How Transphobia at a YMCA Took Over a Town

were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women. Okay, first of all, that granny rocks, But when pressed, Poor Towns and Washington police said that Mr Mrs Jayman had an emotional response to a strange male being in the bathroom

and helping a young girl take off her bathing suit. Well, I should hope the response to that would be emotional, Yeah, because this, you know, you can just picture this kind of situation where they're rooming little kids, uh, completely inappropriately, and you're you're you're doing the thing that a lot of people want you to do and that a lot of people watching would But I hope everybody is aware that this, from what I understand, is pretty wonderful profit

for big pharma and medical systems. It's and what's happening to children becomes even more disastrous. And you were protecting the kids. You were protecting the kids. I mean, they should have a responsibility to do that. The Young Men's Christians Association UH should be doing that themselves if they were playing any role in this whatsoever. It's pretty frightening.

This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison, and today we're talking about a recent flare up of anti trans hate and the anti trans protests and campaigning that's engulfed a small town in North and Washington in what conservatives

describe as the culture war front. The past month, for right media personalities and anti trans so called feminists have partnered together to create an international nexus point for the increasing attacks on trans and queer people, resulting in a wave of harassment, death threats, and rallies, including an upcoming anti trans rally in association with the Proud Boys and

Three per Centers slated for Saturday, September three. Port Townsend is a small city of just around ten thousand people located on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, just north of Seattle. The city has a geographic footprint of just under ten square miles. Over the course of the past month, the quaint beachside city has become the focus of a

disinformation campaign against trans people and try gender inclusivity. But unless you frequent right wing news outlets, you probably haven't heard anything about this story, let alone are aware of the massive amount of harassment and death threats being targeted at trans people and their allies. Anti trans and far right activists have already descended on this small city from all around the country and plan to do so again on September three, with Proud Boys and three per Centers

promising to show up. So what actually happened that escalated things to this point? On July, an eighty year old woman named Julie Jammon was in a pool locker room and began verbally harassing a trans woman who was on the job as an employee of the Olympic Peninsula y m c A. Julie Jammen asked invasive questions about her genitals and later accused her of engaging in inappropriate conduct

while continuously mis gendering this employee. Both the employee and y m c A officials and like everyone else present in the locker room, have disputed Julie's highly publicized version of events, which we'll get into in a bit, but first we're going to hear from the original target of the harassment. A few days ago, I was able to talk with Clementine Young trans woman about what happened to her near the end of July while working at the y m c A. It was a pretty normal day

that week. We were doing uh, swimming with the kids, uh and man the other childcare workers, uh, you know, use the locker rooms kind of as expected, and I was using the woman's locker room just because you know, that works for me, um, and that lines up with how I feel. We went through all that no problems.

We got the kids, the kids got changed and their stalls, and then once we were out in the pool, one of the kids needed to use the locker room bathroom, so I took that kid and another kid into the locker room in accordance with the wise rule of three system. To clarify, at the y m c A, there is a quote rule of three where staff always accompany children in a group of three, so that a staff person is never alone with a child and children are never

alone with each other. As Clementine was standing with a kid outside the restroom stall, waiting on the other kid who was using the bathroom, Julie Gemmond was showering nearby in a curtained off stall across the locker room. I was waiting outside of the bathroom stall with the kid being the buddy, making small talk when Julie Jaman initiated the dialogue by asking if I was a member of the lgbt Q plus community. I responded, yes, I'm trans and she asked me if I had a penis, and

it kind of caught me off guard. Um, and I and I told her that, you know, that's none of your business. Um. Julie asserted that I needed to leave and that I can't be there. And then in response to her assertion, I just shook my head. Now, Um, I couldn't really leave or I'd be leaving the kids unattended. And you know, I was backed into a corner the kid. At some point, Um, the kid using the bathroom exited

the stall and had her swimming. Her bathing suit like wasn't fully pulled up, and she asked me for help, and so I assisted her by pulling it up by its straps, and you know, there were other patrons present in the locker room at this time, and at some point around the girl coming out and needing her straps pulled up, Julie was back in her shower stall, and then around this time, two more kids entered the locker room.

It might be good to mention I have prescribed glasses. Um, I wasn't wearing my glasses and I couldn't see anything, which is kind of terrifying, because you know, it was like a shot in the dark, like I just heard a voice and I had to search around before I

figured out who's talking to me. But anyways, uh, the kids, two more kids came into the locker room and they overheard Julie shouting at me and asked me what was going on, and like they had this concerned look on their face, and I just kind of told them to leave because I didn't want them to get involved. The kids went to the pool manager, Rowan, and asked for help with the escalating situation. They went straight to her and asked her to come help and told her that

someone was yelling at me. And moments later, Rowan entered and as she walked by. I got her attention, and I told her, you know, there's an older lady yelling at me to leave right now. Uh, And I pointed at the shower stall that Julie was using. Roan kind of like posted up and Rowan stood in between me, the kids, and Julie and waited for her to come out. And then Julie you know, poked her head back out

and said get out, you're a man. Um and Rowan you intervened when she sort of like popped back out and said, no, actually, you need to leave because right now you're discriminating and kind of being a bigot. So it's actually that you need It's actually you that needs to leave right now. And Julie told Rohan she was confused about gender. And then Julie pointed at me and said, he has a fucking penis. He has no business being around little girls. He has a penis, and he could

rape someone. And after that, Rowan uh sort of ushered me and the girls out of the locker room and uh told me to go to her office, and then the other staff members found me and helped me. Um and Rowan stood outside the lobby side of the office when I was in there, and um, I guess like, yeah, after the police have been called, Julie came out and engaged with her, uh, and they were yelling, but I kind of hear what was going on, and I mean, that's kind of the end of it. I know that

Julie left after that. I just kind of checked out for an hour two. It shocked me. I haven't had someone do that to me before. I've never been talked to in a bathroom or locker room before, especially in

that way. The y m c A pool manager told Julie Gemmen that she needed to leave and suspended her membership for violating the Wise Code of Conduct, which prohibits quote discrimination, hatred, derogatory or unwelcome comments, intimidation, conduct or actions based on an individual's sex, race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status unquote, as well as having no tolerance for disrespectful words or just

ors towards y m c A staff or others. Part of an official statement released by the Olympic Peninsula y m c A, published as the incident in question was growing into a much broader anti trans spectacle, clarified that Julie has had quote several incidents where she has repeatedly violated the wise Code of conduct, specifically using disrespectful words or gestures towards y m c A staff or others, and abusive, harassing and or obscene language or gestures towards

y m c A staff or others. The aquatics manager then informed the patron that she was permanently suspended from Mountain View Pool and all Olympic Peninsula y m c A facilities unquote. After Julie was banned from the pool on Monday, August one, she started showing up outside the facility with anti trans signs and led a small group of people into a city council meeting, resulting in an

hour of public comment logged about the incident. Here is some of the statement Julie read in the city council meeting, which also gives a look at her version of events at this time. Podium, state your name and where you live for the record, Peninsula, and I'm here because I had an experience that you need to know. I have

sent it to you all in detail. In an effort by the city and the y m c A to apply the neocultural gender rules at Mountain View pool dressing shower room facilities, women and children are being put at risk. My experience while showering after my swim was hearing a man's voice in the women's dressing area and seeing a man in a women's swimsuit watching little girls pull down their bathing suits in order to use the toilets in

the dressing room. I reacted by telling him to leave, and the consequences that I have been banned from the pool. There is no signage informing women the shower room is now all gender and what that means, Nor have parents been informed of what they can expect with these news policies. The why has not provided any dressing shower room options for women who do not want to be exposed to

men who identify as women. The y m c A, the city, the police and sheriff's, the parents, the professionals who assist victims of royealism, peeping tom's, pedophilia, and assault need to come together to figure out how to make the new policies work for all pool patrons, not just one group. How to keep children who are less able to discriminate safe. It is ironic that women who discriminate

when a situation threatens their safety or their children. A message from our ancestors are now cused of discrimination as if they have made someone else a victim. We need to do much more intelligence and wise about applying the rules and developing policies that are respectful and inclusive. Thank you, thank you so. Just a few notes about that. Trans

inclusivity at the Y is not some new policy. For years, it's been literally Washington state law that people have the right to access the locker rooms, changing rooms, and bathrooms that align with their gender identity. This has been the case since the law states, quote, entities shall allow individuals to use the gender segraded facilities such as westrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, and homeless or emergency shelters that are consistent

with at individual's gender expression or gender identity unquote. And regarding Julie's account of the incident, there have been no complaints from children or parents who are using the pool, and multiple accounts conflict with Julie's telling of the story, as the employee never did help anyone undress, nor was

watching anyone change. Throughout this city Council meeting, there were several public comments in support of trans rights that pushed back on Julie's outrageous claims and called out the overall trend of mis gendering and the groomer style transphobia. At the end of the meeting, city officials themselves took a stand against the transphobic rhetoric that was present throughout the hour of public comments. Oddly enough, for this show, one of the people I interviewed for this episode serves as

a Port Townsend City councilwoman. My name's Libby winstrom Um. I'm an elected city councilor for the City of Port Townsend, and I'm speaking today on as myself rather than as a representative of the city or a representative of the city council as a whole. When did you first kind of hear about this thing that's now ballooned into this larger issue with people coming in from out of state

to do protests and all this kind of stuff. I think I first heard about it on Sunday night, which would have been I guess the thirty one of July.

And I heard about it from the y m c A Aquatics director Rowan mackins Um, and it was more in the tone of kind of a heads up that this was a thing that was going on, and then I heard a lot more about it the next day, which was Monday, the first of August UM when uh Julia Jaman showed up at the pool with a whole group of people doing a protest that they were picketing at the pool, and she also sub had a public

comment to the City council meeting that night. And at that point I realized that a group of people, including Julie, was probably going to plan on attending the City council meeting UM and reached out to some friends and acquaintances in the UM trans and Allies community, UM Olympic Pride, UM, the Social Justice Group and at the Unitarian Church here in town and various other people who had been kind of resourced and say, hey, this is going on, you need to be aware of it. And in fact, that

night there was over an hour of public comment. There wasn't anything on these council agenda. There wasn't anything we were discussing. It wasn't really a matter. It wasn't really i think, even on the city's radar. But people showed up the City council meeting. And normally when there's a public comment about an item that's not on the agenda. They cut off public comment at half an hour, but for whatever reason, let it run that night, so it

was well over an hour of public comment. And some of the things said, we're pretty shocking, and um, you know, to the to the tune of that you know all transgender people were pedophiles, or that you know, this was a rape happening, and some some stamons that were just not true. And then based on what I heard that night, I was really concerned and felt that this was both you know, this was ballooning out of proportion, which now seems kind of funny given how much more balloon it's

out of proportion. It's gotten. There's not really any action here for the city or for the pool. I mean, one of the things that Julia Jaman has retained legal counsel and sent a demand letter to the city. But her demands were like, well, you should fire people, Well they don't work for the city. There y m c a place. Um, well you should change your policy. Well the policy is literally stayed law and you know a

bunch of things, so it's just you can't do this. Um, So it's not really clear why this is all focusing on the city because the city doesn't really have there's not really any action that the city could take here. On top of the dozens of people Julie lead in giving public testimony, which largely consisted of transphobia, miss gender ring,

and baseless accusations that trans people are pedophilic inherently. But that same day, August one, she also led a protest outside of the y m c A. To learn more about this, I talked with Cass and Raven, who are

both part of a local affinity group. The first protest was August first, and they announced that they'd be back the same time on the second, third, and fourth, So the second drew a much larger counter protest um, and then a lot of the same people who were there on the second came back the third and fourth, but there was nobody to counter protest against because the protesters gave up and went home after one day when they saw the kind of backlash they were facing, And most people,

I think, thought that was the end of it, But people who do this kind of thing more often realized that this was more likely the vibe of the beginning stages of something bigger. A lot of red flags went off when we found out they were protesting at a city council meeting planning to come back the following week. Oh, that's right. That was The other thing was the council meeting on the first, where there was a lot of

public comment logged. It seemed to us like this was going to escalate further, but other people um tended to feel that it was going to be a quick, you know, one and done type thing with how fast the news cycle picks up a new issue. And I think it was probably about a week later on the council meeting on the eighth, because by that point we knew about the planned urf action on the fifteen. That's when it started to click for a lot of people that this

was going to become a bigger thing. But I don't think anybody, including us, thought it was going to become an ongoing issue. When I searched Court Townsend on Twitter and saw trending hashtags on a wall of anti transferator,

a lot of red flags went off. Since the city council public comments, the y m c A had started receiving threatening phone calls, and Jamen had been returning to facility nearly daily with some friends to protest, approaching everybody coming in and out of the pool and talking about how men are allowed in the locker room and bearing signs that miss gendered the employee. Julius group had said they were going to be picketing every day at the

pool that week. Um that they showed up and they were about a hundred counter counterprochesters isn't even really the right word, um people that were there. Was sort of like a little pride parade there and um, Olympic Pride had a kind of a booth table set up and we're handing out pride flags and the Social Justice group from the kof had a um, you know, standing on the side of love banner, and there were kids blowing bubbles and and it was just it was much more

of it. Just kind of a lot of people here. As these initial picket style protests were happening in front of the y, the head of the Jefferson County Transgender Support Group called some friends and assembled this sort of counter protest to voice their support for the trans employee and the y m c A, which resulted in this gay s trans rights party massively overshadowing Julie gemmen and

her friends little protest. As she was getting outnumbered in person, Julie took to alternative tactics by getting in touch with media outlets that will give her a soapbox, resulting in a new wave of harassment targeted at the y. There were about a hundred people and it was I think it was Julian one or two other people, and people had some conversations with Julie, and it sort of seemed like that was going to be the end of it.

And the next day the pool was closed and about fifty trans Right supporters showed up and nobody showed up to pick it, and the pool was closed because pool employees were receiving death threats and just so much harassment. They basically couldn't use their phones because the phone lines were jammed and voicemails were filling up in fifteen minutes.

Things like that, um so, and then the pool ended up staying closed, I think from the third which was a Wednesday, all the way through that week and the and the following week, and it was just kind of a safety issue of not wanting to have children present for day camps and patrons there if they were going to be harassed right after, I think probably on Monday,

the first um of August, Julie reached out too. There's a local sort of far right blog site called the Port Townsend Free Press that isn't really a newspaper a news source at all. It's it's kind of this this one guy, Jim James Guarantino's blog, and she reached out to that, and he did an article That first Portstownsend Free Press quote unquote article came out to August two and served as a mouthpiece for Julie's inflammatory version of events,

coupled with some conservative transphobia. More reputable news outlets and local press didn't really cover the story until it had already turned into a idle topic on the right, which means there was over a week where the only documented right up of the incident was the Port Townsend Free Press blog post. Two days after that piece was published, Andy Knows the Post Millennial posted an article largely pulling directly from the Port Townsend Free Press right up, and

that was just the start. The next day, August five, Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire did an article about Julie Gammond and the danger of men watching little girls undressed in the locker room. Later that night, the story was on Laura Ingram's Fox News show, citing reporting from the Post Millennial, which of course cited their reporting from the Port Townsend Free Press. And across the country in Washington State we found perhaps the most maddening story of the week.

An eight year old grandmother was banned there from her y m c A after demanding that a bio logical mail leave the woman's locker room where little girls were undressing. They then went to play clips of Julie's public comment at the city council meeting, amplifying Julie's ever changing, altered

version of events. Now on the national stage, I think the mainstream actual, you know, real local newspapers didn't pick it up until the seventh or the tenth, respectively, for the Peninsula Daily News and the Leader, and that gap when they amplified it out to the larger right wing press. This got picked up by Bright Barty, got picked up

by the Daily Mail. They kept quoting that original portents of Free Press article, which was very inaccurate about in terms of what it described as having happened, and I mean it was both outright wrong and it also left a bunch of things out, like that the transgender person was a ymc A employee, for instance, or that they were in the locker room because they were supervising children. Um and uh uh, I think we're really hit a crescendo on Thursday, the ninth sheet, now earlier whatever, not

Thursday's past week, but the previous Thursday. Um, it was on Tucker Carlson. And that's where I really saw the email volume explode for people from outside the area, where it was like, you know, you're getting thirty emails in five minutes, and they're from you know, they're from Texas, they're from Tennessee, they're from New Jersey, they're from Australia, they're from the UK, etcetera. That when it got picked up by Fox News, the reach really got broad. The

first time the story was covered on Tucker Carlson. Tonight took place on August eleven, in an episode guest hosted by Brian Clemide by m c A has changed a lot over the years. Now, women and young girls at the y A finding themselves in locker rooms and showers with men who identify as women, but they still have all their genitalia with them. And if you're complaining to the y m c A about the jennet tell you and what they're dressed like, you might get yourself banned.

It's would exactly happen to an eight year old woman in Washington State. Here to explain, but not actually make excuses for, but explain, is our West Coast correspondent, Seattle based radio host Jason Rance. Jason set the scene. Yeah, so, I mean, here's the scene. Democrats used to stand up for women, but now they can't even define one. And as a result, you have eight year old Julie Jamon who said she was banned from a pool and locker room facility that was managed by the Olympic Peninsula y

m c A on Port Towns in Washington. Now. She said she was headed into the locker room to shower and she saw something pretty alarming. She explained what happened at this council meeting. Then a clip from the public comments please and I will not subject you to that again, but here is a little bit more of that clip. So a number of residents showed up to support her at this council meeting. But the mayor, his name is David Faber. He was not pleased, accusing them of transphobia.

Townsend is a welcoming community and hate and discrimination has no place in this community. I listen to you quietly. I would like you to listen to me quietly. Now. Given the rise in harassment and bigotry the trans persons have experienced recently, it's essential that we all speak up. The cis gendered people like me speak up in support of our trans community. Now, Jamond says the staff accused

her of being discriminatory. The YMC put out a statement basically saying we're not going to tolerate the bias, discrimination or hatred. And of course, in Washington State, the law allows anyone to use locker room changeing remember bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. So they're basically saying, we're doing what we have to do, except, of course, protect

women who don't want to see this. Unbelievable. That guy should be ashamed of himself behind the mask in the media after methodist, did you see it alluding to this scale or did you think this is just like a one and done traumatic incident. Absolutely not, um, I I really just thought, you know, oh my my days. Calm. I finally had the bad bathroom experience, and and I know a lot of people do have that bad experience. Um, nobody, nobody is ready for it to be you know, to

have this much attention called just such a small thing. Um, because I wasn't ready for it to be like this, because yeah, it's escalated to the point where you're like on international news for these like right wing grifters who are trying to basically get trends people killed. Um yeah, and you're I don't know, it's really it's really upsetting to have my face and and name, you know, sort

of be pushed out like that. And it it's crazy how that feeling, the sinking feeling when I saw my name and face I don't even think it was my face at the time, when I saw my name appear on that local PP Free Press article, and you know, at the time it was that still a pretty big impact. And then to have that just keep happening and it got it gets like kind of depressingly numbing. Yeah, just

have it keep intensifying. I mean, yeah, I've been on hormones for almost a year now and I've avoided that for kind of reasons like this that it sucks because I just feel like, I feel like this is a very common experience with trends, people who are like starting out, like you just can't really go anywhere because you look too weird to go in the men's room and you're not quite like you don't feel comfortable the woman's room because of stuff like this, and you know, if you're

not in binary, then if it's a whole other issue, like where the fund do I go, Like there's there's there's not a lot of options sometimes, but then to have something that's already very stressful we turned into like a fucking like Daily Wire New York Post Info Warship is like like what like like it's we like Tucker Carlson,

like all of it. It's really it's disappointing that there's this idea that I, you know, I'm I'm actively trying to violate people's space, and and it's really frustrating because of how uncomfortable I feel putting myself in that position,

being in that room. Um, and I don't want to have something like this happened, and I don't, you know, I don't abuse that space because I'm not some guy trying to prey on people I'm I'm just trying to use the bathroom and get changed, and and you talk about like, oh, you know, walking in penis, hanging out and and all of these things. But I don't change

in the public space. I go into a changing room, and you know, I I understand, you know, that confusion, and I try to subtract myself from the space as much as possible and make it, you know, more comfortable.

When when I'm in a position like that where I'm trying to, you know, sort of entertain a kid who's not happy to be a bathroom buddy, and and I'm kind of putting that position where I have to talk, um, it's super vulnerable and and I just remember feeling small and and I just shrunk when she talked to me like that. And I don't even the space just got

so small. Take backing off the groomer and growing anti trans attacks we've seen this year a large swath of right wing influencers and media personalities jumped on this story to drive outrage and push their rhetoric. Here is a brief clip from Newsmax. They're more than willing to just ignore possible pedophilia happening at the y m c A in the locker room. Well, it's from my point of view,

it seems more like some sort of hypnotism. I know the word woke has been put to it, but I have to tell you that all public agencies I'm connected to as a citizen in a very small town, they are all operating with this gender identity. And you've got to wonder what is happening and those most private places that people, particularly women need to have. We've we've had you on we've had you on the show a couple of times now, and you seem very level headed. Yes,

very very level headed. Indeed. Um By now, the story has been headlined and obviously very mischaracterized and transphobic fashion, but still headlined by The Post, Millennial, The Daily Wire, Fox News, Daily Mail, Bright Bart News, Max, Info, Wars, New York Post, the Federalist, and the quote unquote feminist news site Redux. As false retellings about what happened in the Olympic Peninsula, y m c A went viral on

the right. Threatening emails and phone calls started pouring into the y m c A, prompting them to shut down the entire facility for over a week, leaving many local families without childcare services. Intense harassment and death threats were sent to city officials who voiced support of trans rights, and also to the pool manager. In my conversation with Libby Winstrom from last week, she detailed some of the threats and the impact the harassment has had on the community.

A lot more of the ire is now kind of directed at the city and the mayor and just at the pool director and less at employees. UM. The transgender employee who was you know, attacked in the locker room by Julie Dremond is actually no longer. Why UM and other people have left is another undisclosed location, just out of concern of trying to get the kids as far

away from this whole process as possible. And and so that took a little bit of time in juggling to set up, and they were so short staff they were actually calling for volunteers in order to try to keep the childcare open this week just because UM they were already somewhat short staffed, and with people leaving, it had just been even harder. UM the y has been open I think all week this week. I think it was open Monday, Tuesday. Today's Wednesday. UM. So it has been

able to reopen. They've they've changed the schedule around. It's now not open Saturdays again. UM. And shuffled. And I think some staff are working seven days a week in order to try to keep it open. UM. People are still getting threats. UM, still getting I got a terrible email last night. I haven't been getting death threats. I've been getting things like, UM, you know you're a disgusting, fat pig bitch. Why don't you go back to the buffet? Um? And you know, things like that. It hasn't for me

been death threats. UM. The pool director was receiving photographs of her children saying there next and UM some pretty explicit threatening messages like I'm coming for you, I know where you are. UM. And mayor favorite has been getting similar things. He got one where somebody was threatening to come to his home and rape his wife. UM. So these have been pretty horrifying messages. For the most part, most of the email has voicemails have been coming from

out of the area. You know, they're not they're not local. UM. So it's a little hard to gauge whether these are serious threats. But at some of you feel like you have to take it somewhat seriously. UM, and that I think has been pretty disruptive both for the y employees

and for the city. As Julie's retelling of the story was going viral across the right wing and turf media, resulting in the pool having to temporarily shut down, so called press conference was scheduled outside of another city council meeting for August by Julie and her allies. There's a local UM she builds yourself as a sort of radical feminist UM named Ami Susa, who has a uh so anti trans blog site and UM, she has really taken

this and run with it. So I plugged in, but not well, She's really taken this and run with it, and has I think has been really this kind of driving force between behind a lot of this amplification onto far right media. UM and Amy Susa held a what she built as a press conference on the August fifteenth, the night of the most recent UM City Council meeting, and showed up with a group of I don't know, probably twenty five or thirty supporters and there were estimates

are between three and fifty and four hundred. Um Trans writes folks from town. I mean that there were local who had just showed up and most of them were waiting in line to go into the council meeting and you know, flying flags and raising gland at banners and stuff. UM. But there was some heated shouting and one person got

arrested for shoving. There weren't any charg charges filed. I did confirm that with UM UH the Sheriff's office, UM that with the courts that that not no charges got filed out of that, which is contrary to those stories they've been putting out that like there were some charges filed, that's not true. I believe there were about three hundred people that came out to confront less than twenty UM people coming to try and bring hayten to our community. And it feels like that really inspired a lot of

the different networks to get connected. UM. Our personal little networks are incredibly white. Most of us are are trends of Summer guard UM and we were reached out to by a local bipop community that we've we've had some crossover with, but not a lot. But since this happened, UM, just the interconnectivity with with that group has just exploded after the press conference protests, footage of the event went viral,

spawning another new wave of right wing media outrage. Clips from the quote unquote feminist re Dux magazine Twitter account show Julie trying to give a speech while being drowned out by chance in support of trans people, and at one point someone running behind Julie to rip down a Suffragette flag put up by one of the turfs, and a side note, in some much less viral footage, we can see turfs trying to rip Pride flags out of

the hands of people who are counter protesting. So conservative coverage of the protest painted a pearl clutching picture of scary trans people assaulting women. A few days after the press conference, Julie Jammen herself made an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Julie Jaman is one of them. She's eighty

years old. She's duben banned from stepping inside a Y m C A Y because she dared to object when a male employee was assigned to watch little girls remove their bathing suits in the bathroom in a women's locker room. So this week a few dozen people joined Jaman to protest the y m c A. Some of the protesters, including her, were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women. Here's some of the footage from that on Monday. You

may have read some version of my personal experience. A naked old lady and the women's shower room and what I saw that day. You can see sense woman screaming at her. Julie Jaman is the woman, the brave woman. Just on the video she joins us sight Julie, thanks so much. We're grateful that you are joining us. Why at this stage in your life are you taking it upon yourself to to speak up against this in the face of what we just saw. I was in the shower and I saw that man in that women's suit,

and I saw him watching little girls. You can't not act when you see that going on. You must do something, So I and and bless you for doing that. That's exactly right. Your your moral sense is just is clear. I have no idea what your background is, but you have a very clear sense of right and wrong, and I wish more people had it. So you tried to explain that in the video we just played, and rather than listen to you, people screamed at you. And then

appeared to come at you. Have you noticed there's no conversation about this. There was. It was a mob of hundreds of people that came streaming into this permitted gathering and they kettled us. I think that's what you'd call it. They pushed, shoved, they knocked women to the ground. These are the men and the supporters of men that apparently the y m c A and the city want to

allow into the women's dressing and shower area. I object, and you, at the age of eighty, were banned by the y m c A. M. It's hard to even believe this is real because you were taking a shower and there was a man in there and they banned you, not him. What could tell us if that's true? A and B? What y m c A is this? Yes, that's correct. I told that guy to get out of the shower, and then a staff member came around the corner and I said to her, get him out of here,

and she said, that's discrimination. You're out of here for life, and I'm calling the cops. Can you tell us what? Why? M c Where did this happen? This happens in Port Townsend, that's on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It's just it's I hope they are punished for the way that they treated you, and I appreciate your bravery and forthrightness. I do too. We did try and get the police to come help us. They were standing across the streets and they were told by a directive to stand down.

They did not come to help us. I hope they wrought Juli Jaman, thank you for all you've done. I appreciate it. Good to see you tonight. Throughout all the media spectacle, I feel like the actual original victim of this harassment has kind of been forgotten, despite them being

the current face of the transgender menace. In my conversation with Clementine, we talked about what it's like to be turned into this sort of outrage symbol, like I've I watched the three hours of public testimony UM a few nights ago, which was I was on I was on so much caffeine. Um. Is that the meeting that happened right after the incident or the Monday meeting from both? I did both in one day. Yeah, it was yeah.

And one of the more shocking things was just how how how miss one how mischaracterized the incident was and to just like how much blatant miss gendering there was, and like talking about you not as like an actual person, but as almost this like evil archetype in people's minds. Like it's so dehumanizing in a really bad way. Um let alone all of like the like miss gendering stuff

like it's it was. It was wild watching this person after person completely mindlessly create this villain in their own head it's um and then just attached it onto an actual human being who's like you, like, your privacy has actually been violated, Like you're like like you're like like private information, your pictures, names is going all over these like like neo fascist news sites, and like if something you know, people are framing this is like you know,

safety and privacy, Like if you want to look at what's actually going on, it's so different. And there's such a disconnect between watching all of that public testimony and looking at all of you know, the the right wing press of this incident and I don't know, it's it's

very depressive framing. It's really clear and disappointing when you're the subject of it because I know what happened in that space, and you know, there were people to witness what happened, and we worked to get our reports out quickly, but it just didn't you know, it didn't matter because of how dedicated this woman was to getting her side or whatever. I mean. In reality, it just feels like

she was dedicated to hurting. UM. I don't know what her motivation was, but it's the blatantly false side of the story that really hurts because accusations that I was standing there watching I think they go anywhere from like two to five kids. It's their number. UM. I was watching the Tucker Carlson and I think I saw that number five, watching five kids undress, UM, when that's just not what happened. I was standing there with one kid who was fully closed, chatting while we waited for another

kid to come out of the bathroom. And it's just wrong. It's misinformation, and it's not about you know, it's not even about UM pushing an agenda. It's it's about people's livelihood and it's really damaging to have my privacy violated like that, you know, UM, straight up, that's what it is. It almost feels like you're just like this sacrificial archetype that yeah, it's like they're not even but they're not

even like interested in you as a person. Really, they're interested in you on this this this, this this like idea and to project you onto this whole other idea, which is so fucked up because you're an actual person.

Like yeah, well, and and you can see in the comments and stuff on some of these that it's pretty you know, I won't try to dig into like the ugly, the ugly and the bad of Twitter, but uh, like I've seen people say that I'm like a fully bearded man, or like I'll be paralleled as a lumberjack, and it's like or I mean, and not that you know, your appearances matter, It's it's about how you feel. But it's kind of, you know, interesting to see how I'm I'm

painted in such a weird and twisted light. Despite going viral in the right wing and turf news sphere, local sentiment in the port towns in the area has been widely in supportive trans rights and not very pleased that their town has been upended for over a month due to one woman's personal prejudice and discomfort. I lived in towns and for twenty four and a half years, and in talking to people over the last couple of weeks, I would say nearly universally, the local sentiment is, why

is this such a big deal? Like this, basically somebody got startled in a locker room, made kind of a jerk of herself, and is now trying to blow this into some kind of international incident. And you know, here's this little tiny town at the edge of the continent, and we're like, why, why, why is this the most important thing? You know? Why did you know dozens of families not have child care for ten days? Why did you know the y m c A employees have to

not get paid? Why? Why did you know? The The impact of this has been so outsized relative to the actually what actually happened. The person who started the initial incident with the trans employee. It's it's kind of funny in a way that, yes, she's gotten out her message to the whole community, but it spread as a result of the organizing against her and against the group of

people that she's bringing into the area. And it's gotten to a point where just random community members that we don't have any direct connection to our recognizing her and knowing why she's a known person and are just kicking her out of their businesses on site. It's like the the backlash against that incident is really spreading really well, and we're getting this really good organic network building throughout

the community. Earlier in August, before the big press conference thing, various BIPOC and queer collectives and affinity groups started networking and a solidarity meeting was set up to figure out how to take of each other as the far rights

spotlight on the town grows. Myself and one another person went and maybe a couple of others who I didn't know, but the two of us were the main ones who are more directly involved with the queer community side of responding to what was going on, and it was really great, like they just like, we want to support you, we want to you know, help take care of you. What

can we do? And then for the action on the fifteenth, when we were talking about, you know, like here's here's the kind of response that we're wanting from the whole community, but here's some of these background needs. Because none of them were experienced enough with protesting to feel comfortable going out on the front lines and doing stuff. They went about a quarter mile away and set up a community picnic, and I don't think people took nearly enough advantage of

it because the planning happened so last minute. They did a great job of setting up in solidarity and in solidarity and in support, and we're really looking forward to

working with them more. We spent the last few years running small group basic medical classes UM and workshops and really making connections like within our community and having this come about and having everyone come up to one place and see each other and going, oh, we know you and I know you UM, and from different communities coming together. We've really been able to enable those folks to come

together to start building more of a unified front. I want to reiterate that with all the media spectacle, it's important to not lose sight of the original target of all of this hate and transphobia. The physical and mental effect of such a massive wave of bigoted harassment and boxing can take a substantial toll. I had to stop going into work at a certain point because I couldn't

do it. I woke up in the morning and I looked in the mirror and and I just broke down because it was too much to keep going into keep trying to bring that bright energy uh to work. Um, and a lot of doubt. Uh, that's what I've been experiencing is a lot of you see so many people trying to divulge your character in a negative way, and it's you know, it's toxic and it can kind of seep through and make your life toxic. And that's why I just had to stop looking because it hurt too

much and it's putting me in this limbo. I don't feel like I gotten a break for a month. I feel like I've just been tired and like rest. I feel like I'm in purgatory. You know. Has there been any kind of like support on the community level that has been helpful? Yeah? Yeah, UM, I've been I've been definitely grateful and um blessed to have the community response be really astounding and supportive. Yeah. I've been given the opportunity to be so much more connected with my local

queer community as well as my local community period. Um. There were a lot of supportive voices, uh that made it a little bit easier to ignore the darker side of this. UM and elephant in the room. Uh, the go fund me, I don't know how I would feel if there wasn't you know, something rigid and like a rock to lean on, like to go fund me, to be able to have something hopeful will look forward to and think that I can you know, be me, and

that I can afford being me. Uh. I don't know how I would navigate the storm without something like that in the distance. It's been overwhelming and I've just been waiting for it to end, and it looks like it's finally slowing down. But um, the support makes it easier. And the support is a kind of attention that really helps right now because it's dreking lye easy to feel bad, ah, to feel just dissociated when when your life is kind of thrust into a different lens in what felt like

a day, what kind of was just a day. For a week this month has felt like longer than my entire summer break. The situation in Port Townsend is not over yet. In a bit, we'll talk about the upcoming

anti trans rally on September three. And there is this kind of absurd irony that's not uncommon when digging into these types of issues, that the types of talking points common among reactionaries and all the complaints around violations of privacy just end up actually being enacted by the people who push these moral panics and so things that just continue to kind of escalate and escalate. My understanding, And I wasn't there for this. Is that yesterday which was

Amy Susan. I'm not sure if Julie Jahman was there not because of cours Julie Jamons would be banned from the pool. UM showed up at the pool with a film crew and was trying to push their way into the locker room when patrons were there in the locker room trying to film inside the locker room and got asked to leave. UM. So it's it's still continuing to estalate.

One of the things that I've been noticing a lot, and it's something that for those of us who are more involved, this is kind of a you don't say moment, and it's the people who are coming in and making accusations and making attacks against the community are very much doing the exact thing that they're making accusations of. Uh. There was an issue the other day of the people who planned and hosted the protest at the council meeting going into the y with a camera crew and demanding

to film the locker rooms while people were using them. Um, there's lots of accusations that have been thrown that we bust in people from Portland, and in reality, the main aggre who are there in their group did come from Vancouver area, or we're flown in from Texas, or we're flown in from Texas. Yeah, like this was three d people who live within twenty minutes of Court towns and showed up because they care, and they had to fly people from as far as Pennsylvania to post an hour

long press conference with twenty people. And so we're seeing that a lot recurring. The person organizing this upcoming action is also lives in Vancouver area and is inviting people from all over to come up and start fights here and try to get video of confrontations going. And everybody up here wants to just be left alone and live in peace, but they also want to show up and they're kind of getting an opportunity to show up in the most low effort way. It's it's in your own town,

you might as well up. I remember a few weeks ago there was this headline from a federalist think piece that when a bit viral for being a big Yike's almost mirroring the fascist framing of blood libel. If you replace quote the transgenders with quote the Jews, you'll see what I mean. The headline reads, quote the transgender movement is not just intolerant, it's barbaric and violent and it's

coming for your children unquote. Almost exclusively, its sources are Twitter accounts like lives of TikTok and a few random turfs. And this is what we mean when we talk about how things that seem like they should just be insignificant Twitter bullshit actually do affect the world off of social media. This is how entire conversations on the validity of people's

existence get formed and directed. Now, the last section of the Federalist story is about the Boston Children's Hospital, and if you listened to yesterday's episode of It could happen here, you can guess the kind of disinformation the article pedals, and many readers, many of whom are not on Twitter. We'll take whatever it says at face value. Same thing for limps of TikTok stuff being boosted on Fox News.

The majority of the Federalist think piece, though, is about Port Townsend and everything stemming out of the y m c A incident, and the whole article is as terrifying and fascistic as its headline. I remember seeing the Federalist article headline and just being like, Oh, here's another another

piece doing the same thing. And I didn't realize it was about like this specific incident until much later, and now, Yeah, it's the kind of it kind of does play into the idea that like, we know these things happen, you just don't expect them to happen like right where you

are until what's until it's until it's going on. Yeah, I've spent years screaming at a wall telling people that this is coming, and UH really hope that all of my preparation had been for nothing and it's happening in my hometown now and getting national media attention everything from you know and Shapiro to Info Wars to interviews on Tucker Bacting the Trump presidency. We were pretty much just gun nerds and UH had started a small little UH gun club and we're inviting our friends and our local

queer community up to to learn about that. And it went really quickly from that to people having more of an interest in the medical suffering teaching specifically uh stopped the bleed and UH so after the Trump presidency was over, UM, a lot of people dropped off, and just the majority of the people that stuck around happened to be trans UM. But we continued offering these classes. We were posting ones out here about the escalation, about stop the bleed, of

we're hosting the locks on stuff. UM. I think with UM they're being such limited options for direct actions in the area, a lot of people were kind of naturally tending towards how can we better support our friends who live in areas that are doing direct actions and we started getting a lot more interest in those kinds of support roles than medical training to de escalation, even things

like emergency preparedness and food security. UM yeah UM. But because of that, we've just spent the last few years running these just a small group like wonderful people UM basically workshops on all these different subjects and bill somewhat of a connection with the community, a bit of respect. So when this happened, we actually had that to draw on and we could really help enable people to organize

themselves and create some form of unity. So it's not small groups of people coming in without a plan, but a large group of people showing up all at once. UM that we're not directly involved in any sort of leadership of it's just naturally organically happened. UM. But have really spent the last few years just feeling like cook screening at a wall. UM until this happened in our small town and completely unexpectedly, and now we're actually somewhat useful.

Before we close out, we do need to talk about the upcoming Anti Twins rally planned for the afternoon of Saturday, September three at Pope Marine Park. Organizers are explicitly tied to the Proud Boys, and this rally is one of the most clear examples of how Turf's self described feminists or people just looking out for biological women's rights are perfectly willing to ally with fascists if it means hurting

trends and queer people. The rally is billed as quote a rally for decency, stand up against men in women's public pool locker rooms, and tell the city of Port Townsend to let Julie swim unquote. Yeah. The guy who runs common Sense Court Conservatives, a man named Robert Um. I always mess up his name M Zurfling. I think it is Zurfings E r f I and g Um who's associated in somewhere with the Proud Boys and his associated with Roger Stone. He runs this blog called common

Sense Conservative. He is organizing something that's being billed as quote rally for Decency unquote UM to be here in Port Townsend on the Labor Day weekend Saturday, which is the third and UM it's unclear whether this is going to be a large event or a small one. They have not as of yesterday, pulled a permit for that UM, and there's some questions about, you know, if you're planning

a large event, what what's that kind of unfold? Like, uhs is a tourist community and at this time of year, we've got a lot of people in town over Labor Day weekend. UM, so a large Proud Boy rallies is

kind of you know, it doesn't feel very comfortable. Is It's kind of the first kind of big instant where you've had these types of like, you know, more kind of experienced activists on like the anti trans side or on you know, affiliate with Proud Boys or whatever kind of come in and try to make this problem inside the town. We've had little bits and pieces of stuff. Um, the Proud Boys or something kind of connected had a kind of truck drive through parade rally in sort of

just prior to the election. Um, that kind of drove through town and you know, a bunch of big trucks and I think some people were open carrying, and it was it was mostly a bunch of noise. UM. But it hasn't. This is a very liberal community, um, and it hasn't really hit us. This is also just for context. This is a town of ten thousand people and and it's the biggest town for you know, fifty miles in any direction. So it's not you know, it isn't like

ten thousand people that's a suburb. This this is the big town. This is the county seat. UM. So it's we've been kind of insulated from a lot of things. You know, we had, you know, we definitely had some Black Lives Matter protests. We definitely had you know, we had a big women's march in seventeen eighteen, but we haven't seen the kind of explosive clashing protests that you know,

Seattle or Portland have. The far right is planning to mobilize people from around the Pacific Northwest, pulling from folks in Oregon and Idaho, and are expecting anywhere between fifty to a hundred people to show up on the anti trans side, especially people from Proud Boy and three percenter

affiliated networks. One of the leaders of the Washington State three Percent of militia, Eric Road, has stated that he will be present and is encouraging his followers to join him, saying on telegram, quote, I don't care if five of you show up or fifty if you show up, I will always march against men staring at girls as young as eleven pulling off their swim trunks. It would be pretty cool if people could cancel their plans and show

up to stand against child molesters. God said, if you even look back, I'll turn you into a pillar of salt. I wouldn't have looked back, but I never failed to answer the call to something so simple as don't stare at little girls when they take off their clothes unquote. He then goes on to do some unhinged rambling about federal observation and his commitment to God and country, but he ends that post by saying quote when I get threatened by Antifa, all matched Antifa unquote, which I don't

even know what that means. The grammar on that is very confusing. Another telegram post from a three percenter account reads, quote calling all patriots, all proud boys, all three percenters, all lone wolves, We roll out to Port Townsend on September three. Hope to see you there. We got proud boys and three pers rolling in from all over unquote. The three percenter crew is also planning a pre and post rally barbecue party on Friday and Saturday night at

Whidby Island, which sounds like an awful time. That sounds like a horrible party. Our major concerns going forward is if protesters keep coming out here, UM that the right wing will get more footage that they can spin, bringing more attentions on this, bringing more harm to the trans

community across the country. UM that the right wing will attack someone locally around here, or that all of the spun footage will inspire someone from outside of the area or someone just sitting in the woods who will come and pause serious harm to a large group of our our local trans community. UM. And our intent is to to be there to have some sort of response via

medical or otherwise trying to think of how to say this. UM. I've lived here on and off most of my life and had started UM working towards transitioning, but due to the national political situation, specifically when the former president temporarily got rid of trans protections and medical canceled all that changed my medical records back and have been presenting as a cis white dude since then, specifically because of the amount of privilege that gives me and having a trans

partner who is working on their transition in this town while this is happening is hitting home to a level that I was completely unprepared for. And the emotional impact that all of this has been having on me, and the fact that it's not just here but that this is getting national attention is something I'm still trying to

wrap my head around. And I'm just really thankful for all of the networks that we've built in all of the community, the local community, the broader Washington community, all the people who have just shown so much support for us, and it makes me feel like there is there is a future where we can just be left in peace. And that is the story of what's been happening in Port Townsend over the course of the past month, and

what could happen in the next few days. I'm going to close this episode with Clementine discussing the details of her go fund me. The go fund me is sort of a general transition fund for me. I originally made it specifically for two surgeries. I low balled the amount greatly because I felt like if I asked for too much, I wouldn't get anything, and I still got nothing for

a long time. At some point, when the articles were coming out, one of the nationals used one of the national articles used my go fund me as a source um to find out more about me. But that got my go fund me out there UM and a lot of different people started picking up on it and spreading it. I actually didn't do much at all to to help that. I it was never something on my mind, the go fund me. It just happened and I looked at it

one day and I thought, that's strange. I have more donations than the last time I checked, and it was pretty empowering to see that, or or more hopeful um. But now now so I talked about the go fund me was originally for two specific surgeries, and I lobald. The amount um I later revised actually took me a couple of times and a lot of consideration because I didn't want to feel like I was cheating the people that were being gracious to me, which I'm not trying

to be. But yeah, uh, finding out that things cost more than I thought, but you know, it's way better than it was before. And to find it, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's the first thing that comes up when you look up my name now, which is better than Fox News is video or or a daily wire article or whatever. The big thing that would pop up otherwise is but um, yeah, it's called Clementine's Transition Fund

fund go fund me. You can find the transition go fund me at go fund me dot com slash s r s for clem and that link will be in the description, or you can just search Clementine's Transition Fund on your search engine of choice. See you on the other side, it could happen. Here is a production of

cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.