Locker Rooms, Camps & Creeps: How The YMCA Continues To Fail Women | Amber Harding
The YMCA's gender identity policy creates a hostile environment for its female members.
As the Village People say, it's fun to stay at the YMCA.
Well, it used to be anyway. Now, maybe not so much.
What was once a cornerstone of community wellness and family values has become a far-Left social experiment. One that caters to the feelings of gender-confused men at the expense of every girl and woman who just wants a safe place to change clothes, take a shower or go to summer camp without being flashed by someone with a penis.
That’s not hyperbole — that’s exactly what’s happening. At clubs across the country, the YMCA's "self-identifying" gender policy is alienating its female members.
At the expense of its female members, the YMCA has embraced a policy that values gender identity over biological sex.
(Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Let’s take the latest incident out of California. A middle-aged, trans-identifying male named "Sammy" has been strutting around locker rooms nude at various YMCAs in the Bay Area. According to reports, Sammy regularly walks around, proudly exposing himself to all who are unfortunate enough to bear witness.
"He likes to parade around the women's locker completely naked in front of women and children," Susan Pete, a 58-year member of the Stonestown YMCA, told The Daily Mail. "He also likes to blow dry his hair while naked and bent over. I've seen that man more than most of my boyfriends."
Protesters have picketed outside YMCAs where Sammy is known to frequent. Dozens of female members have also petitioned to force him into the designated gender-neutral space, but to no avail.
"He's there now in the ladies room. He's there with nothing on," one member told a San Francisco-based women's rights group. "He scares everybody. We went to the front desk and complained, and they did not do anything… And sometimes the young kids, the girls, they go there and take lessons. And he's there."
So far, all the women's concerns have been ignored. In fact, YMCA officials have defended Sammy's use of the women's locker room, citing "civil rights."
YMCA Values Gender Identity Over Biological Sex
This is hardly the first time the YMCA has chosen ideological pandering over the privacy and safety of women.
Remember Julie Jaman? Jaman was an 80-year-old woman in Port Townsend, Wash., who was banned from her local YMCA in 2022 for asking a male employee to leave the women’s locker room where underage girls were undressing.
"I opened up curtains and there, a very short distance from me, was standing a man in a woman's bathing suit watching at least two little girls — helping them take off their suits," Julie recalled in an interview. "I told him, ‘You need to get out of here right now.’"
A grown man… undressing little girls after swim lessons.
But Julie was the one labeled dangerous. Not the man. Not the policy that put him there. Julie.
Sadly, Julie isn't the only one. OutKick has reported on multiple incidents where girls and women were chastised and banned for expressing discomfort about men in their spaces at the Y.
RELATED: Illinois YMCA Allows Biological Male In Girls' Locker Room, 16-Year-Old Says He Was 'Watching' Her
And it's not just locker rooms, either.
According to a report from The Daily Wire on Wednesday, the American Parents Coalition is now sounding the alarm on YMCA summer camps that allow kids to self-identify their gender — no questions asked. That means your 13-year-old daughter could be sharing a shower or a bunk bed with a boy, and the YMCA staff is trained to accept it without notifying you, the parent.
For example, at the YMCA's Camp Olson in Longville, Minn., girls are being pressured to accept this policy — or else.
"Access to gendered spaces (e.g. restrooms, overnight accommodations) should be based on gender identity. Sex assigned at birth, physical characteristics, or presentation should not dictate the use of gendered space. Trans individuals may select either restroom," the camp’s guidelines say.
"Requiring someone to use a bathroom or other gendered space of the gender they do not identify can be detrimental to an individual’s well-being and safety and puts Camp Olson at risk for discrimination complaints."
(Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The policy adds that if a female is uncomfortable using the same facility as the transgender individual, then the female should use an alternate space, saying that "no one should be required to use an alternative restroom because they are trans."
Therefore, putting the burden on females — in this case, little girls — to give up their rights so that their male peers can forcibly have their way.
But isn't that always the case with this transgender madness?
See, these policies are always dressed up as "inclusive." But they’re only inclusive to one group — and it’s not girls. It's not women. It’s men. It's always men. Over and over and over again.
Gender Ideology Only Hurts Women
George Williams founded the YMCA in 1844 as a place for men to find refuge. Turns out, not much has changed in 181 years.
Because there is no trend of trans-identifying females storming men’s showers or demanding entry to boys’ camps and boys' sports. Men's spaces remain men's spaces. Women's spaces are co-ed.
RELATED: Unhinged Response To UK’s Gender Ruling Proves The Need To Protect Women's Spaces | Amber Harding
At the YMCA and every institution that subscribes to radical gender ideology, it's always the girls who are told to shut up, look away and "be kind." It's always the girls who must sacrifice their dignity in the name of progress and inclusion.
Just look at this sign that is posted in the YMCA bathroom. It reads, "In keeping with our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and ensuring everyone feels both welcome and safe at the Y, we offer transgender individuals the opportunity to choose the locker room they are most comfortable with."
(X: @bourne_beth2345)
Ensuring everyone feels safe? Everyone except, of course, little girls, 80-year-old women and any females who'd rather not have an eyeful of some strange dude's genitals after they finish their morning workout.
So to give the Village People a little credit: Maybe it's still fun to stay at the YMCA — as long as you’re not a little girl stuck sharing a shower with some burly fella named Sammy.