“Women Are Now at Risk of Unwanted Exposure to the Opposite Sex”
Written by Julie J.
I swim weekly at the YMCA Mountain View pool in Port Townsend, Washington. My family has used the pool for 35 years. While showering after my weekly swim, I heard a man’s voice.
I looked past the curtain and saw a man dressed in a woman's bathing suit watching little girls take down their swimsuits in order to use the restroom. I told him to leave. It happened that a Y staff person was in the room, and I asked her to get him out of the dressing room. Instead, she immediately told me - while I was standing in the shower, unable to exit - that I was being discriminatory, that I would no longer be allowed to swim at the pool, and she had called the police.
I went to the police station just next door to report my experience. I received a call from a Port Townsend police detective, and I had a conversation with the Y’s CEO, Wendy Bart. This, so far, is not a legal incident. However, the CEO provided some information of concern. Ms. Bart told me she assumes the posted “pride” signs indicating the Y welcomes all people is “adequate for women to know crossdressers and men who identify as women will be using the women’s dressing/shower room.” And she told me that it is the law not to discriminate against such people and that she was standing by her staff person’s decision to exclude me from the pool.
In the long ago history of the YMCA there was also the YWCA; working for the human rights and dignity of women and girls to protect them from violence. Nationally, women continue to lose their personal rights to choose; they, along with little girls, are forced to use mixed-sex facilities and are experiencing increased encounters with peeping toms and assault in showers, dressing rooms, and toilets - at schools, gyms, prisons, and now, potentially, at our local pool.
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 do not want to use mixed-sex bathing and dressing areas. Although the Y does check to see if pool patrons have been convicted of sex crimes, a lack of separate facilities poses a potential danger of undignified and illegal behavior.
The policy fails to be inclusive at Mountain View pool because women are now at risk of unwanted exposure to the opposite sex. If we object, we will no longer be allowed to use the pool. Is this how the Y intends to secure the safety and dignity of all its patrons - a YMCA principle?
Just as the City has installed special doors and spaces for handicapped people, the YMCA should provide an all-gender changing area as well as binary facilities to accommodate all patrons. The YMCA should immediately post clear signage indicating the existing dressing/shower rooms can be accessed and used by the opposite sex. Also, all parents who send their children to YMCA programs should be informed that men are allowed to accompany little girls into the dressing and bathroom areas.
Julie J.
Quimper Peninsula, WA
Read More: Letters From the Front
