80-Year-Old Feminist Banned from Washington State YMCA for Warning Other Women About Male Bodies in Locker Room

On July 26, an 80-year-old woman and self-professed feminist, was minding her own business at her local YMCA in Port Townsend, WA when it happened.

A man who claimed to be a woman was in the very small women’s changing room while young girls changed their bathing suits. Showering behind a curtain at the time, Ms. Julie Jamal was startled to hear a man’s clear voice in the changing room. She hurriedly peeked out from the shower to see what was going on. She explains she saw “a man in a woman swimsuit.” He was a YMCA employee who, it turns out, claims to be a self-proclaimed “trans woman.”

Jamal is known in her small community as a feminist activist fighting for local resources to help battered and abused women. She freaked out that a man was watching little girls change, and did so unapologetically. She swims regularly at this local pool.

Admittedly stunned, the octogenarian confidently and assertively asked, “Do you have a penis?” He responded, “It’s none of your business.” Jamal than said, with the no-non-sense feminine confidence of her years, “You need to get out of here right now.”

The moment Ms. Jaman said this, another Y employee, a woman, came in and Jaman told her she must “get him outta here.” Jaman explained, this female employee said, “Without skipping a beat, you’re discriminating, and you are out of the pool forever!” The employee added, “And I am calling the cops.”

Ms. Jamal certainly was not rewarded for her grandmamma bear protective action. Rather, it got her banned for life from the YMCA she has frequented for years. She was accused of being transphobic and unjust.

Yes, that’s messed up. Big time.

Jaman was told by the second YMCA employee, “You are not following Y principles and values.” Such a claim is curious given that “Young Men” and “Young Women” are in the very titles of the organization. They were founded with the precise mission of serving sex distinct people. Jaman wisely responded to this employee, “I do not respect ideologies, but I do respect human beings.” She added, “Women who use this locker room may have been assault victims and this is not right.” Such woman, along with most others, do not want to change will men are watching.

The employees at the Y did call the police, who Jamal says were very respectful to her when they arrived. But the case has escalated to her local city council because it appears as if the YMCA actually has the law on their side, similar to what happened nearly one year ago at the Los Angeles-based Wi Spa when a customer complained about a naked man being in the woman’s changing area. Washington State law WAC 162-32-060 went into effect December 2015 stating public facilities…

shall not request or require an individual to use a gender-segregated facility that is inconsistent with that individual’s gender expression or gender identity, or request or require an individual to use a separate or gender-neutral facility. (emphasis added)

What this means is anyone’s personal, subjective feelings about their “gender identity” or “gender expression” – which are not actually real things – must be considered over and above the reality of anyone else’s actual biological sex. In fact, this same Washington State law explains who instead must make the adjustment…

If another person expresses concern or discomfort about a person who uses a facility that is consistent with the person’s gender expression or gender identity, the person expressing discomfort should be directed to a separate or gender-neutral facility, if available.

This law is pure gender ideology and it demands that real females who express concern that real men are using their woman’s space are the trouble makers and must be forced to use separate facilities.

But this 80-year-old feminist is not fooled in the least with his radical turn of what it means to be a woman. She explained in an interview, “Through this experience, I am learning quite a bit.” All this is “unfolding as a belief system, like an ideology.”

After having to answer to the police, Jamal came back to the Y to hold up a sign to all entering warning that men were being welcomed to change in women’s spaces. In fact, her sign said, “Men who identify as women are using the women’s shower/dressing room.” She was told by the Y and gender activists she couldn’t state this basic fact.

They said she must admit that any man who says he is woman IS a woman. Period. That is indeed ideology and Jamal explains the insanity of all this, “If someone says they are woman, they are woman, no questions asked.” Even if that person is a male with male genitalia.
Jamal said there was no mistaking this YMCA employee was indeed a man. When asked by journalists if this man was “passing as a woman” she laughed. “Not to my ears and eyes. I was very alert. My instincts were all reeved up.” She continues in staccato fashion, “I knew something. Was. Not. Right. I knew it, knew it.”

But Washington State law says she must accept that men can be women, but she refuses to play along.

Jamal explained that her personal and political orientation is to always advocate for the underdog, for the persecuted. She explained, “I have demonstrated this all through my life.” But she explains, with this push of gender ideology, “I am sensing at this point” that women are being erased.

This conflict started with an elderly woman who has been life-long feminist simply protesting men being in a locker room while young girls were changing and has progressed to her town’s city council with no resolve.

In the meantime, she cannot continue to stay young with her regular swims at the Y. She finds its no longer fun there.

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