by Jim Scarantino | Aug 27, 2022 | General
A Port Angeles man claims he and his wife were banned from the Port Angeles YMCA because he objected to the sharing of child porn in the weight room and young men sexually harassing women and girls. He offered to pay to upgrade the Y’s security system so they could capture the conduct and was ridiculed by staff.
On the day the youths made sexually vulgar humping actions behind his pregnant wife, threatened to kill his newborn baby and vandalize his car, he was banished from the Y. His wife was also banished. They say the Y has never explained to them what it is they did to have their memberships cancelled.
Olympic Peninsula YMCA manages and owns the Port Angeles YMCA. It also manages Port Townsend’s municipal Mountain View pool where Julie Jaman, who had been swimming there for 35 years, was banished for objecting to a male Y employee in the women’s shower area.
A Life with the YMCA, Until He Saw Something, Said Something
Tyler Abbott grew up in YMCAs. His mother worked in the Rockwall, Texas YMCA for 25 years. For his Boy Scout Eagle project he raised money for the Rockwall YMCA and repaired its sign with donated local pottery. He trained young men at the Port Angeles Y in weightlifting. He worked with obese boys to help them gain control over their weight, and mentored and trained with a Senegalese immigrant. “I probably spent more time training kids than I did on my own workouts,” he told the Port Townsend Free Press.
Olympic Peninsula YMCA CEO Wendy Bart
As he traveled the nation while serving in the Coast Guard, he raised thousands of dollars for the Y’s he came to know. A family friend donated a million dollars to a YMCA after experiencing the Y through his mother’s good works. And she was not alone. “Not only is my family deeply involved in the YMCA, but our impact on other YMCA members inspired millions of dollars in donations to the YMCA family.” He wrote that to Olympic Peninsula YMCA CEO Wendy Bart while reporting to her the sexual misconduct he had witnessed in the Port Angeles Y and his expulsion by a staff person for objecting to it.
What did he see and hear?
For months, he told Bart, he had been complaining to staff about “vile, disgusting, and sexually deviant behavior of some of your members at the YMCA, particularly towards my wife, other women, and especially underage girls.” The behavior involved a group of teenage boys leering and creeping on women and girls by taking advantage of their vulnerability while they were lifting weights.
When a women or girl had a barbell on their shoulders, which would push their chest forward, the teenagers would come close and peer down their clothing at their breasts. When they were performing deadlifts, in which the legs are straight or slightly bent and the women grasp a bar on the floor, the boys would circle behind them and stare at their backside and gesture. Similar conduct occurred when women were laying on a weight bench doing chest presses or flyes.
Dumb bell flyes
Abbott said the young men would use their phones to take video recordings of the women. He said he had seen young girls stop their workouts and leave because of the boys’ conduct.
On the day of his family’s termination, Abbott informed Bart:
[T]here were three high school/middle school age kids in the YMCA weight room. All of them have been kicked out of the YMCA before for their behavior toward other members, such as telling a member yesterday to “mind their Fing business” when somebody called out their vile behavior. These young people were showing nude images of underage girls in the stretching section of the weight room… Last week they were on the bench press talking about doing drugs, graphically sexual conversations about girls at their school and constantly swearing loudly. I asked them to stop and please read the rules that were posted by the door. They swore at me and said “okay, dad.” I did nothing and finished my work out.
He further informed Bart:
[T]he same youth were behaving the exact same way, this time made crude sexual gestures behind my 6 months pregnant wife, doing humping motions, making faces resembling some form of oral sex. Despite this disgusting behavior, I cordially and respectfully requested that they stop immediately or I would get staff members to intervene…. The youth began attempting to antagonize, instigate and agitate me, to which I responded, “Do your parents know you behave like this at the YMCA? This is a family YMCA, with kids and women present. How can you think it’s okay to talk that way?” Staff then came to intervene, and while they did this the young men began calling my wife ugly to her face. They said “wait till we catch your kid outside her womb,” and that they were “going to find my car in the parking lot.” The young man who is the leader of this group…also made racially disparaging remarks…saying “f-ing white people” and said the N word multiple times.”
On the occasions when Abbott reported the alleged misconduct to Y staff, they rejected his claims, saying that their security cameras could not catch the reported activity. Abbott offered to raise money so they Y could upgrade their security system. He says staff mocked him, even though he and his family have a history of raising considerable sums for YMCAs. He wrote to CEO Bart:
Your staff is oblivious to this [sexual misconduct] because during their shifts they’re busy on their cell phones, spraying the same machine 10 times in a row, or sitting in their office on their computer.
Abbott says that after “this traumatic ordeal,” Y staff members proceeded to “publicly shame, humiliate and embarrass” him and his pregnant wife in front of other members. He was told their memberships were terminated because he was “threatening.” When he asked the staff person delivering the news to tell him what he had done or said that was “threatening,” Abbott wrote to Bart, “she couldn’t define or describe any threatening behavior that I ever exhibited. I requested a simple example, to which she couldn’t come up with one.”
Why Mrs. Abbott’s membership was terminated has never been explained.
In his letter to Bart, Abbott provided the name and phone number of a witness, Tanner Boggs, then a Port Angeles city employee and Afghan war veteran, and offered to provide affidavits from others to corroborate his statements. I was able to communicate with Boggs, who now lives in Hawaii.
“I can say,” Boggs wrote in a text message, “that Tyler was very respectful handling the situation and is always respectful to others, especially teens. I’ve seen him on numerous occasions helping others in the gym.”
Teens causing problems, Boggs wrote, “had been using the club for an after school hangout. These teens were seen looking through other people’s backpacks, using obscene language and conducting themselves in a manner that was not conducive to working out and disrespectful to other persons at the gym. Lack of gym supervision and training with the staff made the situation uncomfortable and Tyler took it upon himself to confront the teens in a respectful manner. The two teens responded with hostility and Tyler remained calm and continued to ask them to be courteous and respectful.”
It took fifteen minutes, Boggs wrote, for Y staff to appear and address the situation. They banned Abbott and his wife from the Y and cancelled their memberships.
Bart replied to Abbott’s letter:
“Thank you so much for reaching out… I was not aware of any concerns of this nature.” She said she would be looking into the incident, and added, “On a completely separate note, thank you for all your service to the Y.”
Bart never contacted any of the witnesses Abbott said would corroborate his account of events.
The Y Dissembles
At the same time he contacted Bart, Abbott filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, which does not really deal with situations like this. Nonetheless, the BBB file contains Bart’s only written response to Abbott’s complaints about sexual misconduct at the Port Angeles Y and the cancellation of his family’s membership.
Abbott repeated in his BBB correspondence the allegations described above. Throughout the back and forth, Bart never stated what YMCA rule or code of conduct Abbott violated to earn the punishment of cancellations of his membership, and that of his wife. At most, it was a concern that Abbott was “policing” the weight room by reporting misconduct and asking the young men to read the rules and behave. There was no allegation by Bart that Abbott had ever raised his voice, used profanity, or threatened anyone. Bart, notably, did not dispute any of Tyler’s asserted facts about what happened.
I wrote Bart to ask her what the specific grounds were for expelling Abbott and his wife, since her responses to Abbott’s BBB complaint had not answered that question. She replied, “It is our policy not to disclose member privacy information.” Apparently, that also applies to withholding from Mr. and Mrs. Abbott the reasons that ended a lifetime relationship with the YMCA.
As for the youths in question, Bart told the BBB that the Y had taken some unspecified action. She did not state that their memberships had been canceled. But she did let the BBB know that the Y was refunding the unused balance of dues paid by the Abbotts, thus finalizing cancellation of their memberships.
The YMCA Retaliates
The YMCA then went after Abbott’s career with the U.S. Coast Guard. Abbott believes it was the same staff person who humiliated him and his wife who contacted a Chief Warrant Officer who, in turn, passed along complaints about Abbott’s behavior toward YMCA members “and how he is constantly submitting negative reviews in Yelp and Facebook.” Abbott does not hesitate to confirm that he and his wife have posted negative reviews to let others know what they experienced at the Port Angeles YMCA.
Abbott’s superiors made inquiries and cleared Abbott. Abbott was so concerned that he retained an attorney who, Abbott says, would have sued the YMCA if he had suffered any adverse consequences of what Abbott calls “defamation of my character” by Port Angeles YMCA staff.
Parallels with Julie Jaman’s Experience at Mountain View Pool
Just as Abbott’s requests for an explanation of precisely what it was that ended his lifetime relationship with the YMCA went unanswered, so, too, have Julie Jaman’s requests been met with silence. Jaman, as we have reported, was banished on the spot by a YMCA staff person for objecting to the unexpected presence of an adult male in her shower area, while she was naked and without consent.
Later, the YMCA told media, before telling Jaman, that she had been banned for “a pattern of disrespectful behavior.” This “pattern” was, they claimed, “documented.”
That allegation was repeated in the City of Port Townsend’s Q&A on the controversy. Jaman’s public records request to the city manager for those documents came up empty. The city manager told her to go the Y, where he said he had seen unidentified documents.
Jaman has repeatedly requested that Bart provide her with those documents, if they exist. She insists that she had never once been notified of any infraction in her 35 years of using the pool.
Jaman’s lawyers and the Free Press have also requested from Bart the documents that supposedly explain this “pattern of disrespectful behavior.”
Bart has not responded to those requests. On August 25th Bart sent Jaman written notice that she will be charged with trespassing if she sets foot in any facility managed by Olympic Peninsula YMCA. That letter was sent after this story became a huge national and international controversy unflattering to the Y.
Is the YMCA No Longer a Safe Place?
What’s happened to the YMCA? From an institution once dedicated to families and character development — “a refuge from the hazards of the streets” — it has descended to being focused heavily on sex and the setting for a growing number of problems and conflicts. For instance, the Mountain View pool is decorated extensively with Pride flags and placards — well after Pride Month has come and gone. There’s no way to avoid messages focused on particular kinds of sexuality, even before one gets to the door.
It appears that one slice of society is being favored and promoted above all others. Recently, the entire pool and the locker rooms were taken over by the Transgender Support group of Jefferson County and Olympic Pride for a “Queer/Trans Pool Party” with invitation extended to “all ages.”
Clem Adams, the adult male in the women’s bathing suit whom Julie Jaman encountered while she was showering, was a Y employee sent into the women’s locker room to oversee little girls peeling off their swimsuits so they could use the toilets. Adams is 19 years old with a Facebook page profile (until we wrote about it) stating he is heterosexual (“interested in women”). He was alone, no other Y employee in sight, when Jaman was confronted with him at her shower curtain.
That is a violation of the Y’s policy of having two adult employees with children at all times while they are in the locker room.
Now we learn of a man expelled from the Port Angeles Y and the punishment upheld by the same CEO because he objected to child porn being shared inside the Y and the sexual misconduct against women and girls by crude, arrogant young men. His wife, against whom nothing has ever been said by the Y, was apparently innocent collateral damage. Then the Y retaliated against Abbott for educating others on what they might encounter were they to patronize the Port Angeles Y.
Kaeley Triller Harms in 2015 was communications director for the Kitsap County YMCA. Y management instructed her to draft a policy permitting biological males to use women’s locker rooms, showers and bathrooms. She was told that it was for staff purposes and members would not be informed. When she insisted members should be notified of what they may encounter in previously women-only facilities, she was harassed and eventually fired.
Harms had survived prolonged sexual abuse that started when she was in diapers. Her abuser liked to watch her shower. She well understood the consequences of this policy change for women and girls. However, the change in policy took place without corresponding signage. A year later Washington state enacted its open access law that permits biological men to use women’s facilities.
Since the Y’s attempt to silence her, Harms has become a nationally known advocate for women’s rights and founded Hands Across the Aisle, a coalition of progressive and conservative women, lesbians and evangelical Christians, Democrats and Republicans “who have come together to challenge the ideology of gender.”
Kitsap County YMCAs, Harms told the Free Press, had wide open communal showering areas, with no possibility of privacy for women from biological males who could be showering with them. The Mountain View pool’s women’s showers are modified communal areas with colorful, but inadequate provisions for privacy. Jaman says the curtains billow and move when showers are in use, exposing the user to view. There also appears to be no way a woman using the shower can cover herself when she steps out as there are no hooks for hanging towels or robes within reach.
Mountain View showers. Photo from FB page of Beau Ohlgren of Transgender Support of Jefferson County
Jaman also complains that there was no notice that women could encounter a man in their showers. CEO Bart has replied that the omnipresence of Pride regalia was warning enough.
The Mountain View pool, as we’ve written previously, is no longer a place where many women and girls can feel safe, especially survivors of sexual trauma. The Port Angeles Y now seems like another place where women and girls cannot feel safe.
YMCA Sexual Assaults Nationwide
Across the nation, more and more YMCAs are being revealed as unsafe, with increasing incidents of sexual violence or abuse, sometimes leading to murder.
“A string of sexual assaults on women and children have been reported at YMCAs across the country in just the past few years,” reports The Epoch Times, “dozens more spanning the last two decades.” Cases they cite include:
- In 1968, a man in the women’s bathroom abducted 10-year-old Pamela Powers from the Des Moines, Iowa YMCA. She was sexually assaulted and murdered. See 2014 story by The Des Moines Register.
- In 2019, a male YMCA employee (who had undergone the Y’s vaunted background checks) was convicted of raping a 3-year old and 4-year old at the Wichita, Kansas YMCA.
- Last year, a 19-year-old man was arrested after attacking a woman in the women’s locker room at the East Nashville YMCA. A few months later, another man was arrested after he was found showering in the women’s locker room and peeking under stalls.
- A 19-year-old male employee (who had undergone the Y’s background checks) was convicted in 2019 of second-degree sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl who had been under his supervision in a camp class at the Fulton County, New York YMCA.
- Several YMCAs have been hit with multi-million dollar legal settlements or judgments as the result of sexual assaults against women and girls, and also boys, in their facilities. The Rochester, Minnesota YMCA is currently the subject of a lawsuit by two young women who were sexually assaulted by a 15-year-old male in 2018. He pled guilty to first-degree sexual assault.
A brief search turns up even more incidents of sexual violence and abuse at YMCAs:
- On June 23, 2022, a registered sex offender managed to get into the pool at the Grants Pass, Oregon YMCA and was arrested for physical contact with a 6-year-old girl.
- Just last week, a 24-year-old employee of the Ridgewood YMCA Camp in Pennsylvania was arrested for sexual contact with three girls, all under age 13.
- A class-action lawsuit was filed in 2012 by a man and his wife alleging that YMCAs that advertise themselves as safe and appropriate places for families are actually “brothels” where homosexual men accost and assault men as they “cruise” for sexual relationships.
- In April 2022 a Palm Harbor, Florida couple sued the local YMCA for the sexual assault of their 3-year-old daughter in an area that was supposed to have been under the watchful eye of YMCA staff. This was the second sexual assault in the same YMCA by the same two boys. The YMCA staff person who should have been safeguarding the little girl reportedly told the parents, “What’s the big deal? They [the boys] just wanted to look.”
The culture in YMCAs across the country has shifted dramatically from what previous generations knew. What was, up until recently, considered inconceivable conduct has now been normalized. With that normalization has come the risk of predation and sexual assault of women and children.
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Tyler Abbott’s wife went into labor just as we were publishing this article. We had requested a photo of him to accompany the story and are pleased to present him here with new baby Liam.
[Mr. Abbott wishes to state that at all times in all matters related to this story he was acting solely as an individual citizen and not in any capacity related to his service with the U.S. Coast Guard.]
by Ana Wolpin | Aug 25, 2022 | General
Until a few short weeks ago, I’d never heard the slur “TERF”.
Until the story of Julie Jaman’s ban from the YMCA pool broke, I had no idea that so much trans-activist venom and vitriol had infected our community. Or that people we have invested with positions of power in local government were promoting hatred towards a large swath of our community in deference to an extremist agenda.
TERF stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists. Apparently, when 80-year-old Julie Jaman objected to a man with a penis who “identified” as a transgender woman roaming the YMCA pool locker room where Jaman was naked in the shower, she joined the ranks of TERFs.
If that makes her a TERF, then I must be a TERF, too… along with many, many other community members who have addressed the city and written to the Free Press about this now international story.
One of our readers alerted us to this website that graphically illustrates the violent, even vicious intent behind the acronym.
Like so much of the trans movement, inversions of reality abound. Terms like “discrimination” have been expropriated by those doing the real discriminating onto those being discriminated against. “Exclusionary” and “radical” are likewise inverted, projected onto women simply asking for basic rights when those doing the projecting are the actual radical extremists.
As noted in my previous article, in early August, city leaders betrayed public trust and hammered a wedge unlike any I’ve ever seen in Port Townsend. At the August 1st city council meeting, citizens who expressed concerns about women’s privacy rights were at the receiving end of the inversion, called bigots and trans-haters.
In his summation following public comments, Mayor David Faber joined those doing the name-calling, twisting the narrative from a request for common-sense solutions for women’s privacy in public spaces into a trans-rights call to action, grandstanding behind his mask about hate and discrimination having no place in our “welcoming” community. Those who had actually delivered the hate that night were lauded as the inclusive ones, protecting a special and fragile minority.
Faber’s flamboyant inversion of the story, perched atop his mayoral dais, shocked women’s rights advocates, provoking scrutiny of his social media history. Writer Mandy Stadtmiller is among those who uncovered a misogynistic and “creepy” persona driving our mayor behind the mask.
In her August 16th Substack Rabbitholed, she asked:
“David Faber, the mayor of the town, has been making quite a reputation for himself online since the incident went viral,” wrote Stadtmiller.
“Adding a new layer of shock, an investigation into his social media reveals exactly how disturbing Faber’s creepy online trail is in regularly objectifying and demeaning women and comparing himself to child-pornography-legalization-advocates like the gamer Vaush.”
Wennstrom joins the hate parade.
Mayor Fabor began the charge. But it was city councilor Libby Wennstrom who really fanned the flames, inciting Facebook followers to “show up” to confront the newly-dubbed “trans-haters” at the pool.
In another post, Wennstrom promised she’d be there, too. The prompts found their mark. According to reports, attacks from counter-protestors at the pool were aggressive and full of rancor, shouting down and name-calling a small group of predominantly elderly women who’d hoped to have a conversation.
But that was just a warm up. Wennstrom has now ramped up her hate campaign, escalating the attack with a prominent new Facebook post in which she “updated her cover photo” to a threat against all TERFs:
In a field of hot pink, caught between a giant wave and a steep cliff, we see a woman running for her life. The turquoise message boxing in the scene, shouts “TERFS OUT OF PORT TOWNSEND!”
Wennstrom is promoting a pogrom to rid our town of all women who do not share her ideology about sharing bathrooms with men. If you do not accept that a man with a penis who says he is a woman IS a woman, you are not welcome here.
You now are not only a hater, you’re an exclusionary radical feminist. The image and message of her Facebook graphic implies that your life is in danger if you do not hotfoot it out of town, pronto.
At the August 15 rally at the Pope Marine plaza, Chief of Police Tom Olson reinforced that message. As peaceful, elderly women were being assaulted by an angry mob, police stood directly across the street outside City Hall and watched impassively. People begging for help were told they were “free to leave” and shouldn’t expect any protection because of a “directive” from the top.
Excuses from Olson now range from we are understaffed to we didn’t have enough time to prepare (a week, with state patrol also present) to the crowd was too big. Plus, “All of our officers were primarily focused on an orderly council meeting.”
Yes, the dog-and-pony-show, Pomp and Circumstance city council meeting. Mayor Faber and the rest of council staged their own spectacle that evening, an orchestrated love fest for the trans community followed by a self-congratulatory reading of a proclamation urging “all residents and visitors to be respectful, welcoming, and kind to everyone.” Faber described the proponents for trans rights as “beautiful”.
Just across the street, less than an hour before the virtuous proclamation was adopted, those “beautiful” people were screaming hate at and assaulting fellow residents. Councilor Wennstrom’s hate campaign had drawn a more-than-willing audience. This is what our welcoming, respectful, kind community looked like:
And this:
Screen shot from video taken by Crystal Cox
Central to this conflagration are policies that allow any man claiming to be a woman access to private women’s spaces. Not a single person I heard speak at either the August 1st city council meeting or at the August 15th rally at Pope Marine Park has suggested that people identifying as transgender should be discriminated against, let alone hated. Again, the inverse is true. As one of our readers commented under my previous article, “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.”
The issue being addressed is that all-gender policies are an invasion of privacy and an invitation for sexual predation.
Matt Osborne of The Distance estimates that “somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of men who identify as transgender opt to keep their penises.” They jump on the transgender bandwagon, but avoid surgeries that would alter their genitalia… all the while insisting that they are women who should have access to women’s private spaces. Stories abound of trans inmates sexually assaulting and even getting women pregnant when they are housed in female prisons. Studies show a sharp rise in sexual predation where dressing rooms, school locker rooms and public bathrooms are all-gender. It’s an undisputed fact that when gender boundaries blur, sexual crimes rise.
Let’s talk TERF
But according to the trans-rights narrative, we are being “exclusionary” if we object to our private spaces being violated by a man with a penis who “identifies” as a woman. As I commented in a recent exchange — because a man wants to be and proclaims he is now a woman, no one is to question that, lest we cause hurt feelings. That makes us hateful, bigoted and discriminatory. It’s even worse if we happen to be women; then we are also trans-exclusionary radical feminists. TERFs.
Local women’s rights advocate Amy Sousa explains in this video that There’s No Such Thing as a TERF. It is violent hate speech, she says, “being used to silence women who want to speak out about their sex-based rights.” The images of threatening fists and a woman hanging from a noose at the opening of this article illustrate her point.
Who is being protected is not even clear. As one PTFP reader noted:
“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?”
Women are not allowed to ask these questions, to do so makes us TERFs. And as the option of being “gender-fluid” gains traction in this narrative, your choice of bathrooms, showers and locker rooms can change on a whim. Pop star Demi Lovato recently explained our new gender-fluid reality — today I can be he/him, tomorrow I am they/them, and the next day I choose she/her. Lovato admittedly grapples with confusion over which public bathrooms to use; it all depends on how she feels in the moment.
No one has suggested that any specific trans person in our community is a pedophile or rapist. But if the violent behavior by some who attended the August 15 rally is any indication of the types this movement cultivates, that certainly gives cause for alarm.
Many Free Press readers have shared their distress over the dangerous divide being witnessed. The threat of being ostracized and even fear for their personal safety if they speak out has led many to request anonymity:
“I was there, witnessed and experienced the aggression from what seemed to be out-of-town rent-a-thugs. But there were also locals I knew and recognized dressed in antifa garb, with earpieces, standing to left side of the Cotton Building, watching like spiders. It was creepy and disturbing. As was the robotically-chanting mob. I haven’t felt a part of this place since the start of Covid. But Monday was a full-on rupture.”
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“I saw four women in the speakers area pushed to the ground! I didn’t understand why a perimeter wasn’t set up so the crazed hooligans couldn’t interfere and hurt others. Surely the City and police knew this was going to be contentious or they would not have closed part of the street… Obviously, the City wanted to use this situation to bully by proxy, to crush free speech and compromise democracy.”
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“I can’t imagine wanting to live here after experiencing the obvious set-up and abandonment of local elderly residents. The sight of a Port Townsend Police vehicle or a Pride flag makes my blood run cold. This was pre-meditated assault on law abiding residents.”
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“Had I not witnessed firsthand what transpired, I would never have believed it possible. The behavior of the trans-rights activists — in the name of “love” and “tolerance” — astounded and sickened me… What I witnessed on Monday evening shook me to the core. The videos I’ve watched do not adequately convey the feeling of being there.”
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“I also attended with the intent to observe and came away deeply troubled and sickened by the hatred and rage, violence and mob mentality expressed by my community. I don’t care where these people came from – the TRAs – if paid or invited to agitate. It’s still this community that supported the message of hate and violence under the guise of love and diversity. I don’t know where we go from here. It doesn’t seem that dialogue is possible. Or that truth matters.”
The women being told to “FUCK OFF!” on signs by masked protestors and to get out of town by City Councilor Libby Wennstrom are in large part elders who have contributed decades of their hearts and souls into this community. Many of them are long-time human rights, environmental, and — like myself — peace activists. For simply saying our needs deserve the same consideration as the fantasy of an adolescent boy who suddenly declares himself a woman, we are now undesirables.
Libby Wennstrom is on a mission to rid Port Townsend of us. Jousting and tweeting while Rome is burning, Mayor David J. Faber combines juvenile insults and pompous proclamations in a We’re So Welcoming charade. The rest of the city council seems delighted to be going along for the gaslighting ride. Chief of Police Tom Olson is accomplice, protecting City Hall, not Port Townsend’s residents.
Any woman who does not bow at the alter of the well-funded trans lobby that demands erasure of millennia-long protective boundaries is now a TERF. We are to be driven out of town. Certainly not given the same protections as the now-prioritized trans minority. Or perhaps, as illustrated in the earlier montage, hung by the neck until dead.
From the website
TURF IS A SLUR
Documenting the abuse, harassment and misogyny of transgender identity politics
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“WOMEN OUT OF PORT TOWNSEND” top graphic: @arachoid666 on twitter
by Lee North | Aug 22, 2022 | General
Monday, August 15. I hadn’t initially planned to go to City Hall at all that evening — I had obligations at home and mixed feelings about both sides in this conflict — but the issue was looming large in the community, and I wanted to witness the further unfolding of the Y pool incident for myself, rather than rely on the oft-biased narratives of others.
Port Townsend had drawn attention from across the political spectrum; I’d heard that the Proud Boys were going to be there. They weren’t, but as it turned out, we didn’t need right-wing extremists in order to have violence. Had I not witnessed firsthand what transpired, I would never have believed it possible. The behavior of the trans-rights activists — in the name of “love” and “tolerance” — astounded and sickened me.
Upon arrival, I positioned myself on the perimeter of the rally supporting Julie so that I could attempt to hear what the speakers were saying. I carried no sign nor indicated any allegiance, yet when I took out my phone to film both sides, a burly tattooed man invaded my space, shouting and covering my phone with his hat.
Next came folks on bicycles, weaving through the small crowd, making as much noise as possible and bumping into people (I suppose we are fortunate in this regard the violence came from the left; the Proud Boys would have been driving cars). Behind me, the burly man pushed right up against a couple of women, screaming, “You fucking cunt!” Meanwhile, another man scolded me: “You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“For what?” I asked. “For listening?”
While city councilors were inside City Hall congratulating themselves on their proclamation that “urges all residents and visitors to be respectful, welcoming, and kind to everyone” …outside the mob was anything but. As I continued to watch in disbelief, it became increasingly threatening and unruly.
One woman on a bicycle chanted “No TERFs on our turf!” and bore a sign reinforcing the sentiment. I couldn’t help wondering on what basis she was claiming this as her turf, but not Julie’s. It’s an admittedly catchy slogan, but one that does not stand up to scrutiny, as it promotes the very thing (exclusion) it purports to oppose.
How could the people denigrating Julie as a bully and her supporters as cunts not recognize their own hypocrisy? They were comparing Julie’s supporters with Nazis and the KKK. It is an insult to the memory of the millions actually exterminated by Nazis, and the Black people actually lynched by the KKK to equate those hate groups to peaceful protestors raising concerns about Washington State’s laws on dressing room facilities.
Whatever you may feel about the issue, debating the legislation on single-sex spaces is not genocide nor a prelude to genocide. Reductio ad Hitlerum is just a lazy method of derailment and distraction, in lieu of the difficult work of substantiating a case.
Justifications I have heard for the assault on demonstrators include: council members have received death threats, trans people and people even perceived as trans have been doxxed, harassed and maligned. These actions are contemptible and indefensible, and, I suspect, largely carried out by non-locals who have latched on to this event and are co-opting it to further their own agenda (which likely includes exacerbating in-fighting among progressives).
What I witnessed on Monday evening shook me to the core. The videos I’ve watched do not adequately convey the feeling of being there. As I stood before the mob, images of the January 6th Insurrection came to mind, each sporting its own trappings, but driven by the same motivation: my team and everything it does is right, and your team isn’t just wrong; it’s evil.
There is no space between opposing sides for any discussion, question, or disagreement. The lines are drawn — fall into formation. Utter any reservations and you will be castigated, canceled and exiled. This is not democratic behavior, where all participants are citizens with rights; groupthink and mob violence are more commonly associated with fascism.
As I was leaving, I stopped to thank one woman for her courage to be there. Because no matter how you feel about the issue, it took courage to stand there in the face of the hateful, angry mob that outnumbered them tenfold. When I got several blocks away, I stopped and let the tears flow.
Photo above submitted by author.
Top photo: screen shot of the “burly tattooed man” who assaulted numerous people, from video taken by Robert Zerfing.
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Additional Free Press articles on the Julie Jaman/YMCA/City of PT story:
8/2/22 – Mountain View Pool Punishes Woman For Her Gender Expression and Identity
8/4/22 – Censored: Men’s Eyes in Women’s Shower Room
8/10/22 – Mountain View Pool No Longer Safe for Many Women and Girls
8/12/22 – Mayor Deflects Backlash Over Men in Women’s Showers at YMCA, Virtue Signals About Trans Rights Instead
8/16/22 – Women Seeking Civil Rights Stand Up to Mob Hatred and Intimidation in Port Townsend
8/18/22 – Reporting from the Frontlines of the Woke Battlefield
by Annette Huenke | Aug 18, 2022 | General
How to share an evening from hell.
This is my dilemma, as I attempt to regain balance after witnessing what I’d previously considered fellow human beings descend into hate-filled and menacing nihilists who felt such righteousness of cause, any questioning of method or motive was well and truly gone.
I am rocked to my core — by the debasement of civil discussion, debasement of the female archetype, and certainly the debasement of what little is left of a democratic process. It wasn’t just the energetic pulse of angry discord and intended chaos. It was beholding advanced societal decay of the most disturbing sort.
Perhaps most heartbreaking was a palpable recognition that there is no longer a place for innocence in childhood. The formative years are and will be managed by dark and sinister forces over which we have no agency. The gains that women have made in the last century are being erased before our very eyes.
Trans activists attempt to obscure women speakers
On Monday evening, August 15th, I arrived at Pope Marine park about ten minutes before the press conference called by local women’s rights activist Amy Sousa was scheduled to begin. Various crowds were milling, it was difficult to discern sympathies of a number of groups — particularly younger (20 to 40-year-old) women — at that time.
Others’ lines were clearly drawn, through costume, signs or position. I observed that a lot of younger gals were unmasked, standing back quietly. They had no visible signs of intention, not making the ruckus that others were ramping up in aural and physical displays. Eventually, though, they did join in the chanting intended to drown out the speakers’ voices.
I and others were walking the perimeter (of what were mostly our supporters) with large umbrellas facing toward the growing crowd, attempting to block the louder shouters and hold some sort of line. A brigade of bicyclists with flags and signs wove dangerously through the thick of the supporters. Some were hit by pedals and handlebars, including Julie Jaman. Our efforts to prevent this were fruitless. The police had disappeared from the park but for one.
When Amy Sousa, the event’s organizer and first speaker, took to the microphone, the staging area at ground level was open and clear. A modest portable sound system, a small bouquet of flowers, and two Suffragette flags adorned the brick wall of the Pope Marine Park building, the site of this city-permitted gathering.
By that time, all of the police who had been milling about left the area and serious agitation began. The open ground began filling with people closing in on the other scheduled speakers and Julie’s supporters. The rainbow-clad and black-garbed agitators honked horns, blew whistles, banged noisemakers, shouted and screamed.
By the time Julie Jaman, the second person to speak, took the microphone, the crowd was growing so menacing that her supporters circled her for protection.
A masked young man wearing a tan shirt that read Discharge sat down not far from the speakers and began heeling himself around on his backside, somersaulting and reeling in circles, constantly trying to get in amongst the women’s legs. No effort to repel him was successful. A 4-minute video by Robert Zerfing captured his antics. A 10 to 12-year-old boy wearing orange camouflage pants, who stayed on his feet, was often his steadfast little lieutenant, providing cover and distraction as he darted in and out of the group.
It wasn’t long before the ever-growing crowd began to move in on us, becoming more threatening and assaultive as they did. Within ten minutes, the speakers couldn’t be heard from 20 feet away. While Julie was speaking, the crowd exploded with screaming and chants. She could not be heard outside her immediate circle at all.
As Jim Scarantino reported late Monday night, “she was assaulted when she finished speaking, with the live feed going black during the scuffle.” The Discharge shirt young man was toppling and shoving people, and Julie was left with a severely sprained ankle. She has filed assault charges with the police with identifying photos.
The videographer who posted the 4-minute clip above covered the entire event, from before it began until police escorted Julie Jaman to her car, catching a short interview with her at the end. Fortunately, he positioned himself close enough to the speakers that you can hear some of what they say.
Assaulting a tattooed bodybuilder’s vagina
What are we to make of a guy who obviously splits his time between the gym and tattoo parlor, and shows up at a trans rally insisting that we wanted to assault his vagina? What kind of toxin is in his mind to be thinking or saying such a thing? I told him “Apparently you’ve already done that to yourself. You genitally mutilated your own body.” He slithered away wordlessly. Before long, he returned with a vengeance, body-slamming me from behind. Soon after, he returned and knocked Rachelle Merle to the brick pavement.
After body-slamming me from behind, the tattooed bodybuilder knocked Rachelle Merle to the ground.
He was the loudest and most persistent, with only seconds-long breaks between shouted taunts. He marched through the crowd with a huge Pride flag, often holding the flag and dragging the stick so that it was hitting people, including Julie. He banged a noisemaker on the ground.
What are we to make of his tee shirt sporting the slogan “Hang in there, BABY!” with the illustration of a Ku Klux Klansman hanging from a tree? (See photo at top.) Is the klansman image a cover for the real message — death to babies?
The assaults ramp up.
Many of the rabble-rousers seemed to be practiced operators, setting little brush fire melees here and there. Some involved real assault, others just threatening and intimidating. A small male wearing a gator burst out of nowhere and slapped the phone out of the hand of a protector standing next to me. It landed ten feet away, the assailant was gone. One of our group sprinted after him without luck.
Gabrielle Clark, a Black civil rights worker who was one of the speakers, used her body to shield the sound equipment. Others tried to create a human ring to shield the speakers.
A number of us, myself included, ran across the street to beg the police, who had gathered at the stairs of City Hall, to come help protect us.
Serve and Protect?
Repeatedly asked for help, law enforcement hung back, refusing to cross the street and stop assaults.
The police refused to move from their positions, saying that if we didn’t feel safe, we should leave.
Here is a full report from one of Julie’s supporters:
“I observed the city police officers withdrawing from the edge of the press release/rally area until they were all clustered around the front of city hall.
As the trans support crowd became increasingly violent, I ran over to the police and pleaded for help explaining that the crowd was pushing and assaulting a number of people. The police chief responded ‘we’ve been given our directives and if you feel unsafe you should leave.’
I turned to one of the other policemen standing there that I recognized as having been at the perimeter of the rally area and asked ‘you were over there before, why are you not there now?’ And he said ‘we’ve been given our directives and I stayed as long as I could.’ (reading between the lines I believe he was implying that he had been ordered to leave).
Also, in my recollection, the City Police didn’t engage until the State Police showed up and went directly into the area where trans protesters were being violent towards the rally participants.”
She wrapped up with the following, which she was firm in clarifying is only her opinion and not (yet) proven fact:
“It’s clear to me that the rally/press release participants were the object of a city endorsed ambush.
My heart is broken in the face of humanity’s erosion to — once again — condoning violence against women from men — particularly that the strategy of assault was set in play by city officials.
…I’m speechless and shell shocked.”
Police Chief Tom Olson
Hmmm. “We’ve been given our directives.” By whom? Asking for a friend…
Another videographer caught police response on camera. The Chief stood back cooly, choosing to leave it to his minions to speak, as the side he’d already taken a stand for was right there behind him.
About a minute in, you’ll hear concerns from a couple of men regarding the lack of police presence near the speakers. After a stunning period of Who, me? moments, officer Kamal Sharif responds, “Please let the folks there know that if you don’t feel safe being there, you’re free to leave.”
Officer Kamal Sharif, at right, explains their current directive.
That’s nice of the PTPD, to return one of our own messengers with the message that we’re “free” to leave. Defending the cops, a woman with a Pride flag opined “It’s okay, they have to look out for themselves, too. It’s not safe for them…” as the audio trails off, becoming difficult to decipher.
This is from Chief Olson’s official PTPD webpage:
“Communication is essential towards building public trust. The Port Townsend Police Department will always strive to be open, transparent, and work together with the community to ensure our citizens are heard and valued. I passionately believe in the sanctity of life, meaning every person, no matter what their circumstances, is valued and their life is sacred.”
As Ana Wolpin observed in her last article, “All people are entitled to basic respect, but some people are more entitled than others.”
The speakers tried to carry on as the fury of the crowd intensified, along with the physical and verbal abuse. Jim Scarantino reported going back across the street to the police. “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.”
He returned to the speakers and saw the assaults continuing. He recalls, “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.’”
Within minutes, State Patrol officers filed in with some PTPD officers in tow. They went to the pier side of the speakers and hung back for a very long time, after announcing that they were going to clear the area in ten minutes. They watched along with the crowd around them as the Dispatch teenager, squatting to the ground, planted his head against the crotch of one of our defenders.
The 10-year old lieutenant courageously covered him.
An ever-present black-masked man who appeared to be in his 50’s wearing a ball cap—the only identifying aspect was a little pigtail poking out from shaved sides of his head—leaned into the inner circle behind those kids. He sported a black tee shirt with a gruesome graphic that said Capitalism is a death cult.
Why and what was he doing there? What is that man’s investment in this project? Is he a paid provocateur? Antifa?
Finally the Troopers took action, and began waving back the trans horde in a time to get going manner. I could not hear what they were saying. I was on the north side of the speakers’ circle, so didn’t see what transpired after that, but video documentation reveals some details.
Police attempted to grab the Dispatch young man, but he ran off without pursuit.
The child with the camo pants continued moving through the crowd. They handcuffed the man wearing the Capitalism is a death cult tee shirt and took him away. Did he spend the night in jail? The JeffCo Sheriff’s roster doesn’t indicate that to be the case. Did they take him down to the ferry dock and let him out of the car with a firm finger wagging? That would not surprise at this point.
Were any of these troublemakers local residents?
The tattooed bully claimed to be a local, screaming at the woman in front of him “You came to my town to protest, and you’re telling me I’m harassing you?” I’ve never seen him, nor any of the other belligerents, before.
Where did all those bicyclists come from? Do they live here? Was this protest coordinated by some Seattle or Portland trans lobby organizer? Did the mayor help facilitate it? A Public Records Request has been filed to find the answers to those questions. Do we have reason to trust the city to return truthful records requests? I wonder.
Isn’t it interesting how beneficial the last two years of mask theater have been to this particular angle of the ‘new world order’ agenda? Faceless perpetrators of criminal mischief and violence that the police refuse to be even bothered by.
As the event wound down, the ironic chant coming from the cacophonous mob reverberated throughout the entire waterfront —
NO HATE HERE!!! NO HATE HERE!!! NO HATE HERE!!!
Top photo: Jim Scarantino.
Additional images captured from videos taken by Crystal Cox and Robert Zerfing.
** I wish to acknowledge and thank Ana Wolpin, my co-editor and dear friend, for making this article possible. It was her idea for me to put my witnessing of this event into words at a time that I was so raw, so rattled by what I experienced that night, it was the last thing on earth I wanted to consider. That is what good editors do. She spent the better part of two days exploring various footage and taking most of the screen shots that appear in this article, as I wrote my recollections. Without Ana, you would not be reading this today. Now is also a good time for me to express my gratitude to Ana, Stephen and Jim, without whom the Port Townsend Free Press would not exist. While I’m at it, thank you all, readers. You are why we continue to volunteer to do this work. ~ Annette
*** 11/23/22, correction made to all references of the Dispatch shirt-wearing male: he is in his early twenties, not a teenager.
by Jim Scarantino | Aug 16, 2022 | General
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.”
by Ana Wolpin | Aug 12, 2022 | General
“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
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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)
They watched along with the crowd around them as the Dispatch teenager, squatting to the ground, planted his head against the crotch of one of our defenders.
The 10-year old lieutenant courageously covered him.
Why and what was he doing there? What is that man’s investment in this project? Is he a paid provocateur? Antifa?
At the podium, the nine year old explained through a mask:
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.