82-Year-Old Woman Banned from YMCA for Objecting to Male in Ladies’ Locker Room Wins Her Fight
“She told me that I was being discriminatory and not following the YMCA principles and values.”
In July 2022, Port Townsend, Washington, resident Julie Jaman, then 80-years-old, was banned for life from her local YMCA pool. Her crime? Objecting to the presence of a biological male in the women’s locker room.
Several days after the incident, she shared her story in an interview on KIRO Newsradio’s The Dori Monson Show.
Jaman had been a regular at the pool for 35 years when she encountered a man dressed in a women’s bathing suit in the shower and changing area of the facility.
“I saw a man in a woman’s bathing suit watching maybe four or five little girls pulling down their suits in order to use the toilet,” Jaman recalled. “I asked if he had a penis and he said it was none of my business. I told that man to ‘get out right now.’”
She told a pool staff member what had happened. Jaman said she was “stunned” when the staff member accused her of “being discriminatory,” informed her that she was “permanently banned from the pool,” and said they were contacting the police.
“She didn’t ask me what the problem was, if I was okay, nothing about me. It’s as if she was just waiting to pounce on me. It was just stunning.”
As she was leaving, another staff member approached Jaman. “She told me that I was being discriminatory and not following the YMCA principles and values. I told her I respect all human beings and I’m not following any ideology.”
Jaman told Monson about a conversation she’d had with Olympic Peninsula YMCA CEO Wendy Bart:
I told her there were no signs posted to give women warning. She said there were Pride posters posted all over and she assumed that was adequate to inform women what to expect.
That’s fine with me, except that they do not provide alternatives for women who choose not to be undressing in front of men. Our pool is a very old pool. We just have two shower rooms, dressing rooms, one for men, one for women.
Jaman’s experience came to the attention of the Center for American Liberty, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group dedicated to protecting the civil liberties of American citizens. CAL filed a lawsuit against the Olympic Peninsula YMCA and the City of Port Townsend in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to defend Jaman’s First Amendment right to free speech.
According to a CAL news release, “the lawsuit asserted that city officials and YMCA staff violated Jaman’s constitutional rights when they banned her for speaking out about safety concerns involving young girls.”
This story made national news at the time. Legal Insurrection covered it here.
And nearly three years later, her story has a happy ending. On Tuesday, CAL announced that Jaman, now 82, had won a $65,000 settlement.
CAL CEO Mark Trammell called Jaman’s settlement “a major victory for free speech and civil liberties.”
🚨BREAKING: 82-year-old Julie Jaman wins $65K settlement after being banned from her local YMCA pool for objecting to men in the women’s locker room.
We're proud to officially announce this HUGE win. Free speech isn’t dead and we’re here to prove it! pic.twitter.com/lCNwjrcA4j
— Center for American Liberty (@Liberty_Ctr) July 1, 2025
“This case was never just about one woman being banned from a publicly owned pool, it was about the fundamental right of every American to speak truth without fear of retaliation,” Trammell said. “Julie Jaman bravely stood her ground, endured attacks on her character, and today’s settlement affirms that government officials cannot silence dissenting voices through intimidation or retribution.”
Jaman is quoted in the news release as well. She said, “I never imagined that expressing concerns about the safety and privacy of women and girls would lead to me being shunned and banned. I’m grateful that justice has been served and that my voice was heard. This is a victory for common sense, women’s rights, and the right to speak the truth.”
Jaman is far from the first woman to object to a biological male entering what has always been a sex-specific space. From college swim teams to the halls of Congress, women across the country are standing up to the lunacy the Left has tried to force us to accept.
We are standing up and saying, “Enough.” Call us transphobic. We do not care. This isn’t about hatred or fear. We simply don’t want men in our private spaces.
It’s time to stop endlessly accommodating the demands of a small group and start prioritizing the privacy, safety, and dignity of women and girls. It’s pretty simple: women’s locker rooms and restrooms exist for a reason. These are places where women should feel secure, not spaces where they have to worry about biological men walking in. This is not about exclusion; it’s about common sense and basic respect. Women and girls should not be forced to sacrifice their comfort and security to serve a political agenda. We can support everyone’s rights without ignoring biological reality — and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so.
Remember the 82-year-old lady who was banned by the YMCA in Port Townsend because she complained about a transformer in the women's bathroom?
She just won 65k in a settlement. The problem is, though, Julie Jaman is still banned from going to the YMCA.
Why does the YMCA think… pic.twitter.com/ehPFN1ZIOW
— Beth Dutton (@1BethDutton) July 1, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Being banned for the YMCA at 82 , because your a woman and do t want perverts In the woman’s bathroom
Where are the other women?
It’s Port Townsend.
If you are not familiar with the area: This 82 year old woman has a yard full of Biden/Ferguson/BLM/Ukraine/We Believe signs.
She just never thought through the consequences of her voting impacting her… she was just fine with the High School girls having to share the locker rooms at with creepy boys. My daughter being assaulted by boy in the locker room was a price she was willing to pay, but having her she-biz exposed to a perv was a bridge too far.
Not too far for her to vote all Dem in every election for the rest of her live though.
Thanks for the story behind the story. This octogenarian is just a damned, elitist hypocrite. She can go to hell.
No, you should go to hell. You are the elitist hypocrite.
Shut up, you putz. Here, you’re in no position to call ANYONE a hypocrite.
Take a hike.
No, you should go to hell. In the interests of national hygiene.
“no u”
“… she was just fine with the High School girls having to share the locker rooms at with creepy boys”
ANd your proof of that is,?
Nobody supports those politicians and those causes who is not fine with that. If they aren’t fine with it, they don’t dare say so. I, too, am in Washington State. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who thinks that way.
Or, maybe at her age, she was not particularly politically aware. When she saw something that concerned her, though, she spoke up (and was punished as a result).
DaveG is correct.
Windy… She might be in her 80s now, but she was once in her 60s. In that area, they are all political group-think-aware and have been forever.
I’ve known that area since the 1980s and went to a summer camp there.
Washington State XC Cross country championships were there for a couple of years. I have friends who moved NEAR to there.
Port Townsend makes the local news in Western Wa and never for sane reasons. It’s where leftist hippies go to live the quiet life.
Just replace the name of the town with Berkley or Santa Cruz.
I’ve spent a good amount of time in her zip code. The bunkers at Fort Warden are great fun if you have school age kids.
I’m curious as to when we ended the secret ballot, because I endlessly hear statements based entirely on absolute knowledge of how another individual voted.
LIbtards are usually quite happy to tell you either who they voted for, or who they voted against.
In primary season, you are required to mark and certify by signature on the face of the ballot mailing envelope, whether the vote inside is Democrat or Republican. It can be mailed back where the postal service gets to see you’re declaration, or put in a drop box collected by the election workers. The first time I saw that here in Clallam Co (just left of Port Townsend), I raised a fuss with the election chief and was told, basically, to pound sand because the f’s in Oly require that by law. Great way to weed out those R votes. It’s not so for the general election, but by then, they have record of how I vote and can scrutinize my vote for more than just signature verification. “This guy votes R” – it would be too bad if his vote had something bad happen to it. Up here in the hills above the rabid townies, we tend more red, self sufficient, and love the 2A.
If you’re voting in a primary, of course you have to say which party you want to vote in. That’s even if the state doesn’t require you to have registered in advance with that party. You still have to say which ballot you want. You surely can’t expect to vote in both primaries! And in many states you have to register well in advance, before you know who will be running in the primaries.
But none of this tells them how you vote in the general election. In many places the D or R primary is the real election, and whoever wins it will win the general, so people who support the other party will still vote in that primary, so they get a say in whom that party nominates.
Well, maybe so. But I must have missed the part of the article that says how ~she~ voted. Please show me.
@Milhouse I’m a lifer in WA – 70 years. It didn’t use to be that way – just the last couple elections. Marking your mailing envelope D or R is a new thing – the ballot even in primaries is a single combined ballot. That my signature and party designation appears on the OUTSIDE of the ballot, visible to all, has made my ballot not secret, as Crawford above noted. The practice was introduced with mail-in voting.
@Crawford @Coyote As for how @Andy concluded Julie Jaman’s voting habits, she is a self identified feminist activist, in particular on behalf of women who have been sexually assaulted. She is a founder and advocate / volunteer for Dove house in PT for victimized women and children. She was interviewed by the Quillette podcast in Aug 2022 (podcast no 195) and acknowledges her liberal political leanings during the 20 minute broadcast. As for the community of PT, you’d be hard pressed to find any Trump, GOP, MAGA signage. If you were to hang one of those in your yard, it wouldn’t be there in the morning. PT is a place of group think and much virtue signaling.
Here in Washington, if you see an American flag, you can bet they voted for Trump. Literally nobody else flies an American flag. Gay pride and Ukrainian flags abound here in Olympia. But ask someone who is flying an American flag who they voted for, and the answer is “Trump.” My GF and I have a running joke – when we see an American flag, we announce “Trump!” Yeah, it’s that simple. Sometimes a matter doesn’t merit over-thinking.
I had a relative tell me she no longer flew the American flag because someone might think she was a Trump supporter.
Well, let’s not have that. It might attract principled men.
But I bet the gay flag and even the Ukie flag are pretty much a guarantee of a Biden / Kamala vote. Trump voters would fly an American flag before a Ukie flag.
Do you have proof of everything you just posted? I agree with the sentiment but making allegations like that should have some back up.
Go visit Port Townsend…. THEN you can disagree with me.
Go look at Port Townsend’s voting records. THEN you can disagree with me.
Else classify yourself with the people in Martha’s Vineyard who were lecturing Texans about the impact and behavior of illegal immigrants BEFORE Texas starting shipping them to their town.
How long will it take until rapists and child molesters will learn to embrace their feminine side while in prison? That way they can pursue their prey in women’s spaces.
The other women were banning her. The only man in this story was the one she told to get out of the women’s locker room.
It was a triumph of women’s rights when women sports reporters were required to be able to access men’s locker rooms.
LMAO.
It’s the same as adult male pervert-pedophiles disrobing in front of children? That’s your argument.
Hey sicko, stay away from children.
This is only a win if that Y no longer allows men in the women’s area
I’m so old I can remember what the “M” used to stand for in “YMCA”. That changed when women demanded access. As soon as they got it, they started demanding that men be banned.
I’m so old I remember there was also a YWCA.
I’m so very old I remember what the “C” used to stand for.
And when they also had YMHAs.
When I was young mom brought me to swimming lessons at the YWCA. I was too young to use the locker room myself so she brought me into the ladies’. (I’m a guy.)
It was such a thrill I tell you!
Little boys being brought to the bathroom or changing room has been acceptable for generations – as long as I can recall. There was a sign at the (private) beach I went to as a child saying that boys four and under may use the girl’s changing room with their mothers (the women’s changing room was for adults only, no children of either sex.) It was there fifty years ago, it was there five years ago, for all I know it’s still there.
This has nothing to do with accepting adult men in female spaces.
There is still a YWCA.
But the letter that has truly changed in both of these (though the YMCA is just ‘The Y’ now– is the ‘C‘
Both organizations are hotbeds of extreme leftism.
Karen have taken over everything. They now run (infest) the YMCA.
It is nice that she received a significant settlement.
a shallow “win”. No information as to whether adult males are banned from the women’s designated spaces, and no word on whether this woman can resume her swimming at this CITY owned facility.
Whaddya speck, this IS Port Townsend.
I happened to be forced to endure a night stuck in that town during the height of the covidiocy. NONE of the food service places in the old part of town would provide me any food. After some hard searching I finally stumbled across a Vietnamese restaurant tucked away off the main drag. I walked in, was quickly seated a a real table, order taken, food brought to me at my table, just like normal. The meal was excellent, place friendly, almost had to check my calendar watch to make sure it was still Covid Time. No mug nappie required,
I am back in PT two or three times a year, and that Vietnamese place has become a regular. That, and the newer Mexican place way south of town.
Well this court could not enter a national injunction.
“She said there were Pride posters posted all over and she assumed that was adequate to inform women what to expect.”
What a curious thing to say. Pride posters are a sign you should expect men in women’s bathing suits to be leering at half-naked young girls in the locker room?
Yes.
The Y was originally considered to be the family friendly gym. Private or club gyms don’t typically allow children to join. But the Y encouraged it. Not sure Y is considered safe for kids these days. The Y is woke social experiment gone over the cliff.
Good she won, but $65K is chicken feed. If everything had been reversed, the tran would’ve gotten ten or a hundred times more.
So they paid a $65k bribe to get the woman to shut up.
Actually, she’s not getting $65k, according to the news release, that amount includes legal fees, so she’s getting maybe $45k.
The really cool thing is that she’ll likely be liable for taxes on the entire amount, including attorney’s fees.
I see no indication that they admitted any wrongdoing or have changed the policy that started the whole thing in the first place.
How is this a “win” for the first amendment? It’s a win for her and the lawyers involved…and that’s it. For the city paying the bribe, it’s a rounding error in their budget.
Is she?! Where did this information come from?
Looks like she won the money plus legal fees. And yes she still is banned. Researching the info and reading the local articles was like reading the rantings from an insane asylum in their pro trans views https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jul/1/julie-jaman-washington-woman-settles-lawsuit-transgender-staffer-ymca/
This is liberalism in all it’s glory, folks. Anyone who is not on board with their sick ideology is ‘racist….sexist…homophobic’….etc. So here at this YMCA pool, any male pervert can walk in claiming that he is a woman, and use the women’s changing room so he can look over the women and young girls.; they support that. They’re are few statements more true than the often cited ‘liberalism is a mental disorder’.
But has the original issue been solved?
Can men still shower in the woman’s shower at the YMCA of Port Townsend, Washington?
Is the Y not a private institution?