Reporting from the Frontlines of the Woke Battlefield

by Annette Huenke | Aug 18, 2022 | General

How to share an evening from hell.

This is my dilemma, as I attempt to regain balance after witnessing what I’d previously considered fellow human beings descend into hate-filled and menacing nihilists who felt such righteousness of cause, any questioning of method or motive was well and truly gone.

I am rocked to my core — by the debasement of civil discussion, debasement of the female archetype, and certainly the debasement of what little is left of a democratic process.  It wasn’t just the energetic pulse of angry discord and intended chaos.  It was beholding advanced societal decay of the most disturbing sort.

Perhaps most heartbreaking was a palpable recognition that there is no longer a place for innocence in childhood.  The formative years are and will be managed by dark and sinister forces over which we have no agency.  The gains that women have made in the last century are being erased before our very eyes.

Trans activists attempt to obscure women speakers

On Monday evening, August 15th, I arrived at Pope Marine park about ten minutes before the press conference called by local women’s rights activist Amy Sousa was scheduled to begin. Various crowds were milling, it was difficult to discern sympathies of a number of groups — particularly younger (20 to 40-year-old) women — at that time.

Others’ lines were clearly drawn, through costume, signs or position.  I observed that a lot of younger gals were unmasked, standing back quietly. They had no visible signs of intention, not making the ruckus that others were ramping up in aural and physical displays. Eventually, though, they did join in the chanting intended to drown out the speakers’ voices.

I and others were walking the perimeter (of what were mostly our supporters) with large umbrellas facing toward the growing crowd, attempting to block the louder shouters and hold some sort of line. A brigade of bicyclists with flags and signs wove dangerously through the thick of the supporters. Some were hit by pedals and handlebars, including Julie Jaman.  Our efforts to prevent this were fruitless. The police had disappeared from the park but for one.

When Amy Sousa, the event’s organizer and first speaker, took to the microphone, the staging area at ground level was open and clear.  A modest portable sound system, a small bouquet of flowers, and two Suffragette flags adorned the brick wall of the Pope Marine Park building, the site of this city-permitted gathering.

By that time, all of the police who had been milling about left the area and serious agitation began. The open ground began filling with people closing in on the other scheduled speakers and Julie’s supporters. The rainbow-clad and black-garbed agitators honked horns, blew whistles, banged noisemakers, shouted and screamed.

By the time Julie Jaman, the second person to speak, took the microphone, the crowd was growing so menacing that her supporters circled her for protection.

A masked young man wearing a tan shirt that read Discharge sat down not far from the speakers and began heeling himself around on his backside, somersaulting and reeling in circles, constantly trying to get in amongst the women’s legs.  No effort to repel him was successful. A 4-minute video by Robert Zerfing captured his antics. A 10 to 12-year-old boy wearing orange camouflage pants, who stayed on his feet, was often his steadfast little lieutenant, providing cover and distraction as he darted in and out of the group.

It wasn’t long before the ever-growing crowd began to move in on us, becoming more threatening and assaultive as they did.  Within ten minutes, the speakers couldn’t be heard from 20 feet away. While Julie was speaking, the crowd exploded with screaming and chants.  She could not be heard outside her immediate circle at all.

As Jim Scarantino reported late Monday night, “she was assaulted when she finished speaking, with the live feed going black during the scuffle.” The Discharge shirt young man was toppling and shoving people, and Julie was left with a severely sprained ankle.  She has filed assault charges with the police with identifying photos.

The videographer who posted the 4-minute clip above covered the entire event, from before it began until police escorted Julie Jaman to her car, catching a short interview with her at the end.  Fortunately, he positioned himself close enough to the speakers that you can hear some of what they say.

Assaulting a tattooed bodybuilder’s vagina

What are we to make of a guy who obviously splits his time between the gym and tattoo parlor, and shows up at a trans rally insisting that we wanted to assault his vagina? What kind of toxin is in his mind to be thinking or saying such a thing? I told him “Apparently you’ve already done that to yourself. You genitally mutilated your own body.”  He slithered away wordlessly. Before long, he returned with a vengeance, body-slamming me from behind. Soon after, he returned and knocked Rachelle Merle to the brick pavement.

After body-slamming me from behind, the tattooed bodybuilder knocked Rachelle Merle to the ground.

He was the loudest and most persistent, with only seconds-long breaks between shouted taunts. He marched through the crowd with a huge Pride flag, often holding the flag and dragging the stick so that it was hitting people, including Julie. He banged a noisemaker on the ground.

What are we to make of his tee shirt sporting the slogan “Hang in there, BABY!” with the illustration of a Ku Klux Klansman hanging from a tree? (See photo at top.) Is the klansman image a cover for the real message — death to babies?

The assaults ramp up.  

Many of the rabble-rousers seemed to be practiced operators, setting little brush fire melees here and there.  Some involved real assault, others just threatening and intimidating.  A small male wearing a gator burst out of nowhere and slapped the phone out of the hand of a protector standing next to me.  It landed ten feet away, the assailant was gone. One of our group sprinted after him without luck.

Gabrielle Clark, a Black civil rights worker who was one of the speakers, used her body to shield the sound equipment. Others tried to create a human ring to shield the speakers.

A number of us, myself included, ran across the street to beg the police, who had gathered at the stairs of City Hall, to come help protect us.

Serve and Protect?

Repeatedly asked for help, law enforcement hung back, refusing to cross the street and stop assaults.

The police refused to move from their positions, saying that if we didn’t feel safe, we should leave.

Here is a full report from one of Julie’s supporters:

“I observed the city police officers withdrawing from the edge of the press release/rally area until they were all clustered around the front of city hall.

As the trans support crowd became increasingly violent, I ran over to the police and pleaded for help explaining that the crowd was pushing and assaulting a number of people. The police chief responded ‘we’ve been given our directives and if you feel unsafe you should leave.’

I turned to one of the other policemen standing there that I recognized as having been at the perimeter of the rally area and asked ‘you were over there before, why are you not there now?’ And he said ‘we’ve been given our directives and I stayed as long as I could.’ (reading between the lines I believe he was implying that he had been ordered to leave).

Also, in my recollection, the City Police didn’t engage until the State Police showed up and went directly into the area where trans protesters were being violent towards the rally participants.”

She wrapped up with the following, which she was firm in clarifying is only her opinion and not (yet) proven fact:

“It’s clear to me that the rally/press release participants were the object of a city endorsed ambush.

My heart is broken in the face of humanity’s erosion to — once again — condoning violence against women from men — particularly that the strategy of assault was set in play by city officials.

…I’m speechless and shell shocked.”

Police Chief Tom Olson

Hmmm.  “We’ve been given our directives.”  By whom?  Asking for a friend…

Another videographer caught police response on camera. The Chief stood back cooly, choosing to leave it to his minions to speak, as the side he’d already taken a stand for was right there behind him.

About a minute in, you’ll hear concerns from a couple of men regarding the lack of police presence near the speakers.  After a stunning period of Who, me? moments, officer Kamal Sharif responds, “Please let the folks there know that if you don’t feel safe being there, you’re free to leave.”

Officer Kamal Sharif, at right, explains their current directive.

That’s nice of the PTPD, to return one of our own messengers with the message that we’re “free” to leave. Defending the cops, a woman with a Pride flag opined “It’s okay, they have to look out for themselves, too. It’s not safe for them…” as the audio trails off, becoming difficult to decipher.

This is from Chief Olson’s official PTPD webpage:

“Communication is essential towards building public trust.  The Port Townsend Police Department will always strive to be open, transparent, and work together with the community to ensure our citizens are heard and valued.  I passionately believe in the sanctity of life, meaning every person, no matter what their circumstances, is valued and their life is sacred.”

As Ana Wolpin observed in her last article, “All people are entitled to basic respect, but some people are more entitled than others.”  

The speakers tried to carry on as the fury of the crowd intensified, along with the physical and verbal abuse.  Jim Scarantino reported going back across the street to the police.  “I asked them if it was their policy to do nothing. They said they wanted both sides to be able to “protest.” I told them things were getting violent. They did not move.”

He returned to the speakers and saw the assaults continuing.  He recalls, “At that point I called 911 and described the escalating violence. The dispatcher said words to the effect, ‘Law enforcement is on the scene.’ I replied, ‘No they’re not. They left.’”

Within minutes, State Patrol officers filed in with some PTPD officers in tow. They went to the pier side of the speakers and hung back for a very long time, after announcing that they were going to clear the area in ten minutes. They watched along with the crowd around them as the Dispatch teenager, squatting to the ground, planted his head against the crotch of one of our defenders.

The 10-year old lieutenant courageously covered him.

An ever-present black-masked man who appeared to be in his 50’s wearing a ball cap—the only identifying aspect was a little pigtail poking out from shaved sides of his head—leaned into the inner circle behind those kids. He sported a black tee shirt with a gruesome graphic that said Capitalism is a death cult.

Why and what was he doing there? What is that man’s investment in this project? Is he a paid provocateur? Antifa?

Finally the Troopers took action, and began waving back the trans horde in a time to get going manner. I could not hear what they were saying. I was on the north side of the speakers’ circle, so didn’t see what transpired after that, but video documentation reveals some details.

Police attempted to grab the Dispatch young man, but he ran off without pursuit.

The child with the camo pants continued moving through the crowd. They handcuffed the man wearing the Capitalism is a death cult tee shirt and took him away. Did he spend the night in jail? The JeffCo Sheriff’s roster doesn’t indicate that to be the case. Did they take him down to the ferry dock and let him out of the car with a firm finger wagging? That would not surprise at this point.

Were any of these troublemakers local residents?

The tattooed bully claimed to be a local, screaming at the woman in front of him “You came to my town to protest, and you’re telling me I’m harassing you?”  I’ve never seen him, nor any of the other belligerents, before.

Where did all those bicyclists come from?  Do they live here?  Was this protest coordinated by some Seattle or Portland trans lobby organizer? Did the mayor help facilitate it?  A Public Records Request has been filed to find the answers to those questions.  Do we have reason to trust the city to return truthful records requests?  I wonder.

Isn’t it interesting how beneficial the last two years of mask theater have been to this particular angle of the ‘new world order’ agenda?  Faceless perpetrators of criminal mischief and violence that the police refuse to be even bothered by.

As the event wound down, the ironic chant coming from the cacophonous mob reverberated throughout the entire waterfront —

NO HATE HERE!!!   NO HATE HERE!!!   NO HATE HERE!!!

Top photo: Jim Scarantino.
Additional images captured from videos taken by Crystal Cox and Robert Zerfing.

** I wish to acknowledge and thank Ana Wolpin, my co-editor and dear friend, for making this article possible.  It was her idea for me to put my witnessing of this event into words at a time that I was so raw, so rattled by what I experienced that night, it was the last thing on earth I wanted to consider.  That is what good editors do.  She spent the better part of two days exploring various footage and taking most of the screen shots that appear in this article, as I wrote my recollections.  Without Ana, you would not be reading this today.  Now is also a good time for me to express my gratitude to Ana, Stephen and Jim, without whom the Port Townsend Free Press would not exist.  While I’m at it, thank you all, readers.  You are why we continue to volunteer to do this work.  ~ Annette

Women Seeking Civil Rights Stand Up to Mob Hatred and Intimidation in Port Townsend

by Jim Scarantino | Aug 16, 2022 | General

An angry white crowd screaming at a Black woman pleading for civil rights. Threatening her. Intimidating her. Senior women linking arms to protect a rape survivor trying to speak. A lesbian being shouted down by a mostly male mob decked out in Pride colors. A man with an AR-15 imposed over a Trans flag on his ball cap, the impression of a handgun in his left cargo pants pocket, hiding behind sunglasses and a mask that made identification difficult.

This was the face of rage and hate Port Townsend showed to women who asked for equal rights, to have their spaces respected, to be able to go to the bathroom and showers in pubic facilities and not suffer PTSD flashbacks from memories of being raped and assaulted because there is an adult male human being where they once could feel safe.

Most of the jeering, intimidating mob of hundreds pressing elder women against the wall of the Cotton Building appeared to be from out of town. According to another journalist covering the event, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club was there, the group that provides armed “security” at Antifa riots. Antifa was there, clusters of men dressed in black with black face coverings. Several women were knocked to the ground by large men who broke through their linked arms. They tore down flags and tried to steal equipment being used to amplify and record the event.

Notice a pattern to the violence? Men attacking women. “They must be very afraid of us,” says Amy E. Sousa, the event’s organizer. “Strong women speaking for their rights are very threatening to them.”

The event was billed as a press conference at the Pope Marine Park on August 15, 2022, for supporters of Julie Jaman. Her story went viral and international after it was first reported here. Jaman says she was showering in the Mountain View pool’s women’s showers. The pool is owned by the city of Port Townsend and managed by the Olympic Peninsula YMCA.  Jaman heard a male voice. She saw a man in a woman’s bathing suit not far from her shower opening watching little girls peel off their swim suits. He was able to see her nakedness. She asked him if he had a penis. He told her, “None of your business.” Thereupon she shouted for him to leave. The man in the bathing suit was the only other adult in the shower area initially. Unbeknownst to Jaman, he is an employee of the YMCA. Another Y employee entered the room and yelled at Jaman that she was being “discriminatory” and was prohibited from ever using the pool again and that the police were being called.

Jaman says the pool needs to provide an area where women—adult female human beings, not males who identify as or claim to actually be women—can dress and shower with dignity and privacy.

Sousa is a local women’s rights activist with an international reach. She has been a leader in the movement to reclaim and protect women’s rights against encroachments and appropriation by Trans ideology. One of the organized chants of the angry mob was, “Trans women ARE women.” Not “men who identify as women,” but women. As Jaman said in an interview with the feminist publication Reduxx, if the man she saw in a woman’s bathing suit is a woman, “Then what am I?”

Sousa (white-on-purple outfit) holding hands with weeping supporter of Julie Jaman,

The event began with Sousa and two other women singing a refrain from Sarah Hester Ross’s Savage Daughter: “I am my mother’s savage daughter. I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice.” At this point a wide circle of women holding hands surrounded the singers. Sousa next spoke and the mob that numbered in the hundreds closed in tightly around her and her group, forcing them backwards. Their once wide circle collapsed so that they were pressed into each other. When Sousa spoke about the foremothers of the women’s rights movement the mob screamed to drown her out. When she spoke words honoring mothers, the crowd booed her.

Port Townsend police had previously been there, stationed loosely between the groups. But as soon as Sousa started speaking they disappeared. The crowd closed even tighter when Jaman spoke. It was impossible to hear her over screams, whistles, banging on metal and a cacophony of other overpowering sounds. She was assaulted when she finished speaking, with the live feed going black during the scuffle.

The assaults on other women in the group began immediately when Jaman finished, ratcheting up from being screamed at, face-to-face, to pushing and shoving and grabbing at and breaking through the perimeter of linked arms. Dr. Elizabeth Kreiselmaier, the GOP candidate running for Congress against Derek Kilmer spoke inside a small protective circle of women.

When I saw a large man pushing an elder woman up against the wall, then another woman being knocked to the ground, I ran out to Water Street to look for the police. Earlier I had seen maybe ten officers in Highway Patrol and Port Townsend police uniforms, including Chief Tom Olson. Now all I found was Port Townsend Police Officers Kamal Sharif and Marc Titterness across the street, a good ways from and out of sight of the growing melee. I asked them if it was their policy to do nothing. They said they wanted both sides to be able to “protest.” I told them things were getting violent. They did not move.

When I got back to the speakers I saw things getting worse, as the mob had completely enveloped the women, some of whom were using open umbrellas to protect themselves. It was madness and many of the older women were being pushed around, with more stumbling to the ground. One woman went sprawling on the ground when she was pushed from behind.

At that point I called 911 and described the escalating violence. The dispatcher said words to the effect, “Law enforcement is on the scene.” I replied, “No they’re not. They left.”

Thankfully, in several minutes a line of highway patrol officers followed by PT police marched in from Water Street and removed several of the mob from entanglements with the speakers and their protective perimeter. I had to wave for police again when some of the mob grabbed a man’s camera and a scuffle broke out. It is hard to describe how bad things were as men pressed into and pushed elder women, some frail, as they blasted air horns in their faces.

But the nine or so speakers did not fail in their resolve. Every one got through their statements. Some of the elder women linking arms to protect the microphone were weeping. The Black woman the crowd had jeered draped herself over the amplifier to protect it from being stolen.

The women supporting Jaman stood there bravely in the face of hatred and rage that sent one or two supporters’ men home.

This man attacked multiple woman supporting Jaman, including Rachelle Merle who he knocked to the ground.

The Black woman the White mob tried to silence and intimidate is Gabrielle Clark, a Nevada mom who filed a lawsuit against her biracial son’s school for retaliating against him when he resisted forced indoctrination in Critical Race Theory. She describes herself as a fighter for civil rights against woke oppression. That includes erasing and subjugating women to satisfy Trans ideology. After she was done speaking she calmly faced a muscular male provocateur who hurled insult after insult into her face. This same male provocateur body slammed Port Townsend Free Press editor Annette Huenke from behind and knocked Rachelle Merle to the ground.

Half of the woman who pleaded for safe spaces for women are survivors of sexual violence, according to Sousa. We have written why the Mountain View pool is no longer safe for many women and girls who have suffered such violence and abuse from men.

When Crystal Cox spoke from the perspective of a lesbian who believes males should not be in women’s showers and bathrooms, the crowd did not relent. If anything, they grew louder as an air horn let loose about a yard from Cox’s head.

Four Highway Patrol officers walked Julie Jaman and her daughter to their car to ensure their safety.

I am old enough to remember the civil rights movement for Black Americans. What I saw in Port Townsend is similar to what happened at Woolworth’s lunch counters, bus stations and voting registration lines. I can’t say that I saw the birth of the next phase in the struggle for women’s civil rights in Port Townsend on August 15, 2022. But I did see history made when these brave women stood up against a maelstrom of hate and intimidation. They were attacked for making a simple request that should be noncontroversial. As their press release for the event stated:

We support the sex based rights of women/girls’ to facilities designated to us based on our sex. We are against sex based discrimination, which includes depriving us of rights and provisions on the basis of our sex. We support women/girls’ right to boundaries around our bodies. We support women/girls right to say NO to men in our spaces/sports. We support the right of consent for all women/girls. We demand that men respect the boundaries we have around our bodies!

I spoke to Sousa afterwards. “If it had just been me and our 30-40 supporters holding a press conference, this would have gone nowhere. But by their actions [the mob] made this go viral, around the world.” She ended our conversation saying she had to respond to the media inquiries pouring in. Before I had finished drafting this story Matt Osborne’s widely-followed The Distance had already published, “Angry Gender Activists Disrupt Speakers, Assault Elderly Women to Celebrate Diversity.”

Mayor Deflects Backlash Over Men in Women’s Showers at YMCA, Virtue Signals About Trans Rights Instead

by Ana Wolpin | Aug 12, 2022 | General

“Wow!  Why are trans rights and trans feelings
more important than any woman’s? 
Why are women and children not worthy of protection?”
– Comment from Port Townsend Free Press Facebook post

————————

Dozens of citizens filled Port Townsend City Council chambers and joined by phone Monday night, August 1st, to address the council about the banning of 80-year-old resident Julie Jaman from the city’s public swimming pool. The near-hour of emotional and often impassioned public comments underscored a deep cultural divide in the Port Townsend community.

Jaman’s story, which went viral nationwide and then internationally following the Free Press‘s detailed coverage, involved her shock of hearing a man’s voice in the women’s locker room while she was naked in the shower after a swim at the pool. When she looked out from the thin plastic shower curtain and saw a biological man in a women’s swimsuit, she became upset and demanded the person leave. Rather than de-escalate the situation, the pool manager who intervened told Jaman that she was guilty of “discrimination” and that because of her objections she was banned from the pool for life.

The 60-year-old Mountain View Pool is at the center of this controversy and of a community complex, the Mountain View Commons. The former school campus also includes the Port Townsend Police Department, the Food Bank, and local radio station KPTZ. The Olympic Peninsula YMCA began operating the city-owned pool in 2021 in partnership with the City of Port Townsend. The city is ultimately responsible for all the public spaces at the site and for policies established at the pool.

After the distressing incident, Jaman wrote a letter to the Port Townsend City Council and state reprepresentatives. At the council’s August 1st meeting, she read from a follow-up statement during the 3-minute public comment period.

Julie Jaman leads off public comments about discrimination at the city pool at the August 1, 2022 Port Townsend City Council meeting. Click on this image to watch the archived meeting. Jaman’s comment begins at minute 7.

In measured tones, Jaman asked for “respectful and inclusive” policies for all pool patrons:

“There is no signage informing women the shower room is now all-gender. Have parents been informed of what they can expect with these policies? The Y has not provided any dressing/shower room options for women who do not want to be exposed to men who identify as women.

It is unconscionable that the YMCA would instigate these new policies without clearly informing pool patrons and parents. Although in 2021 the Y reported that they were adding family and all-gender dressing and bathing areas, they’ve not done that. Instead, they’ve usurped the binary designations… with no choices. The staff seems to have received little professional training on how to handle reactions to such a radical cultural change — particularly for the most vulnerable, older female patrons, and children who may be exposed to inappropriate behavior… the dignity and safety of unsuspecting women who have trusted to use these facilities for many years.

This is not right. The YMCA, the city, the police and sheriffs, the parents, the professionals who assist victims of voyeurism, peeping toms, 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.”

More than 20 people followed Jaman, participating both in person and by phone in a heated comment session.

Half who spoke agreed that allowing biological men to use women’s facilities creates comfort and safety issues, and asked for a third shower and changing area to accommodate trans/non-binary individuals.

The other half believed that trans individuals should have access to whatever facilities they choose as their gender identity. Some went so far as to say that the people who don’t accept that are bigoted, hateful and deserve to lose their Y membership if they can’t get in line with trans ideology.

Some commenters tried to find a middle ground, also asking for additional facilities at the pool to accommodate the divide.

THE MANTRA: Trans Women Are Women, Trans Men Are Men

The reach and saturation of the trans narrative was no more evident than in the parroting of slogans by a small child who came with his family to address the council. The self-described “9-year-old non-binary person” stressed that it is not fair that people didn’t accept that a person is whatever gender they say they are.

At the podium, the nine year old explained through a mask:

“Since I’m so young people don’t often take me seriously. And they will use my pronouns, but I can tell that they are not really respecting me and they don’t actually think that a child can make this kind of decision. But I believe—that imagine this—that you know what gender you are, that’s the gender you are. And if you know you are not in the gender you are born, you know that’s a mistake. You are not someone who identifies as female, you are someone who IS female.  I believe that if you know what gender you are and you get sent into the pool and somebody gets mad at you because you’re not in the bathroom they think you should be, then that is not fair. You know what gender you are and if someone else says, Well, sorry we think you should be in this bathroom, how would that make you feel? It’s not fair that we don’t count these as the same as us, these are the same kind of people and I don’t believe that we should be treating them like someone who identifies as someone else. That is not fair.”

Andre Wilson reinforced that assertion. “I am a transgender man who identifies as non-binary. I lived a miserable life as a transgender child.”

“Transgender people are the person they identify as. So when a trans woman says they are a woman, they are a woman. When a trans man says they are a man, they are a man. There is no question about that.”

Washington state law affirms that contention, Wilson said, emphasizing a second time: “Trans women are women, trans women [sic] are men, non-binary people are non-binary. That’s it.”

Variations on that refrain were repeated by speakers throughout the comments. Asserting that a biological male identifying as a woman IS a woman, they championed their right to equal access of formerly binary bathrooms and showers.

Rebecca Horst announced that she had spent three hours in traffic driving from Sequim to get there. “This individual is NOT a man identifying as a woman, this individual IS a woman,” she said referring to the biological male in the swimsuit who had shocked Jaman.

Another person who chanted the trans mantra was Megan Doherty, “a lesbian who grew up in Port Townsend.” After saying how “brave and strong” the trans community was, she concluded her comment with:

“All that I heard today from the opposing side was ignorance and hatred and bigotry… If you don’t like it, you can choose to leave the pool and go somewhere else. But you do not have the right to pick and choose who gets to use the pool based on your own bigotry and your own ignorance. Trans women are women, trans men are men.”

A curious re-direct of the issue — neither Julie Jaman nor anyone else who spoke had ever suggested that trans people shouldn’t be allowed to use the pool. It was Jaman who had been banned from using the facility.

Speaking to the appropriation of the town’s community pool as a “Pride” agenda headquarters, Alby Baker said,

“I just have one question: Why would a public pool be turned into a marketing platform for sexual preference? And I’d like to get an answer from you guys.”

Facebook invitation:
Come down to Mountain View pool from 11-1 this week
to support Trans youth and the YMCA!

Mayor David Faber replied that responses would be given during the council’s discussion following comments. They weren’t.

Lema Constria (this name is hard to make out on the video capture and could not be clarified by the city) said she lives in Port Townsend with “my wife”, and identified herself as one of the counter-protesters at the picket that had taken place outside the pool earlier that day. She, too, said that the people who were standing for biological women’s rights to a private space were bigots. She repeated the falsehood that people protesting Jaman’s treatment were asking for trans people to be banned from the pool. Constria took the victimization a step further, protesting: “Trans people are people, they deserve human rights.”

It was a shift of focus that took place multiple times during the comments, painting the trans community as the ones being maligned in this discussion. No one had ever said or even implied that trans people didn’t deserve human rights; Jaman was appealing discrimination for being banned for a reaction to what she felt was a violation of her privacy as she stood naked in the shower.

“We are accused of hating trans people, of being Christians…”

Alison Hedlund had also been at the Monday afternoon action at the pool. Hedlund expressed surprise over the attacks she experienced from the group of counter-protesters, at the twisting of the story being told:

“The protest at the Y today… was full of rancor and accusations and insults by the people who showed up on the other side of this issue. We are accused of hating trans people, of being Christians at the Young Men’s Christian Association… and when we laughed, that we must be cultists… and then that we must be pedophiles.”

Annette Huenke, who had also attended that protest in the hopes of having productive dialogue, wrote of her experience. It started out, she said, as a civil conversation with 5 or 6 young people:

“The discussion was respectful until a couple of older women arrived and began to ratchet up the tone with raised voices and name-calling. We were accused of saying things we had not said. We were anti-vaxxers, eventually we were pedophiles, rapists, even Nazis.”

As more counter-protesters trickled in, wrote Huenke, the possibility for conversation came to an end:

“Julie’s friends left in frustration, leaving just the two of us. One of the older women began hectoring us, yelling that we needed a hobby… The slanderous name-calling continued. Some younger folks began joining her, creating a non-stop barrage of loud voices intentionally making it impossible for she and I to hear each other.

This is a common bully tactic used by trans proponents, the goal being to shut down reasonable debate and shut out the opponent. It is highly uncivil and undemocratic.”

The anger and rancor perplexed Hedlund. In her public comment, she asked council:

“But what about our needs as women? Do men transitioning to be women understand discrimination and violence are part of being a woman, and that we DO need protection from predators? Do women transitioning to being men understand that they are also vulnerable to male harassment and violence? I would think so. There is absolutely NO privacy in the women’s locker room, which means we are vulnerable.

I haven’t been there for years because of the lack of privacy… When men can decide that they are identifying as a woman, walk in, display their private parts, have the freedom to ogle or harass or assault anyone there, we have seen what can happen when pedophiles or rapists can and do populate careers and locations where they have easy access to women and children. Anxiety and PTSD is not uncommon when women feel vulnerable around men. Women’s concerns about our safety and privacy are and always have been legitimate, and we have long been accorded the natural right to these public facilities…

Locker room facilities should be upgraded to accommodate the safety and privacy needs of EVERYONE, instead of declaring that we now have a free-for-all to enter any bathroom or locker room.”

What became clear over the course of the comments was that the group asking for a shower/changing area that allowed traditional women to feel safe was seen by transgender advocates as an attack on Clementine Adams, the 19-year-old transgender employee who Jaman had told to leave the room while she was naked — and, by extension, an attack on the entire trans community. They were on the offensive to protect their right to use whatever facilities they chose. They were the ones being discriminated against, they said.

Those supporting the all-gender open policy repeatedly shifted the conversation to how oppressed and fragile trans people are.

“I am a transgender man myself,” phoned in Mo Wolfe from Brinnon.

“I have had surgeries, I have done hormones for years, I have a beard and I appear fully as a man. To say that people should go into the facilities that align with their biological sex can cause trans people extreme amounts of violence… Trans people have extreme high rates of suicide and violence. People should go to the restroom that they feel would be safe for them.”

But what about the sensitivities of elderly women? Where is the shower room that they will feel safe in?

Can we speak of pedophiles?

The mention of pedophilia held the biggest charge of the night.

The concern expressed that when men claiming to identify as women are granted intimate access to children, such access attracts pedophiles and other sexual predators, caused Constria to angrily retort: “People objected to being called bigots but are calling trans people pedophiles. Trans people are NOT pedophiles!”

“Calling and comparing trans people to pedophiles is absolutely disgusting,” said Mo Wolfe.  A phone-in comment from former mayor Michelle Sandoval added, “People who are expressing fear need to get ‘pedophiles’ out of their language.”

IS there any cause for concern that pedophiles and rapists will use trans-inclusive laws to “identify” as women and gain access to vulnerable women and children? In her letter to the city, Julie Jaman wrote:

“Nationally, women continue to lose their personal rights to choose; they, along with little girls, forced to use non-binary facilities, are experiencing increased encounters with peeping toms and assault in shower, dressing and toilet rooms – at schools, gyms, prisons and now, potentially, at Mt. View Pool.”

But that could never happen here. Or could it? An increase in sex crimes when gender-free access is allowed in formerly gender-binary facilities is addressed in the Free Press article, Mountain View Pool No Longer Safe for Women and Girls. It presents “empirical evidence that unisex dressing rooms, bathrooms, and showers are the sexual predator’s candy store.”

Phoning in from the county, Mary Bond used her three minutes to attack previous speakers who had criticized the Y.  She’d taken down their names: “I’m horrified to hear the bigotry quoted by [lists seven names] and others… They are bigots and I am ashamed, embarrassed and horrified. Trans women are women. Trans men are men,” Bond chanted.

Finally, almost an hour in, soft-spoken Addy Thornton, saying she had not planned to comment, carefully summed up what prompted her to speak:

“What I’ve heard is a lot of projection, that those of us who feel discomforted… that feel that decency and morality has been somewhat altered… we’re just hearing things that we’re not doing. The issue at hand is that there is not a place that can be separate, so that everybody is being allowed to be who they are.

Those of us who have grown up for however many years and have never encountered this until just recently—just the past few years where there is this agenda that has been foisted down our throats… I can’t help but feel that this is politically driven, that we are being not asked—but coerced—into accepting that which is impinging on our rights, our freedoms, our ability to operate in a situation where we feel comfortable…

There’s a mantra going on… and just because somebody says so many times that a trans woman is a [woman]… doesn’t make it real. It’s not scientific, it’s biological. So why don’t we agree to disagree… but we have to put conditions into place… for the majority of people.”

The City’s Response

Following public comments, Mayor David Faber opened the council discussion:

“I’m not going to speak to the particular incident that happened a few days ago, I think that the state law on that is very clear.

What I’m going to speak to is that Port Townsend is a welcoming community, and hate and discrimination has no place in this community. LGBTQ people, trans people in particular in this case, are entitled to basic respect. And they have not been receiving that in much of the commentary tonight, calling them pedophiles and rapists and predators. Given the rise in harassment and bigotry that trans persons have experienced recently, it’s important that cisgendered people like me speak out in support of our trans community.”

City Manager John Mauro then reiterated that the Y was following state law, an assertion that has been contested and may result in a lawsuit. He said there were conflicting reports about what had taken place and that the city’s agreement with the Y allows it to ban whoever it wants.

“I couldn’t sit here and say that we are not behind the Y’s decision based on abusive behavior and for the respect of every individual.”

End of discussion.

Faber and Mauro had made their declarations. Evidently, a response had been pre-determined. Circle the wagons.

The script:

• Avoid addressing the treatment of Jaman, question her story;
• Reinforce the Y is “just following state law” excuse;
• Dismiss the outcry for separate changing rooms as trans-hate;
• Focus on pandering to the transgender community.

No other council members spoke up.

Had a meeting been held that the public didn’t know about? Once again we saw the citizenry given their three minutes for public comment to satisfy legal requirements, but the city’s position had already been decided. Sitting through an hour of comments was a formality that had to be tolerated… barely tolerated, as you listen to Mayor Faber’s irritation increase throughout the hour.

Readers are encouraged to listen for themselves to the full public comments. Decide for yourself if you hear bigotry and discrimination from the community members being labeled bigots and trans-haters.  Without exception, not a single commenter who appealed for separate public shower/changing areas free from biological men denounced, let alone expressed hatred for, trans people. As Sebastian Eggert said. “I have no problem with alternative lifestyles.”

But he and others drew the line at allowing biological men in women’s private spaces. They voiced fears that biological women have held for millennia and in response were told that their discomfort and fear made them anti-trans bigots.

Jaman challenged this reverse discrimination in her letter to the city:

“The YMCA policies on gender identity use “pride” as a euphemism to prevent discrimination against one group of people but at the expense of another group – women who don’t want to use all-gender bathing/dressing areas.”

As Addy Thornton had put it, “The issue at hand is that there is not a place that can be separate, so that everybody is being allowed to be who they are.” The council never responded to that simple need that had been voiced by every speaker except the few demanding all-gender access.

People had simply asked that their needs be given the same consideration as the trans community.

So where did all that “hate” rhetoric come from?

“The trans-haters are planning to show up at the Mountain View pool…”

Not only did our mayor characterize valid fears as trans-hate, dismissing public outcry in deference to catering to the trans community, Port Townsend City Council member Libby Urner Wennstrom set her own example of how to be a city leader. Her social media posts fanned divisiveness, mirroring the hate language spewed by the counter-protesters who attacked Hedlund and others during pickets at the pool and at the city council meeting.

The day after the meeting, Wennstrom encouraged people to confront the “trans-haters” who were protesting the Y’s treatment of Jaman and the pool’s policy. On the Y’s Facebook page Wennstrom posted:

“The trans-haters are planning to show up at the Mountain View pool picketing again today (Tuesday 8/2) from 11-1.
If you feel that hate has no place at our public pool, and want to support the Y in creating a safe welcoming place for EVERYONE, show up today!”

The Y is meant to be “a safe welcoming place for everyone”… except women and their families who are uncomfortable sharing once-private spaces with biological males. They don’t get a color in the festive rainbow Pride banners permeating the Y. Those people, in Councilor Wennstrom’s words, are trans-haters. Haters who will be put in their place with a new statement forthcoming from the city council.

While no meaningful city council discussion followed public comments, in the final minutes of the August 1st meeting (at 2:41:40), long after the public had left the chambers, Wennstrom requested additional council action on the pool controversy.   She proposed adopting a statement opposing “discrimination against transgender people and to formally support the Y and its staff in their efforts to assure that everyone feels welcome to use our public pool.”  She made a motion directing the council’s newly-formed Culture and Society Committee to draft this statement. The motion passed unanimously with no council discussion.

Free Press writer Jim Scarantino attended the August 10th Culture and Society Committee meeting for the drafting of the city statement. The committee is comprised of three council members — Owen Rowe, Monica Mick-Hager and Ben Thomas.  Scarantino’s thumbnail report:

“The entire Port Townsend Police Department, minus one officer, provided protection for 9 citizens in the audience, 3 city councilors and 2 city staff at today’s City Council Culture and Society Committee. I observed 4 uniformed officers, one officer in plain clothes and the police chief also in plain clothes. Nothing happened. Only 1 comment. Safest place in Port Townsend. As for any 911 calls going unanswered this afternoon, or police taking a long time to respond, I suppose you will need to talk with City Manager John Mauro, one of those surrounded by superb law enforcement protection, at taxpayers’ expense. I wondered if they were paying the Sheriff to cover the city while the force was in city hall trying to stay awake. Totally boring. The Committee adopted a resolution in support of undefined transgenders, and was struggling with how to define cisgender, too. Supposedly some definitions will be in the resolution when it is presented to City Council at their next meeting, 8/15/22… Mauro was shaking with anger at Julie Jaman’s KIRO interview.”

The callous, abrupt and abusive treatment of a community elder who had been a pool patron for 35 years is not an issue for our city leaders. But the negative press she is bringing to the city is.

It’s all about damage control now.

What was originally called a statement has now been elevated to a special “Proclamation” from the mayor, formalizing the city’s fealty to the transgender community. As backlash continues to grow, the city is doubling down on its support of the Y’s abysmal handling of this charged and sensitive incident.

Protest planned against Mayor Faber at City Hall – “Zoopity boop.”

Jaman’s ban, the city’s inaction, and the council’s choice to focus its time and attention on a transgender “Proclamation” instead of listening to its broader constituency, has led to a planned protest outside City Hall. Amy Sousa, a nationally-known feminist living in Port Townsend, organized the event.

According to an exclusive in The Post Millennial, Sousa and at least 50 others plan to hold a press conference outside of city hall prior to the August 15th city council meeting. In a recent series of tweets between Sousa and Faber, Sousa posted notice of the mayor’s proclamation.

Faber responded by calling her and others who have issues with the proclamation, “transphobes”.

“The mayor of Port Townsend doesn’t seem to think my concerns deserve respectful consideration. I think women/girls deserve the sex based provisions that our foremothers battled for centuries to attain, privacy, safety, & dignity for our BODIES,” Sousa wrote in response to Faber’s tweet.

Mayor Faber’s reply: “Zoopity boop.”

Sousa described the mayor’s response as “juvenile”.

In the new “gender-fluid” reality, intrinsic fears and discomfort held by traditional women no longer matter. Jaman’s shocked outburst was “discriminatory” and per the YMCA’s “code of conduct” warranted an instant expulsion of her on the spot.

“It’s not fair that this woman here was judged to the extent of being banned from the pool for LIFE in the span of however many seconds it took her to react the way she did,” said Peter Robinson in his public comment. “We need to take into account that a lot of elderly people have lived through a lot of binary years and all of the pressures that society put on them back in those days.”

Much like Orwell’s Animal Farm—where All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others—terms like “inclusivity”, “non-discrimination” and “everyone” appear to be selectively applied in Port Townsend.

All people are entitled to basic respect, but some people are more entitled than others.

Community elders who raise their voices because they feel violated don’t make the cut.

——————————————

I did not vote for the T [in LGBT]… They lumped us all in without us involved. They are using LGBT and PRIDE to oppress, gaslight and bully people. They want more rights not equal rights. Trans women have more rights in today’s society then biologically born women. We fought for equal rights, not to take away the rights of others.
— #LGB

Only a woman who has children or has had children understands this response. That “Mama Bear Instinct” or the feeling of “I will do absolutely anything for the good of my children” can happen anytime… anywhere.
You know the feeling… it’s an emotional rollercoaster that can leave a mom shaking with fear or anger. I have been there!
— Edel Sokol

I know some Y employees who think the Y acted wrongly but they can’t/won’t speak up for fear of losing their jobs plus having to deal with the “mob mentality” that would tear them apart. So much for inclusiveness. Sounds like a hostile work environment to me.
— Nonsensical

It’s good to know somebody cares about how women might feel, especially as abuse survivors. True story, hardly anybody does care about what women experience and there is zero sensitivity. Sad too, because our compassion is often exploited, so we are shamed into remaining silent and putting the needs of others before our own.
— Gabrielle Guthrie

Gender Identity Ideology is a hoax. It masquerades as civil rights and compassion and science, and is the opposite of each of these. It is outrageous that men now declare themselves women, and are allowed to destroy women’s sex-based privacy, sports, etc. It is appalling that “progressives” applaud this misogyny. It is horrific that children are being fed to Big Pharma under the guise of this toxic ideology. See Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy for details.
– Carol Dansereau

(A few of the 300+ reader comments
posted under previous Free Press articles in this evolving story)

Mountain View Pool No Longer Safe
for Many Women and Girls

by Jim Scarantino | Aug 10, 2022 | General

A heterosexual male is authorized by the YMCA to enter the women’s showers and dressing area at the Mountain View pool while women and girls are naked. 

Clementine Adams, who also goes by “Clem,” though he wears a woman’s bathing suit on the job at the pool, is heterosexual. His Facebook page identifies him as “interested in women.” As Julie Jaman has recounted, she saw him looking at little girls as they peeled off their swimsuits. He also looked at her as she stood naked from a shower demanding he leave and grant her privacy. He refused. Jaman was banished from the pool for being “discriminatory.” She was told by another Y employee, who was in the shower room at the time of the incident, that police were called. It was Jaman who went to the police to report the incident.

Clementine Adams Facebook profile, August 8, 2022

Some may object to posting this information. But it is all public, available for anyone to see. Photos of Adams have appeared in the New York Post and other media, such as the feminist publication Reduxx, and in widely viewed tweets from feminists angry about his gaining access to the women’s showers merely by donning a woman’s swimsuit and declaring himself to be a woman.

More importantly, the information about Adams being interested in women, despite his choice of clothing and makeup, was and is available to his employer. The Olympic Peninsula Y manages the pool under an agreement with the pool’s owner, the City of Port Townsend. The Y says it is merely following state law. But no state law authorizes an employer to send men into women’s shower areas while women and girls are naked, and then banish women for objecting. As we explained in our first installment on this controversy, the state law upon which the Y relies did not grant rights to Adams. It protected Jaman. It is the Y that violated the state law protecting Jaman’s right to use to facilities consistent with her gender identity and expression.

Another reason for publishing this information and image is that women using the Mountain View pool have a right to know.

Good Men Don’t Go Into Women’s Bathrooms and Showers

Amy E. Sousa

“These policies put women and girls in danger,” says Amy E. Sousa, a Port Townsend advocate for the protection of women’s rights against oppression, appropriation and erasure by men who identify as or claim to be women. “Good men don’t go into women’s rooms. Good men stay out so bad men stand out.” Sousa is a rape survivor and says she well understands how the presence of a man in a woman’s shower area and bathrooms strips from sex violence survivors their sense of safety and can send them into panic and a state of terror.

Sousa has gained a nationwide following for her public speaking, activism and YouTube videos, such as “What is a Woman?“. Her widely followed twitter handle, “KnownHeretic” has received over 200,000 “impressions” for her reporting of Jaman’s story. Sousa has participated in organizing protests at the NCAA national women’s swim final against allowing L. Thomas, a very mediocre University of Pennsylvania swimmer who declared himself a woman (while continuing to date women) to compete against women as a woman (though he’s a man). Sousa has also protested at the United Nations against that organization’s erasure of sex-specific language and protections for women and girls. Sousa, who holds an M.A. in Depth Psychology and works as an embodiment expert, was formerly education director at Port Townsend’s Key City Public Theater.

“Our foremothers,” says Sousa, “fought long and hard for women to have sex based rights and provisions, for us to have boundaries around our bodies.”

“Our foremothers didn’t fight for us to have ‘identity’ spaces, but to have spaces for the safety, privacy, and fairness of our BODIES. It is a safeguarding failure to teach girls they have no right to boundaries around their bodies, to teach them they do not have the right of consent, that they don’t have the right to say NO to men in their spaces, regardless of the labels those men use to describe their ‘Identities.’

All men are equally physically men. And women/girls have the right to say NO to men in our spaces, this includes ALL MEN regardless of their claimed ‘identities.’ Men need to respect the boundaries women/girls have around our bodies. This includes all men.”

Sousa points to empirical evidence of the dangers of men in women’s private areas, including a longitudinal, nation-wide study done following the Target department store’s decision to allow all sexes to share dressing room areas. The study found that sexual incidents in Target’s dressing rooms, particularly Peeping Tom and upskirting incidents, very quickly increased 200% and more. The study concluded that its findings “support the theory that sex predators may take opportunities afforded by gender-inclusion policies to perpetrate sexual violence against women in public spaces.”

We will return to the extensive evidence of violence and abuse when men are allowed into formerly sex-specific private spaces for women.

YMCA: Fear and Terror is Your Problem, Rape Survivors

The Y has doubled down and declared that it will cancel the membership of anyone who “discriminates,” as Jaman did by objecting to a man standing at her shower seeing her and little girls naked. The CEO of Olympic Peninsula YMCA Wendy Bart issued a letter to all members stating the Y’s policy. Any actions based on sex or sexual orientation—and she was addressing Jaman’s situation specifically—will result in banishment. Women and girls are being told to stuff it. The best a woman can do now is scream and keep screaming, but not explain why if they don’t want to be banished from the pool permanently.

I have spoken with two other rape survivors who told me they would have been terror-stricken being surprised by a man in their showers. The prospect of encountering a naked man while they are coming out of a shower would be a living nightmare for them. We have also received comments from victims of child sexual abuse echoing those fears.

The Y’s policy of sending its male employee into the women’s showers requires women and girls to submit, to surrender, to feel shame and maybe even blame themselves. Mattie Watkins, a mother of four and published author, once struggled with gender dysphoria.  “[T]he realization that I grew out of it is what initially brought me into the conversation,” she wrote the PT Free Press.

“Being a stay-at-home mom has put me in a position to talk about these things openly in a way many women can’t. I get messages daily from women telling me that they agree with me but that they are scared of getting doxxed, losing their jobs, losing their social support system, and generally fear a complete derailment of their lives. When women can’t talk freely and openly, the problem is undeniable.”

[The Y is now doing this to Jaman, launching a character assassination campaign against her with unspecified allegations that she has a history of bad conduct that led to her banishment. Jaman, who has been swimming at Mountain View for 35 years, says she’s never been informed of any infractions. The Y has not responded to her request for details and documentation of these alleged incidents. The Y has also not responded to our request for details to verify their claims to media that Jaman was a problem before she objected to encountering Adams in the women’s showering area.]

Watkins, like Sousa, has used social media to spread Jaman’s story, receiving about 100,000 impressions of her tweets and scores of replies. She shared with us this heart-breaking account from a survivor of sexual violence about what it is like to have to share showers with a naked man who says he is, despite an erect penis, a woman:

“Okay, please be kind here; I’m struggling to do the right thing here. I’ve been practicing yoga for two and a half years. I’m a very shy and introverted person and after going to several yoga studios, was very grateful to find one where I’m comfortable. Also their schedule and location are very convenient to me; thanks to this combination I’ve been able to really deepen my practice and I feel like it’s been a miracle in my life. 

So there is a new person coming to the studio who’s also new to yoga in general. This person is a transgender woman and I warmly welcomed her to the studio. I do believe and support trans people in using whatever bathroom facilities they feel most comfortable in. Or so I thought, anyway. I was in the open shower area and she and I ended up being the last two people in there. 

She is definitely very masculine. She had an erection and took an extended look at my body. I wish I had loudly said “Why are you looking at me?” or “Stop looking at me!” but I didn’t. I have a lot of compassion for the challenges faced by the LGBTQ plus community, but I also have my challenges. I was molested as a girl and this is the strongest I’ve ever been triggered as an adult. This time and another time in college when I had a guy aggressively grind against me. But her locker room etiquette was BAD to have looked at me for so long.

Now I have anxiety. If I stop going to that yoga studio, I won’t be able to do yoga before work. I could go to the owners and what??? Be a little tattletale? Be very unpopular and say I’m not comfortable with a transgender person? That goes against everything I thought I believed in; I have fought to bring kindness and understanding to difficult situations. Trust me, I do understand that me being triggered by an erect penis is my problem; I’ve intermittently been in therapy for most of my adult life. I feel disempowered and old-fashioned and vulnerable and stupid and confused. I hope nobody guesses exactly where I’m talking about and please please be kind with any feedback.“

Biological males invading women’s safe, vulnerable spaces revictimizes women who have suffered sexual violence and abuse. The Olympic Peninsula YMCA does not seem to care. Indeed, it is literally sending a man into those spaces. The YMCA in Washington state has a history of promoting men gaining access to women’s areas and has been deaf to the concerns of women who have been raped, assaulted and abused. We asked Olympic Peninsula YMCA what it has done to make survivors of sexual violence and abuse feel safe in its showers, or whether they should just stay away from the Mountain View pool. They have not responded.

Kaeley Triller Harms

One former Y employee, Kaeley Triller Harms, survived sexual abuse that started when she was in diapers and lasted ten years. Her abuser “liked to watch me in the shower.” She worked in YMCAs for 17 years but was fired for objecting to allowing biological males into women’s bathrooms and showers. That was before Washington’s access law was passed, when the Y on its own permitted the invasion. She says the trans agenda that is claiming women’s and girl’s safe, vulnerable spaces is creating a “rape culture.”

There Is Reason For Fear: Mounting Evidence That Men in Women’s Locker Rooms, Bathrooms and Showers Hurt Women and Girls

The revictimization of women and girls who have survived sexual violence and abuse should be enough on its own. Only a sick institution run by sick, malignant people would disregard their trauma and pain. But there is also empirical evidence that unisex dressing rooms, bathrooms, and showers are the sexual predator’s candy store. The Target study cited above is just the tip of the iceberg.  We have aggregated a few of the reported, growing number of incidents where women have been assaulted, peeped, humiliated and stripped of their sense of security and dignity by men in women’s supposedly safe, private spaces.

Transgender woman convicted of sexually assaulting 10-year old girl in bathroom.

Man arrested after grabbing woman in Walmart restroom

Man dressed as Barbie in bathroom attack

Man dressed as woman arrested for spying into bathroom stall

Sex offender wearing fake breast and wig arrested for loitering in women’s restroom

Five times transgender men abused women and children

University of Toronto Dumps Transgender Bathrooms 

Sexual predator jailed about claiming to be transgender in order to assault women

Man caught undressing in front of girls at Green Lake locker room

Cross-dressing sex predator sentenced for assaults in Clackamas aquatic park

Women at risk in unisex changing rooms

Teenage trans “woman” raped girl in bathroom

Man dressed as woman recorded hours of video in women’s restrooms

Transgender woman violently sexually assaulted girl in bathroom

Cross-dressing man secretly videotaped women in Macy’s bathroom

Public high school closes gender neutral bathroom after student sexual assault

Council Watch August 1 – Road Repair vs Calming

by Stephen Schumacher | Aug 8, 2022 | General

Mayor David Faber opened the Port Townsend City Council’s August 1 meeting by moving public comments to the top of the agenda in consideration of the many members of the public present intending to comment. Nearly an hour of comments concerned YMCA management of Mountain View Pool, the subject of past and future Free Press reports, so here’s what happened during the rest of the meeting.

In non-YMCA comments, disabled musician Mark Daniel Hoskins described the city harassment he’s experienced while performing and in his own trailer.  State law allows 71 decibels in mixed residential areas like downtown, so he asks why he is harassed for playing near the ambient loudness in a town that is promoted as being artist-friendly. He is not breaking laws and just wants to be left alone to perform his music.

Jaisri Lingappa remotely attended the July 18 council workplan retreat, but found the audio was incomprehensible leaving no detailed public record of an important all-day planning meeting that covered affordable housing.  She noted that currently touted developments on Madrona Ridge and Cook Avenue are almost certain to be unaffordable. She requests a redo discussion at an upcoming council meeting with proper audio, and that councilors make their stands and plans available to the public.

Stephen Schumacher asked how many PT police officers have resigned or retired in the past two years, whether exit interviews were conducted with the departing officers, whether summaries of such interviews are available to the public, and how many city officers have left for Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and Kitsap County positions.

In response to public comments, City Manager John Mauro apologized for the audio at the retreat, but members of public could and did attend in person, materials and minutes have been posted, and the public is invited to participate in the city/county/port/PUD conversation about housing on August 18.  Regarding police staffing, he intends to bring a status report to council from the police chief later this summer, having made some good progress there.

Taking Care of Business

Following an executive session to discuss an employee’s performance, the council discussed and unanimously approved several items of new business:

• Contracting with GeoEngineers to perform a seismic stability study (required by the State Dam Safety Office) costing up to $134,000 (all but $47,000 paid by a FEMA grant) on Lords Lake’s poor-condition East Dam.
• Disposing of $31,638 unused COVID-19 Financial Assistance Utility Bill Relief Grant funds ($25,000 from the Utility Fund, $8,138 from community donations, only $1,455 ever used to help people). Staff proposed clearing the books by offering debt relief grants to about 15 utility accounts averaging $1,900 in arrears due to lockdown impacts (2/3 residential, 1/3 landlords or small business), with remaining funds sent to OlyCap. Normally such gifts of public funds would be prohibited, but the State Attorney General allowed public funds to be spent for “promoting public health which may have an incidental benefit on private citizens.” Councilor Libby Wennstrom would like council to learn from this experience, where it set up a large amount of money that couldn’t be optimally used. Deputy Mayor Amy Howard clarified the original program limited grant amounts so the most number of recipients could benefit, but it should have been reviewed after 1 not 2 years.
• Extending deadline from August to October 1, 2022 for proposing to levy up to $900,000 in additional 2023 property taxes out of the “banked capacity” that would have been paid annually to East Jefferson Fire Rescue prior to its 2019 annexation agreement (note $600,000 was levied in 2022).
• Contracting up to $100,000 from the Stormwater Utility Fund to repair extraordinary June 5 storm damage to Walnut Street (between T and V Streets) and to the Logan Street storm pond outfall.
• Relinquishing an unnecessary utility easement to clear title for 346 Logan Street (which should have been done 60 years ago when 4th Street was vacated).

Transportation Improvement Board Grant

Public Works Director Steve King asked council for authorization and guidance applying for this year’s big state transportation grant. From staff’s summary statement:

Staff described their list of projects that might score well, including 7 to repair pavement:

1. W Street — Cherry to Walnut
2. San Juan/49th — Admirality to Fairgrounds
3. Washington Street — Van Buren to Sims
4. 12th Street — Landes to Sheridan
5. Tyler Street — Jefferson to Lawrence
6. Lawrence Street — 19th to F
7. San Juan — 19th to F

… and one to enhance crossings and calm traffic:

1. 19th/Blaine Street — Sheridan to Walker

Since staff had concerns about delivering a quality application on the first four (which are much larger Urban Arterial pavement projects), it recommends applying for either the Tyler or 19th Street projects. Grants have a 15% match requirement paid from Real Estate Excise Tax funds.

King emphasized that it’s always helpful to make TIB applications, since they garner helpful feedback even if not successful, but staff feels stressed to get this one in before the August 19 deadline. Ideally the city would receive a big grant like for Discovery Road every 3 years, and a smaller one every year between.

Councilor Owen Rowe asked about possible traffic calming measures on 19th Street, and King answered they “could be islands, raised crossings, bulb-outs, tables … could do safety islands in the middle.”

Rowe also asked about the concurrent Safety Grant for 19th Street, which King explained was for a planning study, saying “If we don’t get the Safety Grant money, then we would need to fund that study to make sure we get it right in the public process, but at least this [TIB] grant would give us implementation dollars.”

Transportation Grant – Public Comment

In public comment, Schumacher asked how patchwork pavement repairs, newfangled projects like Edge Lane Roads (ELRs) preserving not repairing pavement, and big-ticket TIB grants fit together. He’s unclear whether the city has the money to do basic bread-and-butter repairs without depending on grants. There’s general discontent about roads not being fixed; looking at ELRs and the traffic-calming islands put on Washington Street that just make you go a little slower, they look pretty, but don’t seem cost-effective compared to just fixing the roads. So he wonders about the actual realities on the street and how these big grants relate to the city’s regular repair program.

Debbie Yanke commented, “The intersection of 19th Street and Landes is the only place we’ve had a bicycle/car fatality in our city. I’ve sat at that intersection, having cars going both directions on 19th, both directions on Landes, with pedestrians involved, and bicycles, in both directions.  And yet on Landes at 14th we have 3 crosswalks within 50 yards on Kai Thai. So I’d really like to see crosswalks for safety purposes at Landes and 19th, and wherever else on 19th it can occur.”

King responded that grant applications are periodic, not part of normal maintenance, but it’s great when a grant can take a big pavement repair job off our list. Rebuilding Lawrence Street will cost an arm and a leg, but if some pavement had been preserved, it would only cost an arm. Safety improvements can be achieved by striping at no additional cost. So the city is trying to get the best outcome it can by marrying grants within its comprehensive maintenance program.

Faber clarified that traffic calming on Washington Street was paid predominantly by neighborhood donations.

Counselor Libby Wennstrom provided an educational response:

I get this question a lot, so it tells me that people don’t understand this. Prior to 2003, municipalities got a great deal of street funding from the state, and with the rollback on car tab fees, that funding disappeared.  And that’s the point at which municipalities – and it’s not just Port Townsend, but everywhere in Washington – stopped being able to repair our streets. People say, we haven’t fixed these in 20 years – that’s why.

Port Townsend has a unique challenge, most cities of our size and tax base have far fewer miles of built road.  I believe we have 88 miles of paved roads here, and a city of 10,000 people would normally have half that or less. … We don’t begin to have the budget to fix these.

Do we pay $900,000 to pave one mile, or do we use that for grant match money so we get 20 times our amount? So that’s part of our tap dance that’s happening here.

This is how we’re going to be able to fix the streets. And if you’ve got real problems with street funding, you need to take it to the state legislature, because that’s where that’s going to get fixed.

Transporation Grant – Discussion and Decision

As the meeting was running long, Faber asked each councilor which project they’d support on the grant application.

Wennstrom deferred to staff’s expertise, but when pressed went for 19th Street as “the area of greatest pain.”

Rowe said, “These are all fantastic projects, it was when I got to 19th Street – that’s the one we’ve got to do. As Ms. Yanke pointed out, we have actually had a bicycle fatality there, and it’s been recognized as a problem area for a long time. So if we can have any chance of getting funding to address that, that’s the one to go for.”

Amy Howard expressed that, “19th Steet is bizarre, it is built like a race track. I catch myself going down it and going, ‘Oh no!’ and having to brake. And I try to follow the speed limit. … That is a place where we have a known issue.”

Councilor Monica MickHager agreed with 19th Street, since “it hits the most bullet points the way I read them.”

Councilor Aislinn Diamanti also agreed with 19th Street, but would love for the next big project to be on Washington Street.

Councilor Ben Thomas explained, “I pretty much fall with everyone here on 19th. I’m concerned about developing a piecemeal approach to traffic calming. This Washington Street thing has come up a few times, I think rightly so – it’s one of those gifts we’ve given to the public to unite everybody, unfortunately, against us. [general laughter]  I don’t know how these choices were made before my time. Do we have a sense of an ongoing strategy for traffic calming? That [19th Street] seems to be the #1 street in town that’s way out of balance with the speed limit and the desired speed there.  So it seems really important, but I want to make sure we’re ready to do something that will look good 20 years from now.”

King replied that “The comprehensive street program is going to have a chapter dedicated to traffic calming. There is no one size-fits all on traffic calming, you need to really figure out the psychology of the street and why people are speeding. We want a cohesive effort on 19th Street.  And that’s why we applied for the study money to develop a cohesive plan before we implement. We’ll need to do that regardless if we get the study money or not, need to budget accordingly with the TIB grant.”

Thomas asked King “for clarification what we as a city have contributed to the Washington Street roundabouts. The question keeps coming up, and I keep telling people we didn’t really pay for them, but have of course have maintenance to deal with. Am I wrong to say we did not pay for them?”

King answered that “the traffic calming islands on Washington Street were funded by the neighborhood; the city provided staff time, part of that for testing it out. It’s basically modeled after the Seattle traffic-calming circles that they have in their neighborhoods. I try to use the term ‘traffic calming island’ because they are really not a roundabout. They’re really designed to obstruct the line of view, so you don’t have that open runway look on the street. … yes, the maintenance is ours.”

Faber agreed that 19th Street is essential, but wondered what is the cost difference between the Tyler and 19th Street projects. King answered that 19th Street would be a little more expensive.

Faber figured it would have been the other way around, so concluded, “If 19th Street is more expensive, then that settles it.  I was going to suggest, if it would be more cost effective to take the same money for Tyler Street, and then just ask that maybe 19th Street could be considered in some of the annexation dollar project so we could do both – but great … do the expensive one.”

However King clarified that banked capacity can’t be used on federal aid routes like 19th Street, whereas TIB grants can’t be used on anything but federal aid routes.

MickHager began moving to support a TIB grant application for 19th Street project with up to $75,000 match from Real Estate Excise Tax funds, when King interjected that the match needed to be increased to $150,000 to correct an error in the staff report. With 15% match, 19th Street could be a million dollar project.

Incorporating this amendment, MickHager moved, Wennstrom seconded, and council approved unanimously.

Request for Reconsideration

As the meeting wound down, I felt uneasy about the decision to focus this year’s big street improvement grant on slowing down 19th Street instead of repairing roads in bad condition, so I wrote council on August 4 requesting reconsideration of their choice:

Speeding problem or speed limit problem?

Years ago I attended a traffic planning meeting where expert consultants advised raising the speed limit on 19th Street to the 85th percentile of traffic speeds per transportation engineering best practices:

Research shows that the speed limit has little effect on how fast people drive. … While many drivers ignore speed limits altogether, others do try to follow them out of a sense of safety or obedience. This difference in speeds is actually more dangerous than if everyone were driving at a faster speed. We’ve all felt the frustration of being behind slow drivers and annoyance at aggressive drivers weaving through traffic. Both of these situations are dangerous and make traffic worse.

Raising the speed limit also has other benefits. It improves credibility of the speed limit sign if it consistently marks a reasonable speed for most drivers, not the speed at which politicians wish they would drive. It also improves relations with law enforcement. Rather than having to reflexively brake when seeing a police car, or worrying about selective enforcement of speed laws when everybody is traveling over the speed limit, rational speed limits mean that average drivers can simply go about their business. No one should have to worry about being pulled over for driving in a safe manner.

I wonder about the rationale now for reducing speeds on this arterial whose speed limit is arguably already too low. Does 19th Street really have a bad safety history over the decades?

Reading old Leader articles about the 2018 tragedy where a bicyclist flew over his handlebars into a car that turned in front of him, an accident that could have happened on any street in town and where car speed was not involved, it seems perverse to use this singular tragedy to prioritize up to a million dollars worth of irrelevant “safety islands”, “raised crossings”, “bulb-outs”, and “traffic calming” on a safe arterial in preference to repairing pavement or widening shoulders on roads that really need fixing.

Much of this is based on the backwards notion that if the majority of drivers have a hard time staying inside the speed limit on 19th Street, that proves there’s a dangerous safety crisis on this arterial — whereas the 85th percentile engineering approach takes this to indicate its speed limit has been set too low.

I drive or bicycle along 19th Street nearly every other day, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it having any problems or “speeders” going more that 5 mph over the limit. It’s been probably my favorite stretch of road in town for forty years, and is practically perfect as it is, not Port Townsend’s #1 problem to solve. There is no need to mess with 19th Street and make it worse, at great taxpayer expense.

Give 19th Street some love and some paint and occasional maintenance, and it’ll be okay.

Censored: Men’s Eyes in Women’s Shower Room

by the Editors | Aug 4, 2022 | General

Editors Note: In the Free Press‘s ongoing efforts to expose censorship by local media, we are publishing a letter to the editor written to The Leader by long-time Port Townsend resident Julie Jaman. The letter, printed in full below, was submitted on July 28th following her experience at the Mountain View Pool, a City of Port Townsend facility operated in partnership with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA. The Free Press reported in detail on the episode the letter describes. Other information outlets have since picked up the story, including The Post Millennial, The Distance, and the feminist REDUXX.

Not only did The Leader not publish Jaman’s letter, Jefferson County’s weekly “newspaper of record” provided no coverage of any kind about this significant incident. The violation of a biological woman’s right to privacy and her subsequent banning from the pool led to a police report, protests and counter-protests at the Mountain View Commons, as well as dozens of public comments at the August 1st Port Townsend City Council meeting. Rather than publish Jaman’s letter and/or a news story, however, this week’s Leader featured a public relations article promoting the Y on their front page. A call from Jaman to the editor was never returned, she says. Once again we see censorship by the legacy media in deference to local institutions and their biases.

Below is the letter The Leader chose not to print. The title was provided by Julie Jaman as part of her submission.

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Men’s Eyes in Women’s Shower Room

Editor, The Leader

Showering after my swim at Mt. View Pool, I heard a man’s voice. Peeking out I saw a man in a woman’s bathing suit watching little girls pull down their swimsuits In order to use the bathroom. “Get out of here,” I said.

This is the incident that caused a Y staff person to condemn me as discriminatory and banned me forever from using the pool – the pool with binary changing areas that my family has supported and used for 35 years. I sense I have arrived at the center of this topsy turvy world.

There is no signage on the door informing pool patrons that men will be using the women’s shower/dressing room if they identify as women. There is no place at the pool for women and girls to use who do not want men watching while they shower and dress.

I spoke with a Port Townsend police detective and with the Y’s CEO, Wendy Bart. This, so far, is not a legal incident. However, the CEO provided some information of concern. Ms. Bart told me she assumes the posted “pride” signs indicating the Y welcomes all people are adequate for women to know crossdressers and men who identify as women will be using the women’s dressing/shower room. And she told me that it is the law not to discriminate against such people and that she was standing by her staff person’s decision to exclude me from the pool.

However, there is no way around discriminating against someone in this sex classification vs. gender identity issue when it comes to modesty, dignity and safety. Someone is going to be trespassed. This time it was me: the pool manager, with no inquiry for my well being or concern for what I saw and while I was still in the shower, told me I was discriminating against this man and booted me from the pool.

“Pride” signs act as a euphemism allowing men into the spaces women have always trusted as safe from the eyes of men. The Olympic Peninsula Y is remiss in not posting clear signage on the dressing room doors and for not providing a unisex or family place for those who want to mix it up.

Julie Jaman
Quimper Peninsula

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Additional coverage by the Free Press is forthcoming.