never have been appointed mayor of this or any other town.
I was shocked, dismayed and angry that Antifa was allowed to not only violate a peaceful demonstration but to assault old women in plain sight of law-enforcement. Boundaries were moved during the BLM and Antifa riots, they were allowed to riot and burn whole neighborhoods across America while the main stream media called it peaceful and cops were not allowed to do their jobs to uphold the peace. Now we witness in our little town another boundary that has been allowed to be crossed -permission to beat up old women and grandmothers. Their was no political division of us or they -just women asking for their natural born rights.
Antifa in Portland Oregon called these heavily armed men to arms. Washington State Patrol that answer to the governor and our local Police Chief who answers to City Hall hung back while ANTIFA violated these women’s freedom of peaceful assembly and broke law by assaulting old women, mothers and grandmothers.
Women stood up for their rights to be a natural female. These rights can never to be diminished by government edict. Being forced by government edict to share public facilities with a natural born male violates that right- a natural right that has been around since Adam bit into the Apple.
You were doing great until you got to the very end. Not everyone in this state and this country follows religions which involve Adams and apples. Let’s stick to taking care of this in a secular way in the public forum and those of you who are guided by your religions in your private lives, please continue to do so with the fullness of your beautiful sacred energy. But please, we beg of you to understand that in order to form a viable and powerful coalition you also need to make room for other ideas and beliefs which are not specifically Christian.
Before you jump in and start calling me anti-Christian, I am not. That is not what I am saying. I’m saying that when you use Christianity as your only defense, you lose legions of supporters. Please stop. Women need you to grasp ideological hands which may be different than yours. You can be Christian and do this work with non-Christian people. But when you bring your religion into the discussion in a way where you are beating other people over the head with it, you’re not acting much differently than the putz with the AK 47 trans flag on his hat.
There are extremely valuable arguments based on clinical science and biological fact which these trans activist do not want to argue because they know they have no valid argument. But when any of us bring our personal religions as counter to these arguments all it does is set us back. Stick to the biological irrefutable facts and then listen to them try to argue against biology with philosophy. Then you will make headway. Then, and only then.
Thanks edel — naturally stated natural law by a natural woman.
I was shocked by the way these people who feel they’re so mistreated, misunderstood and disrespected behaved at that press conference on Monday. They were mostly rude, belligerent, bullying and disrespectful to anyone who wasn’t dressed like them or who didn’t agree with their agenda. And most of these despicable humans were men. But, not the kind of men I associate with. I’m sickened to see what has become of our younger generations, the angst, the hate coming from them, even though they were chanting “no hate here, no hate here”. THEY were the ones spewing hate. I’m sad to say that I witnessed the decay of humanity and lowest dregs our of our society out on Monday evening threatening elders and women. These people truly are disgusting and yet, I’m a bigot or a homophobe or transphobe or some other type of phobe if I don’t accept them. Well so be it then. I will never put myself it such a situation again. When the police and the mayor of a city ignore that kind of harassment and bullying that went on downtown on Monday, and basically side with them against civil, respectful people who are just exercising their rights to free speech, we are done as a society. Something has to change. We cannot allow the 1% to dictate and demand that the 99% adapt our morals and core values to accommodate them. And, we cannot allow men with penises who “feel” like they’re women into areas where women and girls are vulnerable. I don’t care who you “identify” as. Any man with malintent could claim they identify as a woman, put a dress or swimsuit on and enter an area designated for woman. If people cannot see the logic in this, they are already too far gone.
When you mention any man can say he simply “feels” like a woman in order to gain access to spaces where vulnerable women and young girls are supposed to be safe, you’re right on the money. It’s already happened, and it seems like every other week there’s a new incident where we see them doing exactly that. We are not allowed any protections anymore. In places where we are stripping down and showering, or in therapy settings where we talk about trauma, in shelters where we’re hiding from abusers… the ones so violently pushing for access to these areas aren’t trying to get resources for themselves, they’re trying to intimidate women, to remove us from our own hard-fought spaces.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of news stories detailing the violence committed by men who “feel” like women, toward actual women. But when you show these to a trans rights activist, they clam up, they block you, they claim that it’s so uncommon it’s not representative of the community. Remember the high school girl who was raped in the bathroom by a trans-identified male? Her father was arrested for being angry about what happened to her, for yelling at the school officials for enabling that incident with their bathroom policies.
It feels like we’re living in the twilight zone. People will often say in jest that they don’t want to live in this timeline anymore. But I feel that in my bones. I don’t understand how so many people can wake up in the morning and lie to themselves, saying that trans women are not only women, but should have unfettered and unrestricted access to any other woman or girl in any space, at any time.
Julie was thrown out of the YMCA for trying to protect children from being gawked at in the locker rooms. What planet are we on?? I’m not sure anymore…
https://opengovus.com/washington-corporation/604091430
“Things that make you go HMMMM”
I don’t think you can recall an appointed official. But you can sure as shootin’ vote these fools out of office.
https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_Washington
This is who “DJ FILTHY FABER” is welcoming
to your town. Your police chief knelt down
and rolled over. He needs to be recalled,
as well.
https://ia600102.us.archive.org/2/items/BurningTheBridgesTheyAreBuildingAnarchistStrategiesAgainstPoliceIn/burningbridges-print.pdf
https://www.womensdeclaration.com/en/
Share far and wide…
How ironic:
https://www.agingcare.com/local/david-faber-port-townsend-elder-law-attorneys-wa
He thinks he’s bullet-proof now, i guess:
https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/ethics-complaint-against-city-council-member-peter-eglick-dismissed/
What a snake of a human being, he is.
Unethical to the extreme.
I kept thinking all of this reminded me of something.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi_Spa_controversy
And now, FOR THE REST OF THE STORY
https://www.losangelesblade.com/2021/09/02/lapd-seeking-registered-sex-offender-in-june-wi-spa-incident/
You hope women are “better” than fighting for their lives? Your support of that community is doing more damage to our human community as a whole than you can imagine.
https://bugbrennan.substack.com/p/everything-will-come-for-you-in-the
I took some time away to rethink an old song.
Same result as usual. Here I am.
Here you are.
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries a reminder
Of every glove that laid him down
And cut him ’till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
I am leaving I am leaving
But the fighter still remains…….
“She, they, them also included. Quoted as written in simpler times.
What bright and articulate people the majority here are. I hear echoes of the same core wisdom we all carry. The grandfathers and grandmothers who are the village elders. Shoved to the ground as “no hate” is shouted. Go figure. But you did come here to this place and time to find out who you are at the core, didn’t you? The ancestors are watching. You are an ancestor of those still to come.
Some new things, lot of old stuff here. Part of the archaeology of where we are right now. A stand-alone history of this world. This little tide pool that the biggest tide pool has flowed into. Because of a few key players and a Council.
Letter to City Council Aug 18 2022
Corrupted Council- For the record once again.
Instead of bringing in new pieces I made or bringing in artwork I purchase and feature by other Northwest artisans, today as sound business practice I have removed my most valuable and irreplaceable artwork from my 26 year business within the decaying wreckage of Port Townsend, tinder dry by design.
A large abstract Eagle carved by Peg Lawrence who is 101 years old and still drinking some Jack Daniels every day in assisted living is now in hiding. A mask by a First Nations woman artisan called Mother and Daughter is in a safe house. Daughter sits atop mother’s head with an umbilical cord attaching them. Many other pieces made by artisans we have shared with neighbors and visitors remain in jeopardy, needing to be sold to pay rent until I can liquidate everything and be gone from Faberville. I have had to select out my favorite children to save from what has been set in motion.
We all know David Faber has failed to unite and find common ground. He has no clue what he should do as a “Leader”. He has in fact chosen a side and divided. Purposefully. With a discriminating proclamation.
None ever for people of Color. None ever for the Native population that was here. None for any group. Except now. A proclamation on how you need to think and what you need to believe. Duh David, most of not all I know treat all with respect. Me thinks thou doth state the obvious to cover tracks and obscure your own ongoing discrimination, now against a grandmother.
It’s Faber’s Government mind control. Orwell would be proud of all the time-tested techniques this “leader” employees.
Leader is an empty term and name as the local paper is now showing once again. What began with Cherry Street, parking chaos, the FWPDA, then magic mess tent madness, and now Faber and PTB’s version of Women are the N***** of the World, Faber, Council, City Manager and City Attorney light a match. In absolute unison with the Y and everyone on the extended “team” from Main Street to Chamber. Those women will not think or complain. Soul sucking job security.
Do look up John Lennon and Women are the …… of the world. Meant to be shocking then, relevant now. Think it through trans folk. When you are just another “woman” how will you be treated? Check out history. Hell, look at right now.
The next event put on by those women not willing to give away their biological uniqueness earned over thousands of years will be the gasoline. Faber stands with the lit match, with help. The test has been completed.
It is a formula. Like so much else over the last many years. Does Faber understand it? Hard to tell. Same result either way.
I have been directly threatened on record and called “the enemy”. That was deleted from the Free Press. I don’t dispute the call to remove threats. Perhaps someday a separate link to that would be educational. Attributes and ideas I don’t have were used to justify the threat. Over many years, not the first.
It has to be black and white. No discussion. The enemy. No hate indeed.
It does make one stop and think. Then hum “The Boxer”. It is genetic for some to still remain. White cells.
No Grandmothers or females were involved in the threat. 🙂 Your grandparents really do love you. Whatever your outward sex. They love you from the inside out. They don’t want you to change a thing about yourself. You will always grow and evolve as is meant to be. They love you through every step and misstep. Shoving around grandma and grandpa is the lowest. No Hate indeed.
That’s another thing Faber brought home for all. Shoving around grandma verbally and physically and politically.
The police with the FBI trained chief have their orders. One officer who walked away was featured in a Leader story about his African heritage where police never came. I commented back then that this was also the case here with parking, or at the fairgrounds where some died. Welcome to PT I said, knowing his future. If he hung around long enough.
Yesterday I photographed all the inventory I have invested my life savings into to document what may be torn apart by frenzied people chanting meaningless chants that Appointed Mayor Faber and all of Council gave life to. Like Seattle and Portland. How is that? By failing a grandmother and village elder who simply wanted and expected her own and other women’s privacy from men of any sort while showering at the Y.
They flipped the script.
Radical hater is the tag. Chants keep some from thinking things through. Perhaps an effect of the educational system. Perhaps not.
This is relevant. That male, they, them, person in the women’s shower and all others also should be respected. As with mess tents and parking, none above others. But we are now Orwell equal. Re designing spaces is the cure. The wedge is a weapon. The weapon is deployed by Faber and Council with City Manager and City Attorney assisting.
All recorded for history. Will anyone be left who can care?
I have documented for the record over 8 years of financial losses to this community, or what once was a community, into the millions of dollars from lost parking and business access to the sound of crickets from Council. I am sick of it. You are sick of hearing of it. It is the ember to today’s flame. You turned your cheek. The slaps came harder and harder. As per Orwell.
Some profited from the chaos and damage unleashed. Still is unleashed and not dealt with as “recovery” is the buzz word. Doublethink. Watch Mauro, Council, and Faber do it regularly.
Then came mess tents and special interests being served. Discriminating, yes discriminating against other businesses in what was a community. Again, costing millions in losses according to The City of Port Townsend’s own ignored studies. The Council does nothing but reward bad choices and double down. Illegal choices.
Your Appointed Mayor, who is now a world recognized juvenile joke (when you asked the Genie to be famous David you needed to be very specific) and your unqualified compromised City Manager conspired to keep public notice of a city ordinance change regarding mess tents at a minimum. You all know the details. It was just a couple of months ago. Council didn’t seem concerned based on voting for “temporary” tents and not reprimanding the deceit.
Add the ongoing parking lie. There are no limits, fool. Discrimination. How about this—“Whereas the City of Port Townsend and David Faber don’t care jack shit about you dumb assed tourists and whereas bla bla bla bla therefore be it resolved that you are a chump so observe our phony signage. Welcome to PT. Here is a preferred restaurant list”.
My taking apart my business today which is a cultural link 46 years in the making starting with less than nothing is in anticipation of looting and damage by the forces that likely will be unleashed by your Appointed Mayor Faber, compromised and unqualified City Manager Mauro, and City Attorney Heidi Greenwood. She is a woman betraying women along with 4 female Council Members. The male fellow Council join them. No clean hands here. None.
Gee I wish does not count.
It’s a much bigger cause and effect than simple slogans can drown out.
Faber’s hollow statement of inclusion for one specific group ignores others. You discriminate Faber and Council, easily shown and recorded for the future. What of the trans people that need to park? Oh.
Will you David Faber now issue a proclamation condemning the attempted silencing of free speech and violence that occurred against biological women as the Appointed Mayor, City Council, City Manager, and City Attorney staged a one-sided show in the hallowed halls of the City Council Chambers? A one sided show.
The police with the FBI trained chief have their orders. All seen in real time and now preserved forever. One officer who walked away as things got violent had a Leader story about his African nation heritage where police never came. I commented there and then that this was also the case here with parking, or at the fairgrounds. Now he is doing the same, just following orders.
Council must recall the juvenile you appointed Mayor, or at least try. Get ready to behold Port Townsend becoming what Seattle and Portland have become. Its already here. Just a little harder to see for some. It will be obvious soon, after the spell cast by Faber and the Y, which he and Council seem to have no idea of the scope of.
Leadership into the abyss.
Port Townsend has not been pretty for some time. It has just looked that way. For some.
Remove Faber. Now. Step away from what Sandoval, Stinson and other appointed mayors began, and he continued and now escalates.
Faber is now the best of the worst. He is a damaging child. With power and a twitter account. Making the City look bad. Very bad.
Trans rights and understanding? Yes! Biological female rights and understanding? Yes! Both! Just pawns in a nasty game at this late hour.
Today, I moved some things to safety. As a difficult and sound business decision I begin to have no connection to Port Townsend and protect items that will never be replaced. Not the real PT, the shallow hollow Faber one. Faber being the mascot. So many moving parts.
Who on Council will stand to recall Faber and issue a proclamation that free speech is not silenced in Port Townsend?
What do those that seek to silence fear?
Say it again. Who on Council will stand to recall Faber and issue a proclamation that free speech is not silenced in Port Townsend?
No discrimination my ass. Threats of many kinds? You bet!
Faber plays with matches. Council gives him gasoline. All are responsible. But somehow, not. Yet.
The Free Press might consider mobilizing some of the concerned folk to hand out some of these stories on the street. If Mauro was shaking at the proclamation meeting about damaged image, imagine if most visitors knew of Dirty PT.
Or not.
Harvey — profound perspectives, great writing — thanks.
Read it through twice, second time brought painful remembrances & tears…. with “i am leaving, leaving, but the fighter still remains….”
Nailed it.
Long ago, just the beginnings, impelled to flee “home” to save life & soul.
Soon thereafter, arriving elsewheres on waves & shorelines of possibilities, thence kept drawing & redrawing the line/s of defense. Start over, try again. Finally a finale in pt, over decades — which kept selling off its soul.
Now i’ve more than an inkling of what the local first peoples felt & knew.
These days, the warrior remains, standing/tilting, 10,000 cuts & wounds. M.Earth her billions.
Over the last several years of the local-to-global cov era, a primary perspective/question kept interrupting the next & next & next arriving/escalating viral madness (what the first peoples here called “wetiko”) — ‘is this some kind of mass suicide, or mass homicide?’ Both, apparently.
Talk about “doubling down”:
“Growing up” in the 50s & 60s — under our desks avoiding nuclear annihilation; watching the PTB kill off our heroes & ideals; and slow-motion quick the rest of the planet… in retrospect, feels like attending a 7decades long funeral, ever more fuel for the pyre accumulated.
The last rubicon is being crossed, and double-crossed (natch). Plainly, absurdly, the PTB have their death-wish.
Relentless deja vu, no place left to go.
So, where do old warriors go after the funeral?
We shall live again.
Funny how the big tide pool drained right into the little one we thought we escaped to. Can’t run from some things.
Thanks for the Robbie. Outlawed the ghost dance, did they? What to fear?
My hat’s off to you, Harvey.
There is an older man I won’t describe that repeatedly placed himself between people looking to do physical damage to women speakers and the women. I know he knows some history and how these things start with the youth. My hat is off to him and many others. No hate. All you need is love.
Harvey, you say it so well. I’m sorry you feel it’s time to move on, but I understand. I feel as you do, but I have a differnt end for myself as I’m not afraid of dying and was raised to defend the Constution no matter what the cost to me. That circus by city hall really will affect the type of “tourists” that will start coming in.. As I’ve said it before and still say, it that it’s time to clean out the barn (City Hall). I’ve been married three times and never laid a finger on any of my wives.. That circus outside city hall should have been enforced, but wasn’t. War has been declared on the women in Port Townsend and it’s time for them to train to fight. The only way to stop that kind of harrassment is to stand up. I would venture to say that someday, a woman who wants to make a point will put her body in shape and pass the Seal Training. I probably will be passed before that happens. Women are in combat rolls now in many countries including ours. Who do you think ran this country in WWII and supported the troops? In the meantime it’s time for you to learn how to defend yourselves. Remember what Kipling said in a poem, “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Thanks for your service, Les. Give them enough rope…….
Kipling was a misogynistic POS, but sure, okay. Also, he was making that comment as a way to prove that women should never hold positions of leadership in society. So really not the best quote in this context.
Thanks lynn — well read, considered & said, made me smile out loud too.
“PsOS” — there are so many out there to meet.
It really does take a village to keep US honest, and up to date on contexts…. especially timely given the era of digital book-burners, amidst the usual endless historical rewrites.
And fwiw, if anyone’s truly interested in american history lessons, ask an Indian.
Our illustrious mayor (NOT) in PT
https://mandystadtmiller.substack.com/p/rabbitholed-46-why-is-self-described
https://archive.psuvanguard.com/portlanders-rally-for-transgender-rights/
Scroll down until you get to the video.
Then look at the photographs.
In the third photograph down from the video, there is a person who has the same face and ear shape as the one in the photo accompnying this story, wearing the white N95 mask and the assault rifle transgender flag hat.
These people were from out of town.
They were not our neighbors.
https://www.portlandmercury.com/queer-guide-2022/2022/06/13/42972846/a-new-leadership-skills-program-for-transgender-gender-diverse-oregonians-also-provides-a-bonus-supergroup-vibe
“Danni Mar” (aka “Cherry Garcia”)
In this Portland Mercury photo this person has light colored hair and if you zoom in on the person who was in downtown Port Townsend you can see the hair has been dyed black. But it’s the same body shape, same face shape and same ear shape.
https://www.dannimar.com/about
This is good work: I think you’re both wrong and you’re both close! If you go to the portfolio page and scroll down until you find a person with testosterone balding hugging a pitbull with one dark eye, that person actually matches the person with the assault rifle cap more than the photographer Danni does.
https://www.dannimar.com/portfolio
I do think the photographer is absolutely the person in the other photos online, but i think the enraged person in downtown PT with the assault rifle “morale patch” is the balding person hugging the dog, in the portfolio photo.
Now do tineye.com…