Speaker 1: Warning for some pretty intense transphobia and miss gender ing.
Speaker 1: Eighty year old Julie Jaman was permanently banned from her
Speaker 1: local y m c A after demanding that a transgender
Speaker 1: worker leave the women's locker room. Jaman said that she
Speaker 1: was trying to protect little girls from a biological man
Speaker 1: and a women's swimsuit who was watching them undressed. So
Speaker 1: this week, a few dozen people joined Jaman to protest
Speaker 1: the y m c A. Some of the protesters, including her,
Speaker 1: were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women. Okay, first
Speaker 1: of all, that granny rocks, But when pressed, Poor Towns
Speaker 1: and Washington police said that Mr Mrs Jayman had an
Speaker 1: emotional response to a strange male being in the bathroom
Speaker 1: and helping a young girl take off her bathing suit. Well,
Speaker 1: I should hope the response to that would be emotional, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because this, you know, you can just picture this kind
Speaker 1: of situation where they're rooming little kids, uh, completely inappropriately,
Speaker 1: and you're you're you're doing the thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people want you to do and that a lot
Speaker 1: of people watching would But I hope everybody is aware
Speaker 1: that this, from what I understand, is pretty wonderful profit
Speaker 1: for big pharma and medical systems. It's and what's happening
Speaker 1: to children becomes even more disastrous. And you were protecting
Speaker 1: the kids. You were protecting the kids. I mean, they
Speaker 1: should have a responsibility to do that. The Young Men's
Speaker 1: Christians Association UH should be doing that themselves if they
Speaker 1: were playing any role in this whatsoever. It's pretty frightening.
Speaker 1: This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison, and today
Speaker 1: we're talking about a recent flare up of anti trans
Speaker 1: hate and the anti trans protests and campaigning that's engulfed
Speaker 1: a small town in North and Washington in what conservatives
Speaker 1: describe as the culture war front. The past month, for
Speaker 1: right media personalities and anti trans so called feminists have
Speaker 1: partnered together to create an international nexus point for the
Speaker 1: increasing attacks on trans and queer people, resulting in a
Speaker 1: wave of harassment, death threats, and rallies, including an upcoming
Speaker 1: anti trans rally in association with the Proud Boys and
Speaker 1: Three per Centers slated for Saturday, September three. Port Townsend
Speaker 1: is a small city of just around ten thousand people
Speaker 1: located on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, just north
Speaker 1: of Seattle. The city has a geographic footprint of just
Speaker 1: under ten square miles. Over the course of the past month,
Speaker 1: the quaint beachside city has become the focus of a
Speaker 1: disinformation campaign against trans people and try gender inclusivity. But
Speaker 1: unless you frequent right wing news outlets, you probably haven't
Speaker 1: heard anything about this story, let alone are aware of
Speaker 1: the massive amount of harassment and death threats being targeted
Speaker 1: at trans people and their allies. Anti trans and far
Speaker 1: right activists have already descended on this small city from
Speaker 1: all around the country and plan to do so again
Speaker 1: on September three, with Proud Boys and three per Centers
Speaker 1: promising to show up. So what actually happened that escalated
Speaker 1: things to this point? On July, an eighty year old
Speaker 1: woman named Julie Jammon was in a pool locker room
Speaker 1: and began verbally harassing a trans woman who was on
Speaker 1: the job as an employee of the Olympic Peninsula y
Speaker 1: m c A. Julie Jammen asked invasive questions about her
Speaker 1: genitals and later accused her of engaging in inappropriate conduct
Speaker 1: while continuously mis gendering this employee. Both the employee and
Speaker 1: y m c A officials and like everyone else present
Speaker 1: in the locker room, have disputed Julie's highly publicized version
Speaker 1: of events, which we'll get into in a bit, but
Speaker 1: first we're going to hear from the original target of
Speaker 1: the harassment. A few days ago, I was able to
Speaker 1: talk with Clementine Young trans woman about what happened to
Speaker 1: her near the end of July while working at the
Speaker 1: y m c A. It was a pretty normal day
Speaker 1: that week. We were doing uh, swimming with the kids,
Speaker 1: uh and man the other childcare workers, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: use the locker rooms kind of as expected, and I
Speaker 1: was using the woman's locker room just because you know,
Speaker 1: that works for me, um, and that lines up with
Speaker 1: how I feel. We went through all that no problems.
Speaker 1: We got the kids, the kids got changed and their stalls,
Speaker 1: and then once we were out in the pool, one
Speaker 1: of the kids needed to use the locker room bathroom,
Speaker 1: so I took that kid and another kid into the
Speaker 1: locker room in accordance with the wise rule of three system.
Speaker 1: To clarify, at the y m c A, there is
Speaker 1: a quote rule of three where staff always accompany children
Speaker 1: in a group of three, so that a staff person
Speaker 1: is never alone with a child and children are never
Speaker 1: alone with each other. As Clementine was standing with a
Speaker 1: kid outside the restroom stall, waiting on the other kid
Speaker 1: who was using the bathroom, Julie Gemmond was showering nearby
Speaker 1: in a curtained off stall across the locker room. I
Speaker 1: was waiting outside of the bathroom stall with the kid
Speaker 1: being the buddy, making small talk when Julie Jaman initiated
Speaker 1: the dialogue by asking if I was a member of
Speaker 1: the lgbt Q plus community. I responded, yes, I'm trans
Speaker 1: and she asked me if I had a penis, and
Speaker 1: it kind of caught me off guard. Um, and I
Speaker 1: and I told her that, you know, that's none of
Speaker 1: your business. Um. Julie asserted that I needed to leave
Speaker 1: and that I can't be there. And then in response
Speaker 1: to her assertion, I just shook my head. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: I couldn't really leave or I'd be leaving the kids unattended.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was backed into a corner the kid.
Speaker 1: At some point, Um, the kid using the bathroom exited
Speaker 1: the stall and had her swimming. Her bathing suit like
Speaker 1: wasn't fully pulled up, and she asked me for help,
Speaker 1: and so I assisted her by pulling it up by
Speaker 1: its straps, and you know, there were other patrons present
Speaker 1: in the locker room at this time, and at some
Speaker 1: point around the girl coming out and needing her straps
Speaker 1: pulled up, Julie was back in her shower stall, and
Speaker 1: then around this time, two more kids entered the locker room.
Speaker 1: It might be good to mention I have prescribed glasses. Um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't wearing my glasses and I couldn't see anything,
Speaker 1: which is kind of terrifying, because you know, it was
Speaker 1: like a shot in the dark, like I just heard
Speaker 1: a voice and I had to search around before I
Speaker 1: figured out who's talking to me. But anyways, uh, the kids,
Speaker 1: two more kids came into the locker room and they
Speaker 1: overheard Julie shouting at me and asked me what was
Speaker 1: going on, and like they had this concerned look on
Speaker 1: their face, and I just kind of told them to
Speaker 1: leave because I didn't want them to get involved. The
Speaker 1: kids went to the pool manager, Rowan, and asked for
Speaker 1: help with the escalating situation. They went straight to her
Speaker 1: and asked her to come help and told her that
Speaker 1: someone was yelling at me. And moments later, Rowan entered
Speaker 1: and as she walked by. I got her attention, and
Speaker 1: I told her, you know, there's an older lady yelling
Speaker 1: at me to leave right now. Uh, And I pointed
Speaker 1: at the shower stall that Julie was using. Roan kind
Speaker 1: of like posted up and Rowan stood in between me,
Speaker 1: the kids, and Julie and waited for her to come out.
Speaker 1: And then Julie you know, poked her head back out
Speaker 1: and said get out, you're a man. Um and Rowan
Speaker 1: you intervened when she sort of like popped back out
Speaker 1: and said, no, actually, you need to leave because right
Speaker 1: now you're discriminating and kind of being a bigot. So
Speaker 1: it's actually that you need It's actually you that needs
Speaker 1: to leave right now. And Julie told Rohan she was
Speaker 1: confused about gender. And then Julie pointed at me and said,
Speaker 1: he has a fucking penis. He has no business being
Speaker 1: around little girls. He has a penis, and he could
Speaker 1: rape someone. And after that, Rowan uh sort of ushered
Speaker 1: me and the girls out of the locker room and
Speaker 1: uh told me to go to her office, and then
Speaker 1: the other staff members found me and helped me. Um
Speaker 1: and Rowan stood outside the lobby side of the office
Speaker 1: when I was in there, and um, I guess like, yeah,
Speaker 1: after the police have been called, Julie came out and
Speaker 1: engaged with her, uh, and they were yelling, but I
Speaker 1: kind of hear what was going on, and I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the end of it. I know that
Speaker 1: Julie left after that. I just kind of checked out
Speaker 1: for an hour two. It shocked me. I haven't had
Speaker 1: someone do that to me before. I've never been talked
Speaker 1: to in a bathroom or locker room before, especially in
Speaker 1: that way. The y m c A pool manager told
Speaker 1: Julie Gemmen that she needed to leave and suspended her
Speaker 1: membership for violating the Wise Code of Conduct, which prohibits
Speaker 1: quote discrimination, hatred, derogatory or unwelcome comments, intimidation, conduct or
Speaker 1: actions based on an individual's sex, race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability,
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status unquote, as
Speaker 1: well as having no tolerance for disrespectful words or just
Speaker 1: ors towards y m c A staff or others. Part
Speaker 1: of an official statement released by the Olympic Peninsula y
Speaker 1: m c A, published as the incident in question was
Speaker 1: growing into a much broader anti trans spectacle, clarified that
Speaker 1: Julie has had quote several incidents where she has repeatedly
Speaker 1: violated the wise Code of conduct, specifically using disrespectful words
Speaker 1: or gestures towards y m c A staff or others,
Speaker 1: and abusive, harassing and or obscene language or gestures towards
Speaker 1: y m c A staff or others. The aquatics manager
Speaker 1: then informed the patron that she was permanently suspended from
Speaker 1: Mountain View Pool and all Olympic Peninsula y m c
Speaker 1: A facilities unquote. After Julie was banned from the pool
Speaker 1: on Monday, August one, she started showing up outside the
Speaker 1: facility with anti trans signs and led a small group
Speaker 1: of people into a city council meeting, resulting in an
Speaker 1: hour of public comment logged about the incident. Here is
Speaker 1: some of the statement Julie read in the city council meeting,
Speaker 1: which also gives a look at her version of events
Speaker 1: at this time. Podium, state your name and where you
Speaker 1: live for the record, Peninsula, and I'm here because I
Speaker 1: had an experience that you need to know. I have
Speaker 1: sent it to you all in detail. In an effort
Speaker 1: by the city and the y m c A to
Speaker 1: apply the neocultural gender rules at Mountain View pool dressing
Speaker 1: shower room facilities, women and children are being put at risk.
Speaker 1: My experience while showering after my swim was hearing a
Speaker 1: man's voice in the women's dressing area and seeing a
Speaker 1: man in a women's swimsuit watching little girls pull down
Speaker 1: their bathing suits in order to use the toilets in
Speaker 1: the dressing room. I reacted by telling him to leave,
Speaker 1: and the consequences that I have been banned from the pool.
Speaker 1: There is no signage informing women the shower room is
Speaker 1: now all gender and what that means, Nor have parents
Speaker 1: been informed of what they can expect with these news policies.
Speaker 1: The why has not provided any dressing shower room options
Speaker 1: for women who do not want to be exposed to
Speaker 1: men who identify as women. The y m c A,
Speaker 1: the city, the police and sheriff's, the parents, the professionals
Speaker 1: who assist victims of royealism, peeping tom's, pedophilia, and assault
Speaker 1: need to come together to figure out how to make
Speaker 1: the new policies work for all pool patrons, not just
Speaker 1: one group. How to keep children who are less able
Speaker 1: to discriminate safe. It is ironic that women who discriminate
Speaker 1: when a situation threatens their safety or their children. A
Speaker 1: message from our ancestors are now cused of discrimination as
Speaker 1: if they have made someone else a victim. We need
Speaker 1: to do much more intelligence and wise about applying the
Speaker 1: rules and developing policies that are respectful and inclusive. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so. Just a few notes about that. Trans
Speaker 1: inclusivity at the Y is not some new policy. For years,
Speaker 1: it's been literally Washington state law that people have the
Speaker 1: right to access the locker rooms, changing rooms, and bathrooms
Speaker 1: that align with their gender identity. This has been the
Speaker 1: case since the law states, quote, entities shall allow individuals
Speaker 1: to use the gender segraded facilities such as westrooms, locker rooms,
Speaker 1: dressing rooms, and homeless or emergency shelters that are consistent
Speaker 1: with at individual's gender expression or gender identity unquote. And
Speaker 1: regarding Julie's account of the incident, there have been no
Speaker 1: complaints from children or parents who are using the pool,
Speaker 1: and multiple accounts conflict with Julie's telling of the story,
Speaker 1: as the employee never did help anyone undress, nor was
Speaker 1: watching anyone change. Throughout this city Council meeting, there were
Speaker 1: several public comments in support of trans rights that pushed
Speaker 1: back on Julie's outrageous claims and called out the overall
Speaker 1: trend of mis gendering and the groomer style transphobia. At
Speaker 1: the end of the meeting, city officials themselves took a
Speaker 1: stand against the transphobic rhetoric that was present throughout the
Speaker 1: hour of public comments. Oddly enough, for this show, one
Speaker 1: of the people I interviewed for this episode serves as
Speaker 1: a Port Townsend City councilwoman. My name's Libby winstrom Um.
Speaker 1: I'm an elected city councilor for the City of Port Townsend,
Speaker 1: and I'm speaking today on as myself rather than as
Speaker 1: a representative of the city or a representative of the
Speaker 1: city council as a whole. When did you first kind
Speaker 1: of hear about this thing that's now ballooned into this
Speaker 1: larger issue with people coming in from out of state
Speaker 1: to do protests and all this kind of stuff. I
Speaker 1: think I first heard about it on Sunday night, which
Speaker 1: would have been I guess the thirty one of July.
Speaker 1: And I heard about it from the y m c
Speaker 1: A Aquatics director Rowan mackins Um, and it was more
Speaker 1: in the tone of kind of a heads up that
Speaker 1: this was a thing that was going on, and then
Speaker 1: I heard a lot more about it the next day,
Speaker 1: which was Monday, the first of August UM when uh
Speaker 1: Julia Jaman showed up at the pool with a whole
Speaker 1: group of people doing a protest that they were picketing
Speaker 1: at the pool, and she also sub had a public
Speaker 1: comment to the City council meeting that night. And at
Speaker 1: that point I realized that a group of people, including Julie,
Speaker 1: was probably going to plan on attending the City council
Speaker 1: meeting UM and reached out to some friends and acquaintances
Speaker 1: in the UM trans and Allies community, UM Olympic Pride, UM,
Speaker 1: the Social Justice Group and at the Unitarian Church here
Speaker 1: in town and various other people who had been kind
Speaker 1: of resourced and say, hey, this is going on, you
Speaker 1: need to be aware of it. And in fact, that
Speaker 1: night there was over an hour of public comment. There
Speaker 1: wasn't anything on these council agenda. There wasn't anything we
Speaker 1: were discussing. It wasn't really a matter. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: i think, even on the city's radar. But people showed
Speaker 1: up the City council meeting. And normally when there's a
Speaker 1: public comment about an item that's not on the agenda.
Speaker 1: They cut off public comment at half an hour, but
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, let it run that night, so it
Speaker 1: was well over an hour of public comment. And some
Speaker 1: of the things said, we're pretty shocking, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: to the to the tune of that you know all
Speaker 1: transgender people were pedophiles, or that you know, this was
Speaker 1: a rape happening, and some some stamons that were just
Speaker 1: not true. And then based on what I heard that night,
Speaker 1: I was really concerned and felt that this was both
Speaker 1: you know, this was ballooning out of proportion, which now
Speaker 1: seems kind of funny given how much more balloon it's
Speaker 1: out of proportion. It's gotten. There's not really any action
Speaker 1: here for the city or for the pool. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Julia Jaman has retained legal
Speaker 1: counsel and sent a demand letter to the city. But
Speaker 1: her demands were like, well, you should fire people, Well
Speaker 1: they don't work for the city. There y m c
Speaker 1: a place. Um, well you should change your policy. Well
Speaker 1: the policy is literally stayed law and you know a
Speaker 1: bunch of things, so it's just you can't do this. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's not really clear why this is all focusing
Speaker 1: on the city because the city doesn't really have there's
Speaker 1: not really any action that the city could take here.
Speaker 1: On top of the dozens of people Julie lead in
Speaker 1: giving public testimony, which largely consisted of transphobia, miss gender ring,
Speaker 1: and baseless accusations that trans people are pedophilic inherently. But
Speaker 1: that same day, August one, she also led a protest
Speaker 1: outside of the y m c A. To learn more
Speaker 1: about this, I talked with Cass and Raven, who are
Speaker 1: both part of a local affinity group. The first protest
Speaker 1: was August first, and they announced that they'd be back
Speaker 1: the same time on the second, third, and fourth, So
Speaker 1: the second drew a much larger counter protest um, and
Speaker 1: then a lot of the same people who were there
Speaker 1: on the second came back the third and fourth, but
Speaker 1: there was nobody to counter protest against because the protesters
Speaker 1: gave up and went home after one day when they
Speaker 1: saw the kind of backlash they were facing, And most people,
Speaker 1: I think, thought that was the end of it, But
Speaker 1: people who do this kind of thing more often realized
Speaker 1: that this was more likely the vibe of the beginning
Speaker 1: stages of something bigger. A lot of red flags went
Speaker 1: off when we found out they were protesting at a
Speaker 1: city council meeting planning to come back the following week. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's right. That was The other thing was the council
Speaker 1: meeting on the first, where there was a lot of
Speaker 1: public comment logged. It seemed to us like this was
Speaker 1: going to escalate further, but other people um tended to
Speaker 1: feel that it was going to be a quick, you know,
Speaker 1: one and done type thing with how fast the news
Speaker 1: cycle picks up a new issue. And I think it
Speaker 1: was probably about a week later on the council meeting
Speaker 1: on the eighth, because by that point we knew about
Speaker 1: the planned urf action on the fifteen. That's when it
Speaker 1: started to click for a lot of people that this
Speaker 1: was going to become a bigger thing. But I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody, including us, thought it was going to become
Speaker 1: an ongoing issue. When I searched Court Townsend on Twitter
Speaker 1: and saw trending hashtags on a wall of anti transferator,
Speaker 1: a lot of red flags went off. Since the city
Speaker 1: council public comments, the y m c A had started
Speaker 1: receiving threatening phone calls, and Jamen had been returning to
Speaker 1: facility nearly daily with some friends to protest, approaching everybody
Speaker 1: coming in and out of the pool and talking about
Speaker 1: how men are allowed in the locker room and bearing
Speaker 1: signs that miss gendered the employee. Julius group had said
Speaker 1: they were going to be picketing every day at the
Speaker 1: pool that week. Um that they showed up and they
Speaker 1: were about a hundred counter counterprochesters isn't even really the
Speaker 1: right word, um people that were there. Was sort of
Speaker 1: like a little pride parade there and um, Olympic Pride
Speaker 1: had a kind of a booth table set up and
Speaker 1: we're handing out pride flags and the Social Justice group
Speaker 1: from the kof had a um, you know, standing on
Speaker 1: the side of love banner, and there were kids blowing
Speaker 1: bubbles and and it was just it was much more
Speaker 1: of it. Just kind of a lot of people here.
Speaker 1: As these initial picket style protests were happening in front
Speaker 1: of the y, the head of the Jefferson County Transgender
Speaker 1: Support Group called some friends and assembled this sort of
Speaker 1: counter protest to voice their support for the trans employee
Speaker 1: and the y m c A, which resulted in this
Speaker 1: gay s trans rights party massively overshadowing Julie gemmen and
Speaker 1: her friends little protest. As she was getting outnumbered in person,
Speaker 1: Julie took to alternative tactics by getting in touch with
Speaker 1: media outlets that will give her a soapbox, resulting in
Speaker 1: a new wave of harassment targeted at the y. There
Speaker 1: were about a hundred people and it was I think
Speaker 1: it was Julian one or two other people, and people
Speaker 1: had some conversations with Julie, and it sort of seemed
Speaker 1: like that was going to be the end of it.
Speaker 1: And the next day the pool was closed and about
Speaker 1: fifty trans Right supporters showed up and nobody showed up
Speaker 1: to pick it, and the pool was closed because pool
Speaker 1: employees were receiving death threats and just so much harassment.
Speaker 1: They basically couldn't use their phones because the phone lines
Speaker 1: were jammed and voicemails were filling up in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Things like that, um so, and then the pool ended
Speaker 1: up staying closed, I think from the third which was
Speaker 1: a Wednesday, all the way through that week and the
Speaker 1: and the following week, and it was just kind of
Speaker 1: a safety issue of not wanting to have children present
Speaker 1: for day camps and patrons there if they were going
Speaker 1: to be harassed right after, I think probably on Monday,
Speaker 1: the first um of August, Julie reached out too. There's
Speaker 1: a local sort of far right blog site called the
Speaker 1: Port Townsend Free Press that isn't really a newspaper a
Speaker 1: news source at all. It's it's kind of this this
Speaker 1: one guy, Jim James Guarantino's blog, and she reached out
Speaker 1: to that, and he did an article That first Portstownsend
Speaker 1: Free Press quote unquote article came out to August two
Speaker 1: and served as a mouthpiece for Julie's inflammatory version of events,
Speaker 1: coupled with some conservative transphobia. More reputable news outlets and
Speaker 1: local press didn't really cover the story until it had
Speaker 1: already turned into a idle topic on the right, which
Speaker 1: means there was over a week where the only documented
Speaker 1: right up of the incident was the Port Townsend Free
Speaker 1: Press blog post. Two days after that piece was published,
Speaker 1: Andy Knows the Post Millennial posted an article largely pulling
Speaker 1: directly from the Port Townsend Free Press right up, and
Speaker 1: that was just the start. The next day, August five,
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire did an article about Julie
Speaker 1: Gammond and the danger of men watching little girls undressed
Speaker 1: in the locker room. Later that night, the story was
Speaker 1: on Laura Ingram's Fox News show, citing reporting from the
Speaker 1: Post Millennial, which of course cited their reporting from the
Speaker 1: Port Townsend Free Press. And across the country in Washington
Speaker 1: State we found perhaps the most maddening story of the week.
Speaker 1: An eight year old grandmother was banned there from her
Speaker 1: y m c A after demanding that a bio logical
Speaker 1: mail leave the woman's locker room where little girls were undressing.
Speaker 1: They then went to play clips of Julie's public comment
Speaker 1: at the city council meeting, amplifying Julie's ever changing, altered
Speaker 1: version of events. Now on the national stage, I think
Speaker 1: the mainstream actual, you know, real local newspapers didn't pick
Speaker 1: it up until the seventh or the tenth, respectively, for
Speaker 1: the Peninsula Daily News and the Leader, and that gap
Speaker 1: when they amplified it out to the larger right wing press.
Speaker 1: This got picked up by Bright Barty, got picked up
Speaker 1: by the Daily Mail. They kept quoting that original portents
Speaker 1: of Free Press article, which was very inaccurate about in
Speaker 1: terms of what it described as having happened, and I
Speaker 1: mean it was both outright wrong and it also left
Speaker 1: a bunch of things out, like that the transgender person
Speaker 1: was a ymc A employee, for instance, or that they
Speaker 1: were in the locker room because they were supervising children.
Speaker 1: Um and uh uh, I think we're really hit a
Speaker 1: crescendo on Thursday, the ninth sheet, now earlier whatever, not
Speaker 1: Thursday's past week, but the previous Thursday. Um, it was
Speaker 1: on Tucker Carlson. And that's where I really saw the
Speaker 1: email volume explode for people from outside the area, where
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, you're getting thirty emails in
Speaker 1: five minutes, and they're from you know, they're from Texas,
Speaker 1: they're from Tennessee, they're from New Jersey, they're from Australia,
Speaker 1: they're from the UK, etcetera. That when it got picked
Speaker 1: up by Fox News, the reach really got broad. The
Speaker 1: first time the story was covered on Tucker Carlson. Tonight
Speaker 1: took place on August eleven, in an episode guest hosted
Speaker 1: by Brian Clemide by m c A has changed a
Speaker 1: lot over the years. Now, women and young girls at
Speaker 1: the y A finding themselves in locker rooms and showers
Speaker 1: with men who identify as women, but they still have
Speaker 1: all their genitalia with them. And if you're complaining to
Speaker 1: the y m c A about the jennet tell you
Speaker 1: and what they're dressed like, you might get yourself banned.
Speaker 1: It's would exactly happen to an eight year old woman
Speaker 1: in Washington State. Here to explain, but not actually make
Speaker 1: excuses for, but explain, is our West Coast correspondent, Seattle
Speaker 1: based radio host Jason Rance. Jason set the scene. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the scene. Democrats used to stand up
Speaker 1: for women, but now they can't even define one. And
Speaker 1: as a result, you have eight year old Julie Jamon
Speaker 1: who said she was banned from a pool and locker
Speaker 1: room facility that was managed by the Olympic Peninsula y
Speaker 1: m c A on Port Towns in Washington. Now. She
Speaker 1: said she was headed into the locker room to shower
Speaker 1: and she saw something pretty alarming. She explained what happened
Speaker 1: at this council meeting. Then a clip from the public
Speaker 1: comments please and I will not subject you to that again,
Speaker 1: but here is a little bit more of that clip.
Speaker 1: So a number of residents showed up to support her
Speaker 1: at this council meeting. But the mayor, his name is
Speaker 1: David Faber. He was not pleased, accusing them of transphobia.
Speaker 1: Townsend is a welcoming community and hate and discrimination has
Speaker 1: no place in this community. I listen to you quietly.
Speaker 1: I would like you to listen to me quietly. Now.
Speaker 1: Given the rise in harassment and bigotry the trans persons
Speaker 1: have experienced recently, it's essential that we all speak up.
Speaker 1: The cis gendered people like me speak up in support
Speaker 1: of our trans community. Now, Jamond says the staff accused
Speaker 1: her of being discriminatory. The YMC put out a statement
Speaker 1: basically saying we're not going to tolerate the bias, discrimination
Speaker 1: or hatred. And of course, in Washington State, the law
Speaker 1: allows anyone to use locker room changeing remember bathroom that
Speaker 1: aligns with their gender identity. So they're basically saying, we're
Speaker 1: doing what we have to do, except, of course, protect
Speaker 1: women who don't want to see this. Unbelievable. That guy
Speaker 1: should be ashamed of himself behind the mask in the
Speaker 1: media after methodist, did you see it alluding to this
Speaker 1: scale or did you think this is just like a
Speaker 1: one and done traumatic incident. Absolutely not, um, I I
Speaker 1: really just thought, you know, oh my my days. Calm.
Speaker 1: I finally had the bad bathroom experience, and and I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people do have that bad experience. Um, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody is ready for it to be you know, to
Speaker 1: have this much attention called just such a small thing. Um,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't ready for it to be like this,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's escalated to the point where you're like
Speaker 1: on international news for these like right wing grifters who
Speaker 1: are trying to basically get trends people killed. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're I don't know, it's really it's really upsetting
Speaker 1: to have my face and and name, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of be pushed out like that. And it it's crazy
Speaker 1: how that feeling, the sinking feeling when I saw my
Speaker 1: name and face I don't even think it was my
Speaker 1: face at the time, when I saw my name appear
Speaker 1: on that local PP Free Press article, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the time it was that still a pretty big impact.
Speaker 1: And then to have that just keep happening and it
Speaker 1: got it gets like kind of depressingly numbing. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: have it keep intensifying. I mean, yeah, I've been on
Speaker 1: hormones for almost a year now and I've avoided that
Speaker 1: for kind of reasons like this that it sucks because
Speaker 1: I just feel like, I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: very common experience with trends, people who are like starting out,
Speaker 1: like you just can't really go anywhere because you look
Speaker 1: too weird to go in the men's room and you're
Speaker 1: not quite like you don't feel comfortable the woman's room
Speaker 1: because of stuff like this, and you know, if you're
Speaker 1: not in binary, then if it's a whole other issue,
Speaker 1: like where the fund do I go, Like there's there's
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of options sometimes, but then to
Speaker 1: have something that's already very stressful we turned into like
Speaker 1: a fucking like Daily Wire New York Post Info Warship
Speaker 1: is like like what like like it's we like Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 1: like all of it. It's really it's disappointing that there's
Speaker 1: this idea that I, you know, I'm I'm actively trying
Speaker 1: to violate people's space, and and it's really frustrating because
Speaker 1: of how uncomfortable I feel putting myself in that position,
Speaker 1: being in that room. Um, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: have something like this happened, and I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't abuse that space because I'm not some guy
Speaker 1: trying to prey on people I'm I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom and get changed, and and you talk
Speaker 1: about like, oh, you know, walking in penis, hanging out
Speaker 1: and and all of these things. But I don't change
Speaker 1: in the public space. I go into a changing room,
Speaker 1: and you know, I I understand, you know, that confusion,
Speaker 1: and I try to subtract myself from the space as
Speaker 1: much as possible and make it, you know, more comfortable.
Speaker 1: When when I'm in a position like that where I'm
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, sort of entertain a kid who's
Speaker 1: not happy to be a bathroom buddy, and and I'm
Speaker 1: kind of putting that position where I have to talk, um,
Speaker 1: it's super vulnerable and and I just remember feeling small
Speaker 1: and and I just shrunk when she talked to me
Speaker 1: like that. And I don't even the space just got
Speaker 1: so small. Take backing off the groomer and growing anti
Speaker 1: trans attacks we've seen this year a large swath of
Speaker 1: right wing influencers and media personalities jumped on this story
Speaker 1: to drive outrage and push their rhetoric. Here is a
Speaker 1: brief clip from Newsmax. They're more than willing to just
Speaker 1: ignore possible pedophilia happening at the y m c A
Speaker 1: in the locker room. Well, it's from my point of view,
Speaker 1: it seems more like some sort of hypnotism. I know
Speaker 1: the word woke has been put to it, but I
Speaker 1: have to tell you that all public agencies I'm connected
Speaker 1: to as a citizen in a very small town, they
Speaker 1: are all operating with this gender identity. And you've got
Speaker 1: to wonder what is happening and those most private places
Speaker 1: that people, particularly women need to have. We've we've had
Speaker 1: you on we've had you on the show a couple
Speaker 1: of times now, and you seem very level headed. Yes,
Speaker 1: very very level headed. Indeed. Um By now, the story
Speaker 1: has been headlined and obviously very mischaracterized and transphobic fashion,
Speaker 1: but still headlined by The Post, Millennial, The Daily Wire,
Speaker 1: Fox News, Daily Mail, Bright Bart News, Max, Info, Wars,
Speaker 1: New York Post, the Federalist, and the quote unquote feminist
Speaker 1: news site Redux. As false retellings about what happened in
Speaker 1: the Olympic Peninsula, y m c A went viral on
Speaker 1: the right. Threatening emails and phone calls started pouring into
Speaker 1: the y m c A, prompting them to shut down
Speaker 1: the entire facility for over a week, leaving many local
Speaker 1: families without childcare services. Intense harassment and death threats were
Speaker 1: sent to city officials who voiced support of trans rights,
Speaker 1: and also to the pool manager. In my conversation with
Speaker 1: Libby Winstrom from last week, she detailed some of the
Speaker 1: threats and the impact the harassment has had on the community.
Speaker 1: A lot more of the ire is now kind of
Speaker 1: directed at the city and the mayor and just at
Speaker 1: the pool director and less at employees. UM. The transgender
Speaker 1: employee who was you know, attacked in the locker room
Speaker 1: by Julie Dremond is actually no longer. Why UM and
Speaker 1: other people have left is another undisclosed location, just out
Speaker 1: of concern of trying to get the kids as far
Speaker 1: away from this whole process as possible. And and so
Speaker 1: that took a little bit of time in juggling to
Speaker 1: set up, and they were so short staff they were
Speaker 1: actually calling for volunteers in order to try to keep
Speaker 1: the childcare open this week just because UM they were
Speaker 1: already somewhat short staffed, and with people leaving, it had
Speaker 1: just been even harder. UM the y has been open
Speaker 1: I think all week this week. I think it was
Speaker 1: open Monday, Tuesday. Today's Wednesday. UM. So it has been
Speaker 1: able to reopen. They've they've changed the schedule around. It's
Speaker 1: now not open Saturdays again. UM. And shuffled. And I
Speaker 1: think some staff are working seven days a week in
Speaker 1: order to try to keep it open. UM. People are
Speaker 1: still getting threats. UM, still getting I got a terrible
Speaker 1: email last night. I haven't been getting death threats. I've
Speaker 1: been getting things like, UM, you know you're a disgusting,
Speaker 1: fat pig bitch. Why don't you go back to the buffet? Um?
Speaker 1: And you know, things like that. It hasn't for me
Speaker 1: been death threats. UM. The pool director was receiving photographs
Speaker 1: of her children saying there next and UM some pretty
Speaker 1: explicit threatening messages like I'm coming for you, I know
Speaker 1: where you are. UM. And mayor favorite has been getting
Speaker 1: similar things. He got one where somebody was threatening to
Speaker 1: come to his home and rape his wife. UM. So
Speaker 1: these have been pretty horrifying messages. For the most part,
Speaker 1: most of the email has voicemails have been coming from
Speaker 1: out of the area. You know, they're not they're not local. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's a little hard to gauge whether these are
Speaker 1: serious threats. But at some of you feel like you
Speaker 1: have to take it somewhat seriously. UM, and that I
Speaker 1: think has been pretty disruptive both for the y employees
Speaker 1: and for the city. As Julie's retelling of the story
Speaker 1: was going viral across the right wing and turf media,
Speaker 1: resulting in the pool having to temporarily shut down, so
Speaker 1: called press conference was scheduled outside of another city council
Speaker 1: meeting for August by Julie and her allies. There's a
Speaker 1: local UM she builds yourself as a sort of radical
Speaker 1: feminist UM named Ami Susa, who has a uh so
Speaker 1: anti trans blog site and UM, she has really taken
Speaker 1: this and run with it. So I plugged in, but
Speaker 1: not well, She's really taken this and run with it,
Speaker 1: and has I think has been really this kind of
Speaker 1: driving force between behind a lot of this amplification onto
Speaker 1: far right media. UM and Amy Susa held a what
Speaker 1: she built as a press conference on the August fifteenth,
Speaker 1: the night of the most recent UM City Council meeting,
Speaker 1: and showed up with a group of I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably twenty five or thirty supporters and there were estimates
Speaker 1: are between three and fifty and four hundred. Um Trans
Speaker 1: writes folks from town. I mean that there were local
Speaker 1: who had just showed up and most of them were
Speaker 1: waiting in line to go into the council meeting and
Speaker 1: you know, flying flags and raising gland at banners and stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: But there was some heated shouting and one person got
Speaker 1: arrested for shoving. There weren't any charg charges filed. I
Speaker 1: did confirm that with UM UH the Sheriff's office, UM
Speaker 1: that with the courts that that not no charges got
Speaker 1: filed out of that, which is contrary to those stories
Speaker 1: they've been putting out that like there were some charges filed,
Speaker 1: that's not true. I believe there were about three hundred
Speaker 1: people that came out to confront less than twenty UM
Speaker 1: people coming to try and bring hayten to our community.
Speaker 1: And it feels like that really inspired a lot of
Speaker 1: the different networks to get connected. UM. Our personal little
Speaker 1: networks are incredibly white. Most of us are are trends
Speaker 1: of Summer guard UM and we were reached out to
Speaker 1: by a local bipop community that we've we've had some
Speaker 1: crossover with, but not a lot. But since this happened, UM,
Speaker 1: just the interconnectivity with with that group has just exploded
Speaker 1: after the press conference protests, footage of the event went viral,
Speaker 1: spawning another new wave of right wing media outrage. Clips
Speaker 1: from the quote unquote feminist re Dux magazine Twitter account
Speaker 1: show Julie trying to give a speech while being drowned
Speaker 1: out by chance in support of trans people, and at
Speaker 1: one point someone running behind Julie to rip down a
Speaker 1: Suffragette flag put up by one of the turfs, and
Speaker 1: a side note, in some much less viral footage, we
Speaker 1: can see turfs trying to rip Pride flags out of
Speaker 1: the hands of people who are counter protesting. So conservative
Speaker 1: coverage of the protest painted a pearl clutching picture of
Speaker 1: scary trans people assaulting women. A few days after the
Speaker 1: press conference, Julie Jammen herself made an appearance on Tucker
Speaker 1: Carlson Tonight. Julie Jaman is one of them. She's eighty
Speaker 1: years old. She's duben banned from stepping inside a Y
Speaker 1: m C A Y because she dared to object when
Speaker 1: a male employee was assigned to watch little girls remove
Speaker 1: their bathing suits in the bathroom in a women's locker room.
Speaker 1: So this week a few dozen people joined Jaman to
Speaker 1: protest the y m c A. Some of the protesters,
Speaker 1: including her, were assaulted by lunatics men dressed as women.
Speaker 1: Here's some of the footage from that on Monday. You
Speaker 1: may have read some version of my personal experience. A
Speaker 1: naked old lady and the women's shower room and what
Speaker 1: I saw that day. You can see sense woman screaming
Speaker 1: at her. Julie Jaman is the woman, the brave woman.
Speaker 1: Just on the video she joins us sight Julie, thanks
Speaker 1: so much. We're grateful that you are joining us. Why
Speaker 1: at this stage in your life are you taking it
Speaker 1: upon yourself to to speak up against this in the
Speaker 1: face of what we just saw. I was in the
Speaker 1: shower and I saw that man in that women's suit,
Speaker 1: and I saw him watching little girls. You can't not
Speaker 1: act when you see that going on. You must do something,
Speaker 1: So I and and bless you for doing that. That's
Speaker 1: exactly right. Your your moral sense is just is clear.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what your background is, but you
Speaker 1: have a very clear sense of right and wrong, and
Speaker 1: I wish more people had it. So you tried to
Speaker 1: explain that in the video we just played, and rather
Speaker 1: than listen to you, people screamed at you. And then
Speaker 1: appeared to come at you. Have you noticed there's no
Speaker 1: conversation about this. There was. It was a mob of
Speaker 1: hundreds of people that came streaming into this permitted gathering
Speaker 1: and they kettled us. I think that's what you'd call it.
Speaker 1: They pushed, shoved, they knocked women to the ground. These
Speaker 1: are the men and the supporters of men that apparently
Speaker 1: the y m c A and the city want to
Speaker 1: allow into the women's dressing and shower area. I object,
Speaker 1: and you, at the age of eighty, were banned by
Speaker 1: the y m c A. M. It's hard to even
Speaker 1: believe this is real because you were taking a shower
Speaker 1: and there was a man in there and they banned you,
Speaker 1: not him. What could tell us if that's true? A
Speaker 1: and B? What y m c A is this? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's correct. I told that guy to get out of
Speaker 1: the shower, and then a staff member came around the
Speaker 1: corner and I said to her, get him out of here,
Speaker 1: and she said, that's discrimination. You're out of here for life,
Speaker 1: and I'm calling the cops. Can you tell us what? Why?
Speaker 1: M c Where did this happen? This happens in Port Townsend,
Speaker 1: that's on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It's just
Speaker 1: it's I hope they are punished for the way that
Speaker 1: they treated you, and I appreciate your bravery and forthrightness.
Speaker 1: I do too. We did try and get the police
Speaker 1: to come help us. They were standing across the streets
Speaker 1: and they were told by a directive to stand down.
Speaker 1: They did not come to help us. I hope they
Speaker 1: wrought Juli Jaman, thank you for all you've done. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Good to see you tonight. Throughout all the
Speaker 1: media spectacle, I feel like the actual original victim of
Speaker 1: this harassment has kind of been forgotten, despite them being
Speaker 1: the current face of the transgender menace. In my conversation
Speaker 1: with Clementine, we talked about what it's like to be
Speaker 1: turned into this sort of outrage symbol, like I've I
Speaker 1: watched the three hours of public testimony UM a few
Speaker 1: nights ago, which was I was on I was on
Speaker 1: so much caffeine. Um. Is that the meeting that happened
Speaker 1: right after the incident or the Monday meeting from both?
Speaker 1: I did both in one day. Yeah, it was yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the more shocking things was just how
Speaker 1: how how miss one how mischaracterized the incident was and
Speaker 1: to just like how much blatant miss gendering there was,
Speaker 1: and like talking about you not as like an actual person,
Speaker 1: but as almost this like evil archetype in people's minds.
Speaker 1: Like it's so dehumanizing in a really bad way. Um
Speaker 1: let alone all of like the like miss gendering stuff
Speaker 1: like it's it was. It was wild watching this person
Speaker 1: after person completely mindlessly create this villain in their own
Speaker 1: head it's um and then just attached it onto an
Speaker 1: actual human being who's like you, like, your privacy has
Speaker 1: actually been violated, Like you're like like you're like like
Speaker 1: private information, your pictures, names is going all over these
Speaker 1: like like neo fascist news sites, and like if something
Speaker 1: you know, people are framing this is like you know,
Speaker 1: safety and privacy, Like if you want to look at
Speaker 1: what's actually going on, it's so different. And there's such
Speaker 1: a disconnect between watching all of that public testimony and
Speaker 1: looking at all of you know, the the right wing
Speaker 1: press of this incident and I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 1: very depressive framing. It's really clear and disappointing when you're
Speaker 1: the subject of it because I know what happened in
Speaker 1: that space, and you know, there were people to witness
Speaker 1: what happened, and we worked to get our reports out quickly,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't you know, it didn't matter because
Speaker 1: of how dedicated this woman was to getting her side
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean. In reality, it just feels like
Speaker 1: she was dedicated to hurting. UM. I don't know what
Speaker 1: her motivation was, but it's the blatantly false side of
Speaker 1: the story that really hurts because accusations that I was
Speaker 1: standing there watching I think they go anywhere from like
Speaker 1: two to five kids. It's their number. UM. I was
Speaker 1: watching the Tucker Carlson and I think I saw that
Speaker 1: number five, watching five kids undress, UM, when that's just
Speaker 1: not what happened. I was standing there with one kid
Speaker 1: who was fully closed, chatting while we waited for another
Speaker 1: kid to come out of the bathroom. And it's just wrong.
Speaker 1: It's misinformation, and it's not about you know, it's not
Speaker 1: even about UM pushing an agenda. It's it's about people's
Speaker 1: livelihood and it's really damaging to have my privacy violated
Speaker 1: like that, you know, UM, straight up, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like you're just like this sacrificial archetype
Speaker 1: that yeah, it's like they're not even but they're not
Speaker 1: even like interested in you as a person. Really, they're
Speaker 1: interested in you on this this this, this this like
Speaker 1: idea and to project you onto this whole other idea,
Speaker 1: which is so fucked up because you're an actual person.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, well, and and you can see in the
Speaker 1: comments and stuff on some of these that it's pretty
Speaker 1: you know, I won't try to dig into like the ugly,
Speaker 1: the ugly and the bad of Twitter, but uh, like
Speaker 1: I've seen people say that I'm like a fully bearded man,
Speaker 1: or like I'll be paralleled as a lumberjack, and it's
Speaker 1: like or I mean, and not that you know, your
Speaker 1: appearances matter, It's it's about how you feel. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, interesting to see how I'm I'm
Speaker 1: painted in such a weird and twisted light. Despite going
Speaker 1: viral in the right wing and turf news sphere, local
Speaker 1: sentiment in the port towns in the area has been
Speaker 1: widely in supportive trans rights and not very pleased that
Speaker 1: their town has been upended for over a month due
Speaker 1: to one woman's personal prejudice and discomfort. I lived in
Speaker 1: towns and for twenty four and a half years, and
Speaker 1: in talking to people over the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: I would say nearly universally, the local sentiment is, why
Speaker 1: is this such a big deal? Like this, basically somebody
Speaker 1: got startled in a locker room, made kind of a
Speaker 1: jerk of herself, and is now trying to blow this
Speaker 1: into some kind of international incident. And you know, here's
Speaker 1: this little tiny town at the edge of the continent,
Speaker 1: and we're like, why, why, why is this the most
Speaker 1: important thing? You know? Why did you know dozens of
Speaker 1: families not have child care for ten days? Why did
Speaker 1: you know the y m c A employees have to
Speaker 1: not get paid? Why? Why did you know? The The
Speaker 1: impact of this has been so outsized relative to the
Speaker 1: actually what actually happened. The person who started the initial
Speaker 1: incident with the trans employee. It's it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: in a way that, yes, she's gotten out her message
Speaker 1: to the whole community, but it spread as a result
Speaker 1: of the organizing against her and against the group of
Speaker 1: people that she's bringing into the area. And it's gotten
Speaker 1: to a point where just random community members that we
Speaker 1: don't have any direct connection to our recognizing her and
Speaker 1: knowing why she's a known person and are just kicking
Speaker 1: her out of their businesses on site. It's like the
Speaker 1: the backlash against that incident is really spreading really well,
Speaker 1: and we're getting this really good organic network building throughout
Speaker 1: the community. Earlier in August, before the big press conference thing,
Speaker 1: various BIPOC and queer collectives and affinity groups started networking
Speaker 1: and a solidarity meeting was set up to figure out
Speaker 1: how to take of each other as the far rights
Speaker 1: spotlight on the town grows. Myself and one another person
Speaker 1: went and maybe a couple of others who I didn't know,
Speaker 1: but the two of us were the main ones who
Speaker 1: are more directly involved with the queer community side of
Speaker 1: responding to what was going on, and it was really great,
Speaker 1: like they just like, we want to support you, we
Speaker 1: want to you know, help take care of you. What
Speaker 1: can we do? And then for the action on the fifteenth,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about, you know, like here's here's
Speaker 1: the kind of response that we're wanting from the whole community,
Speaker 1: but here's some of these background needs. Because none of
Speaker 1: them were experienced enough with protesting to feel comfortable going
Speaker 1: out on the front lines and doing stuff. They went
Speaker 1: about a quarter mile away and set up a community picnic,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people took nearly enough advantage of
Speaker 1: it because the planning happened so last minute. They did
Speaker 1: a great job of setting up in solidarity and in
Speaker 1: solidarity and in support, and we're really looking forward to
Speaker 1: working with them more. We spent the last few years
Speaker 1: running small group basic medical classes UM and workshops and
Speaker 1: really making connections like within our community and having this
Speaker 1: come about and having everyone come up to one place
Speaker 1: and see each other and going, oh, we know you
Speaker 1: and I know you UM, and from different communities coming together.
Speaker 1: We've really been able to enable those folks to come
Speaker 1: together to start building more of a unified front. I
Speaker 1: want to reiterate that with all the media spectacle, it's
Speaker 1: important to not lose sight of the original target of
Speaker 1: all of this hate and transphobia. The physical and mental
Speaker 1: effect of such a massive wave of bigoted harassment and
Speaker 1: boxing can take a substantial toll. I had to stop
Speaker 1: going into work at a certain point because I couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. I woke up in the morning and I
Speaker 1: looked in the mirror and and I just broke down
Speaker 1: because it was too much to keep going into keep
Speaker 1: trying to bring that bright energy uh to work. Um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of doubt. Uh, that's what I've been
Speaker 1: experiencing is a lot of you see so many people
Speaker 1: trying to divulge your character in a negative way, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's toxic and it can kind of
Speaker 1: seep through and make your life toxic. And that's why
Speaker 1: I just had to stop looking because it hurt too
Speaker 1: much and it's putting me in this limbo. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I gotten a break for a month. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've just been tired and like rest. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in purgatory. You know. Has there been
Speaker 1: any kind of like support on the community level that
Speaker 1: has been helpful? Yeah? Yeah, UM, I've been I've been
Speaker 1: definitely grateful and um blessed to have the community response
Speaker 1: be really astounding and supportive. Yeah. I've been given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be so much more connected with my local
Speaker 1: queer community as well as my local community period. Um.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of supportive voices, uh that made
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier to ignore the darker side
Speaker 1: of this. UM and elephant in the room. Uh, the
Speaker 1: go fund me, I don't know how I would feel
Speaker 1: if there wasn't you know, something rigid and like a
Speaker 1: rock to lean on, like to go fund me, to
Speaker 1: be able to have something hopeful will look forward to
Speaker 1: and think that I can you know, be me, and
Speaker 1: that I can afford being me. Uh. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I would navigate the storm without something like that
Speaker 1: in the distance. It's been overwhelming and I've just been
Speaker 1: waiting for it to end, and it looks like it's
Speaker 1: finally slowing down. But um, the support makes it easier.
Speaker 1: And the support is a kind of attention that really
Speaker 1: helps right now because it's dreking lye easy to feel bad, ah,
Speaker 1: to feel just dissociated when when your life is kind
Speaker 1: of thrust into a different lens in what felt like
Speaker 1: a day, what kind of was just a day. For
Speaker 1: a week this month has felt like longer than my
Speaker 1: entire summer break. The situation in Port Townsend is not
Speaker 1: over yet. In a bit, we'll talk about the upcoming
Speaker 1: anti trans rally on September three. And there is this
Speaker 1: kind of absurd irony that's not uncommon when digging into
Speaker 1: these types of issues, that the types of talking points
Speaker 1: common among reactionaries and all the complaints around violations of
Speaker 1: privacy just end up actually being enacted by the people
Speaker 1: who push these moral panics and so things that just
Speaker 1: continue to kind of escalate and escalate. My understanding, And
Speaker 1: I wasn't there for this. Is that yesterday which was
Speaker 1: Amy Susan. I'm not sure if Julie Jahman was there
Speaker 1: not because of cours Julie Jamons would be banned from
Speaker 1: the pool. UM showed up at the pool with a
Speaker 1: film crew and was trying to push their way into
Speaker 1: the locker room when patrons were there in the locker
Speaker 1: room trying to film inside the locker room and got
Speaker 1: asked to leave. UM. So it's it's still continuing to estalate.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've been noticing a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's something that for those of us who are
Speaker 1: more involved, this is kind of a you don't say moment,
Speaker 1: and it's the people who are coming in and making
Speaker 1: accusations and making attacks against the community are very much
Speaker 1: doing the exact thing that they're making accusations of. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was an issue the other day of the people
Speaker 1: who planned and hosted the protest at the council meeting
Speaker 1: going into the y with a camera crew and demanding
Speaker 1: to film the locker rooms while people were using them. Um,
Speaker 1: there's lots of accusations that have been thrown that we
Speaker 1: bust in people from Portland, and in reality, the main
Speaker 1: aggre who are there in their group did come from
Speaker 1: Vancouver area, or we're flown in from Texas, or we're
Speaker 1: flown in from Texas. Yeah, like this was three d
Speaker 1: people who live within twenty minutes of Court towns and
Speaker 1: showed up because they care, and they had to fly
Speaker 1: people from as far as Pennsylvania to post an hour
Speaker 1: long press conference with twenty people. And so we're seeing
Speaker 1: that a lot recurring. The person organizing this upcoming action
Speaker 1: is also lives in Vancouver area and is inviting people
Speaker 1: from all over to come up and start fights here
Speaker 1: and try to get video of confrontations going. And everybody
Speaker 1: up here wants to just be left alone and live
Speaker 1: in peace, but they also want to show up and
Speaker 1: they're kind of getting an opportunity to show up in
Speaker 1: the most low effort way. It's it's in your own town,
Speaker 1: you might as well up. I remember a few weeks
Speaker 1: ago there was this headline from a federalist think piece
Speaker 1: that when a bit viral for being a big Yike's
Speaker 1: almost mirroring the fascist framing of blood libel. If you
Speaker 1: replace quote the transgenders with quote the Jews, you'll see
Speaker 1: what I mean. The headline reads, quote the transgender movement
Speaker 1: is not just intolerant, it's barbaric and violent and it's
Speaker 1: coming for your children unquote. Almost exclusively, its sources are
Speaker 1: Twitter accounts like lives of TikTok and a few random turfs.
Speaker 1: And this is what we mean when we talk about
Speaker 1: how things that seem like they should just be insignificant
Speaker 1: Twitter bullshit actually do affect the world off of social media.
Speaker 1: This is how entire conversations on the validity of people's
Speaker 1: existence get formed and directed. Now, the last section of
Speaker 1: the Federalist story is about the Boston Children's Hospital, and
Speaker 1: if you listened to yesterday's episode of It could happen here,
Speaker 1: you can guess the kind of disinformation the article pedals,
Speaker 1: and many readers, many of whom are not on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We'll take whatever it says at face value. Same thing
Speaker 1: for limps of TikTok stuff being boosted on Fox News.
Speaker 1: The majority of the Federalist think piece, though, is about
Speaker 1: Port Townsend and everything stemming out of the y m
Speaker 1: c A incident, and the whole article is as terrifying
Speaker 1: and fascistic as its headline. I remember seeing the Federalist
Speaker 1: article headline and just being like, Oh, here's another another
Speaker 1: piece doing the same thing. And I didn't realize it
Speaker 1: was about like this specific incident until much later, and now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the kind of it kind of does play into
Speaker 1: the idea that like, we know these things happen, you
Speaker 1: just don't expect them to happen like right where you
Speaker 1: are until what's until it's until it's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've spent years screaming at a wall telling people that
Speaker 1: this is coming, and UH really hope that all of
Speaker 1: my preparation had been for nothing and it's happening in
Speaker 1: my hometown now and getting national media attention everything from
Speaker 1: you know and Shapiro to Info Wars to interviews on
Speaker 1: Tucker Bacting the Trump presidency. We were pretty much just
Speaker 1: gun nerds and UH had started a small little UH
Speaker 1: gun club and we're inviting our friends and our local
Speaker 1: queer community up to to learn about that. And it
Speaker 1: went really quickly from that to people having more of
Speaker 1: an interest in the medical suffering teaching specifically uh stopped
Speaker 1: the bleed and UH so after the Trump presidency was over, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of people dropped off, and just the majority
Speaker 1: of the people that stuck around happened to be trans UM.
Speaker 1: But we continued offering these classes. We were posting ones
Speaker 1: out here about the escalation, about stop the bleed, of
Speaker 1: we're hosting the locks on stuff. UM. I think with
Speaker 1: UM they're being such limited options for direct actions in
Speaker 1: the area, a lot of people were kind of naturally
Speaker 1: tending towards how can we better support our friends who
Speaker 1: live in areas that are doing direct actions and we
Speaker 1: started getting a lot more interest in those kinds of
Speaker 1: support roles than medical training to de escalation, even things
Speaker 1: like emergency preparedness and food security. UM yeah UM. But
Speaker 1: because of that, we've just spent the last few years
Speaker 1: running these just a small group like wonderful people UM
Speaker 1: basically workshops on all these different subjects and bill somewhat
Speaker 1: of a connection with the community, a bit of respect.
Speaker 1: So when this happened, we actually had that to draw
Speaker 1: on and we could really help enable people to organize
Speaker 1: themselves and create some form of unity. So it's not
Speaker 1: small groups of people coming in without a plan, but
Speaker 1: a large group of people showing up all at once.
Speaker 1: UM that we're not directly involved in any sort of
Speaker 1: leadership of it's just naturally organically happened. UM. But have
Speaker 1: really spent the last few years just feeling like cook
Speaker 1: screening at a wall. UM until this happened in our
Speaker 1: small town and completely unexpectedly, and now we're actually somewhat useful.
Speaker 1: Before we close out, we do need to talk about
Speaker 1: the upcoming Anti Twins rally planned for the afternoon of Saturday,
Speaker 1: September three at Pope Marine Park. Organizers are explicitly tied
Speaker 1: to the Proud Boys, and this rally is one of
Speaker 1: the most clear examples of how Turf's self described feminists
Speaker 1: or people just looking out for biological women's rights are
Speaker 1: perfectly willing to ally with fascists if it means hurting
Speaker 1: trends and queer people. The rally is billed as quote
Speaker 1: a rally for decency, stand up against men in women's
Speaker 1: public pool locker rooms, and tell the city of Port
Speaker 1: Townsend to let Julie swim unquote. Yeah. The guy who
Speaker 1: runs common Sense Court Conservatives, a man named Robert Um.
Speaker 1: I always mess up his name M Zurfling. I think
Speaker 1: it is Zurfings E r f I and g Um
Speaker 1: who's associated in somewhere with the Proud Boys and his
Speaker 1: associated with Roger Stone. He runs this blog called common
Speaker 1: Sense Conservative. He is organizing something that's being billed as
Speaker 1: quote rally for Decency unquote UM to be here in
Speaker 1: Port Townsend on the Labor Day weekend Saturday, which is
Speaker 1: the third and UM it's unclear whether this is going
Speaker 1: to be a large event or a small one. They
Speaker 1: have not as of yesterday, pulled a permit for that UM,
Speaker 1: and there's some questions about, you know, if you're planning
Speaker 1: a large event, what what's that kind of unfold? Like,
Speaker 1: uhs is a tourist community and at this time of year,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of people in town over Labor
Speaker 1: Day weekend. UM, so a large Proud Boy rallies is
Speaker 1: kind of you know, it doesn't feel very comfortable. Is
Speaker 1: It's kind of the first kind of big instant where
Speaker 1: you've had these types of like, you know, more kind
Speaker 1: of experienced activists on like the anti trans side or
Speaker 1: on you know, affiliate with Proud Boys or whatever kind
Speaker 1: of come in and try to make this problem inside
Speaker 1: the town. We've had little bits and pieces of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys or something kind of connected had a
Speaker 1: kind of truck drive through parade rally in sort of
Speaker 1: just prior to the election. Um, that kind of drove
Speaker 1: through town and you know, a bunch of big trucks
Speaker 1: and I think some people were open carrying, and it
Speaker 1: was it was mostly a bunch of noise. UM. But
Speaker 1: it hasn't. This is a very liberal community, um, and
Speaker 1: it hasn't really hit us. This is also just for context.
Speaker 1: This is a town of ten thousand people and and
Speaker 1: it's the biggest town for you know, fifty miles in
Speaker 1: any direction. So it's not you know, it isn't like
Speaker 1: ten thousand people that's a suburb. This this is the
Speaker 1: big town. This is the county seat. UM. So it's
Speaker 1: we've been kind of insulated from a lot of things.
Speaker 1: You know, we had, you know, we definitely had some
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protests. We definitely had you know, we
Speaker 1: had a big women's march in seventeen eighteen, but we
Speaker 1: haven't seen the kind of explosive clashing protests that you know,
Speaker 1: Seattle or Portland have. The far right is planning to
Speaker 1: mobilize people from around the Pacific Northwest, pulling from folks
Speaker 1: in Oregon and Idaho, and are expecting anywhere between fifty
Speaker 1: to a hundred people to show up on the anti
Speaker 1: trans side, especially people from Proud Boy and three percenter
Speaker 1: affiliated networks. One of the leaders of the Washington State
Speaker 1: three Percent of militia, Eric Road, has stated that he
Speaker 1: will be present and is encouraging his followers to join him,
Speaker 1: saying on telegram, quote, I don't care if five of
Speaker 1: you show up or fifty if you show up, I
Speaker 1: will always march against men staring at girls as young
Speaker 1: as eleven pulling off their swim trunks. It would be
Speaker 1: pretty cool if people could cancel their plans and show
Speaker 1: up to stand against child molesters. God said, if you
Speaker 1: even look back, I'll turn you into a pillar of salt.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have looked back, but I never failed to
Speaker 1: answer the call to something so simple as don't stare
Speaker 1: at little girls when they take off their clothes unquote.
Speaker 1: He then goes on to do some unhinged rambling about
Speaker 1: federal observation and his commitment to God and country, but
Speaker 1: he ends that post by saying quote when I get
Speaker 1: threatened by Antifa, all matched Antifa unquote, which I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. The grammar on that is
Speaker 1: very confusing. Another telegram post from a three percenter account reads,
Speaker 1: quote calling all patriots, all proud boys, all three percenters,
Speaker 1: all lone wolves, We roll out to Port Townsend on
Speaker 1: September three. Hope to see you there. We got proud
Speaker 1: boys and three pers rolling in from all over unquote.
Speaker 1: The three percenter crew is also planning a pre and
Speaker 1: post rally barbecue party on Friday and Saturday night at
Speaker 1: Whidby Island, which sounds like an awful time. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a horrible party. Our major concerns going forward is
Speaker 1: if protesters keep coming out here, UM that the right
Speaker 1: wing will get more footage that they can spin, bringing
Speaker 1: more attentions on this, bringing more harm to the trans
Speaker 1: community across the country. UM that the right wing will
Speaker 1: attack someone locally around here, or that all of the
Speaker 1: spun footage will inspire someone from outside of the area
Speaker 1: or someone just sitting in the woods who will come
Speaker 1: and pause serious harm to a large group of our
Speaker 1: our local trans community. UM. And our intent is to
Speaker 1: to be there to have some sort of response via
Speaker 1: medical or otherwise trying to think of how to say this. UM.
Speaker 1: I've lived here on and off most of my life
Speaker 1: and had started UM working towards transitioning, but due to
Speaker 1: the national political situation, specifically when the former president temporarily
Speaker 1: got rid of trans protections and medical canceled all that
Speaker 1: changed my medical records back and have been presenting as
Speaker 1: a cis white dude since then, specifically because of the
Speaker 1: amount of privilege that gives me and having a trans
Speaker 1: partner who is working on their transition in this town
Speaker 1: while this is happening is hitting home to a level
Speaker 1: that I was completely unprepared for. And the emotional impact
Speaker 1: that all of this has been having on me, and
Speaker 1: the fact that it's not just here but that this
Speaker 1: is getting national attention is something I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: wrap my head around. And I'm just really thankful for
Speaker 1: all of the networks that we've built in all of
Speaker 1: the community, the local community, the broader Washington community, all
Speaker 1: the people who have just shown so much support for us,
Speaker 1: and it makes me feel like there is there is
Speaker 1: a future where we can just be left in peace.
Speaker 1: And that is the story of what's been happening in
Speaker 1: Port Townsend over the course of the past month, and
Speaker 1: what could happen in the next few days. I'm going
Speaker 1: to close this episode with Clementine discussing the details of
Speaker 1: her go fund me. The go fund me is sort
Speaker 1: of a general transition fund for me. I originally made
Speaker 1: it specifically for two surgeries. I low balled the amount
Speaker 1: greatly because I felt like if I asked for too much,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get anything, and I still got nothing for
Speaker 1: a long time. At some point, when the articles were
Speaker 1: coming out, one of the nationals used one of the
Speaker 1: national articles used my go fund me as a source
Speaker 1: um to find out more about me. But that got
Speaker 1: my go fund me out there UM and a lot
Speaker 1: of different people started picking up on it and spreading it.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't do much at all to to help that.
Speaker 1: I it was never something on my mind, the go
Speaker 1: fund me. It just happened and I looked at it
Speaker 1: one day and I thought, that's strange. I have more
Speaker 1: donations than the last time I checked, and it was
Speaker 1: pretty empowering to see that, or or more hopeful um.
Speaker 1: But now now so I talked about the go fund
Speaker 1: me was originally for two specific surgeries, and I lobald.
Speaker 1: The amount um I later revised actually took me a
Speaker 1: couple of times and a lot of consideration because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to feel like I was cheating the people
Speaker 1: that were being gracious to me, which I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to be. But yeah, uh, finding out that things cost
Speaker 1: more than I thought, but you know, it's way better
Speaker 1: than it was before. And to find it, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's the first thing that comes up
Speaker 1: when you look up my name now, which is better
Speaker 1: than Fox News is video or or a daily wire
Speaker 1: article or whatever. The big thing that would pop up
Speaker 1: otherwise is but um, yeah, it's called Clementine's Transition Fund
Speaker 1: fund go fund me. You can find the transition go
Speaker 1: fund me at go fund me dot com slash s
Speaker 1: r s for clem and that link will be in
Speaker 1: the description, or you can just search Clementine's Transition Fund
Speaker 1: on your search engine of choice. See you on the
Speaker 1: other side, it could happen. Here is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.