I’ve been a member at the Ocean Community YMCA (OCY) in Westerly, Rhode Island, since I was a kid. I basically grew up going there with my friends to play basketball and attend the Friday night teen dances they once had. When I’m not on the road for work, I’m at the YMCA at 6am to work out, every day but Sunday. It’s a part of me.
Last October, after having read numerous stories of a female teen being shocked, upset, and frightened at seeing a naked male, who identified as a female, in the women’s locker room of her Santee, CA YMCA, I decided to do some digging. I wanted to see what my YMCA’s transgender bathroom and locker room policies were. So I called. And called. And called some more. Finally, a staff member told me that they were “working on a policy,” and to check back in a month. So I did, and was again told by this same person that they were still “working on a policy.” I began to feel as if I was being blown off. Turned out, I was.
Then I began calling and asking for higher-ups: Branch Manager, HR Director, Executive Director. I did get one call back, and was told, yet again, that a policy was being worked on.
Then, I read about a man who identified as a woman, who was charged with three counts of indecent exposure for incidents occurring at the Xenia, OH YMCA in 2021 and 2022, as he paraded around, naked, in the women’s locker room. I wanted to make sure that these incidents, which were clearly made possible by foolish and unsafe policies, would not have the possibility of happening at my YMCA. Not in my town.
Wanting to finally get an answer to my original question, between October of 2022 and February of 2023, I probably called my YMCA ten to twelve times, and got nothing. But then, February 21st, I received a call back from VP of Operations and HR Director. They informed me that patrons of the YMCA could “undress, shower, and dress in the locker room of the sex with which they identify”. That was not what I was hoping to hear. My fears were well founded. Males and females could, in fact, dress and shower in the very same locker room at my hometown YMCA.
These administrators called my concern of having males and females in the same locker room “irrelevant.” Even though I cited the incidents in California and Ohio, they dismissed me, accusing me of “not caring about transgender people”. They told me that there has never been an incident and assured me that everyone was safe. I guess we have to wait for an incident in order to protect our girls and women. I am not prepared to do that.
That same day, I even called the YMCA of the USA national office in Chicago, and asked to speak with CEO Suzanne McCormick, but her gatekeeper dismissed me like the Westerly YMCA administrators did, when I asked her if the YMCA, as a national organization, had a transgender bathroom and locker room policy. She called the YMCA of the USA’s transgender policy, “advisory.”
The next day, February 22nd, 2023, I sent a letter to OCY Executive Director voicing my safety concerns, and letting her know that I didn’t appreciate the way her staff spoke to me. I wrote:
“It seems to be the case today that virtually anything goes, as long as a member of a “marginalized” group feels inclusivity is being practiced. What about the women who are forced to see a man, naked or otherwise, in their locker room? Who is being marginalized here? This is not right, and it is flat out dangerous. You are deliberately putting our female members in harm’s way, and it must stop.”
I continued:
“Also, nowhere in the YMCA’s policy that I could find (YMCA of the USA or OCY) does it say anything about a person being able to utilize bathrooms or locker rooms according to the gender with which they identify. Why is this? And why did it take so long for me to get an answer to my question? I think we all know why. Too volatile an issue.”
I copied the Association Board of Directors on my letter but have not yet received any response from them.
What about the rights of the girls and women whose privacy would be violated by having males in their locker room? Why do they have to be subjected to this, in a place where they were supposed to feel safe? I continued:
“I am a Christian and, therefore, care about all people. No exceptions. That said, we must develop a solution to this issue prior to it becoming something more. I would be happy to be a part of that solution. It doesn’t seem very Christian of the Young Men’s Christian Association to value a warped sense of inclusion over morality, safety, and common sense. You have an obligation to value and protect the safety and privacy of ALL of your members.”
I received the OCY Executive Director’s reply on March 8th, 2023, and her stance was clear. In her letter, she stated:
“The Ocean Community YMCA welcomes all people in our communities to use our facilities regardless of their gender identity, and our policies reflect that commitment. No person has lesser rights than another to use areas within our facilities where users can change clothing and/or shower. “
No kidding. I neither said nor implied that all people shouldn’t be welcomed at our YMCA. She totally made that up. However, while there are “private” areas within each female or male designated locker rooms where members can shower and dress, the fact remains that these “private” areas are still located within the locker rooms, and who uses them is based on the sex with which they identify. She went on to say:
“Your letter implies that transgender people pose a safety risk to others. The OCY also categorically rejects your suggestion that allowing transgender people to use our locker room facilities is immoral. The OCY is committed to serve all people in our communities and will proudly continue to do so”.
Nowhere in my letter did I imply that transgender people, as a matter of course, pose a safety risk to others. I simply pointed out four documented incidents which have happened in the last two years at two other YMCAs as evidence that males and females must not occupy the same locker rooms, regardless of the sex with which they identify. Hardly the same thing.
Leadership of my local YMCA first stonewalled me for five months, then unloaded on me, first verbally, then in writing, totally distorting my words and outright ignoring the incidents at the CA and OH YMCAs, as well as the Loudoun County high school. I, apparently, was the one in the wrong for simply not bending the knee and capitulating, daring to question the morality of a 5 year-old girl having to share a locker room with a teenage boy, pretending to be a girl.
Though I’m not naive enough to think these things happen in a vacuum, I never thought this would ever happen at my YMCA in my hometown. Bigger cities? Yes. Westerly, RI? No way.
Perhaps my best advice to anyone reading this story is that, if it can go on in Westerly, RI, it can go on anywhere, including your hometown. Be vigilant. Ask questions. Demand answers. Hold people accountable. Your safety, as well as that of your kids and grandkids, are at stake.
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