transgender

A female police officer is suing the city of Norfolk, Virginia and its police chief for $15 million after the police department forced her to unknowingly share a women’s locker room with a male who identifies as a female. 

Army veteran and practicing Catholic Meghan Grabow filed a lawsuit this month claiming the city of Norfolk, through their police department, intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her by forcing her to change in front of a man identifying as a woman. 

Grabow also claims the police department denied her right to exercise her religion by being required to refer to the male recruit with female pronouns.

The former Norfolk Police Officer is seeking $15 million in compensatory damages, according to The Virginian-Pilot. 

The suit describes an incident on August 12, 2024, when Grabow was changing in a women’s locker room at a downtown police station. She alleges on that day, the department’s new “transgender” recruit – a man – walked in on Grabow in her underwear. Although the man claimed to “identify” as a woman, Grabow reported he wore men’s clothing and looked at her “as a man looks at a woman.” 

Multiple sources report when Grabow complained about the incident to police officials, she was told to either “learn to deal with it” or “find another locker room.” Grabow also claims she was advised to “take her gun into the shower” if she felt unsafe. 

The incident sparked significant controversy throughout the police station. One female police officer allegedly objected to the man’s presence in the women’s locker room, but said the department “made no accommodations.”

Another woman reported a separate encounter in the locker room, during which the male recruit used her towel and saw her in her sports bra.

Norfolk Officer Martin Powers reportedly supported Grabow and the other women, stating the department failed to notify female officers that a male identifying as a woman would begin using the female locker room. 

“How is that going to work?” asked Powers. “Where does this person, what shower do they use, what locker room? Are we figuring this out?”

In a meeting a few days after Grabow’s complaint, Norfolk Police Chief Mark Talbot allegedly directed all officers to refer to the male recruit as “she.” Talbot also stated he was not legally required to notify female officers of the male recruit’s presence in the locker room.

Officer Jennifer Baron spoke up in the meeting, saying the lack of notification regarding the “transgender” recruit’s presence “makes us feel dismissed, invisible, and not valued.”

Talbot responded:

Baron later told Talbot, “We are feeling violated. There’s a lot of pent-up frustration. … I don’t feel safe or protected at my job.”

The Virginian-Pilot cited portions of the lawsuit, which is not yet public: 

Her suit also describes the Norfolk Police Department’s alleged retaliation against her for speaking up. 

Grabow’s fiancé, a Norfolk police sergeant, was reportedly warned not to talk about the incident and reminded that “his promotion was on the line.” 

Grabow also claims in 2025, Norfolk Police Department indefinitely suspended her without payment due to a minor traffic violation that occurred prior to the locker room incident. She had been a Norfolk Officer since 2017.

Officer Powers was also terminated from the department. He is suing for $5 million on violations of religious freedom and retaliatory firing. 

Five other female officers have willingly left the Norfolk Police Department, “at least in part” due to the transgender recruit issue, The Virginian-Pilot reports. The male recruit who used the women’s locker room has also reportedly left the department. 

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California mother Shana Gaviola surrendered on Monday to authorities to begin a three year prison sentence. 

Her crime?

In official legalese, Gaviola was convicted of interstate violation of a protection order, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2262(a)(2), and aiding and abetting that offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2.

But her story is a lot more layered and complex than dry legal language suggests.

In short, Shana Gaviola went to prison because she attempted to rescue her son from the irreversible harm and damage brought about by his sexual confusion.

For the last decade, Shana has been navigating a nightmare. When her son, Blake, was just 13 years old, he announced he was “transgender” and wanted his mother and three younger siblings to call him “Brianna.” They correctly refused to do so.

Shana, a single mother, was shocked to learn that Blake had been seeing a counselor at his public school in Fresno, Calif. It was during those secret sessions that the school official fed his confusion and delusion and even suggested the boy consider mutilating surgery to address and align his physical anatomy with his feelings and emotions.

Shortly thereafter, police records indicate that Blake was arrested and accused of abusing a seven-year-old child in the family’s neighborhood. It’s not clear how those charges were fully addressed and resolved. But overwhelmed by it all, Shana turned to an area “friend” she thought would help. 

To give some breathing room to the tension in the Gaviola home, and to protect her own children from their sexually confused brother, Blake moved in with the other family. Tragically, the individual with whom Shana entrusted her son only fed and affirmed the boy’s confusion and made the situation even worse. 

When Shana tried to bring Blake back home, the teen claimed he was being mistreated and harassed by his mother. 

Translation: His distraught mom was refusing to play along and affirm his claim he was a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

In July of 2021, the boy applied for and received a restraining order against his mother.

Desperate to try and prevent her son from making a destructive, life-altering decision, Shana Gaviola turned to a Christian boarding school in Missouri that she believed had a reputation for helping young people sort out such confusion. Unwilling to voluntarily go, Shana hired a “transport team” composed of former law enforcement officials to move Blake from Fresno to the new facility.

Despite having a restraining order against her, Gaviola’s lawyers have said their client believed she still had legal authority to choose and direct her minor son’s care.

As it turned out, that legally fraught decision only compounded an already troubled and rapidly evolving situation. The team transporting Blake restrained him during the 27-hour drive. The school would later be shut down after officials there were accused of abusing the students.

The family “friend” who Blake had been living with reportedly financially helped his biological father go and retrieve Blake from the Missouri school. 

Shana Gaviola was indicted on the charges in 2022 by the Biden Justice Department, and in December of 2025, after a five-day trial, Shana Gaviola was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.

It should be noted that prosecutors successfully prevented many of the troubling details surrounding Blake’s school years from being shared at the trial, including the sexual abuse allegations. 

To be clear, Gaviola has been open that she could have done some things differently and that she trusted and relied on some people who, in hindsight, she was unwise to work with.

“As a mother, I did what I believed was necessary to protect not only my child, but other children as well,” Gaviola has said. With her now in custody, Shana’s remaining minor children will be living with relatives.

“Instead of support, I was handed a prison sentence,” she stated. “I would not be going to prison if I had done nothing. That’s the part I can’t accept – the law was safe for the mother who looks away, and unforgiving to the one who didn’t.”

The one silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud? According to reports, Blake has yet to pursue destructive gender surgery.

At this point, Shana Gaviola’s final legal play is a presidential pardon, which she has officially requested through her attorneys. Various parental rights groups have been encouraging supporters to petition President Trump on Gaviola’s behalf.

President Trump has yet to publicly comment on the request for clemency or the campaign to pardon Shana Gaviola. Please join us praying for this tragic situation.