A story out of California illustrates the degree to which “transgender rights” are little more than license to allow grown men to expose their naked bodies to young girls. A couple weeks ago, a 17-year-old girl was in the shower room of the Santee, California, YMCA when she witnessed a naked man in the shower room. Her report of the incident drew only irritation from the YMCA staff, who told her that the “woman” she saw had a right to be there.
As San Diego’s KUSI News reported:
Recently, 17-year-old Rebecca Phillips visited the Santee YMCA to workout after work, as she routinely does.
But this time, as she was showering, she encountered a naked man inside the women’s locker as she was showering….
She ran into a stall to hide and change, before informing staff of the naked man freely using the women’s locker room.
Staff said the man, who claims to be transgender, is allowed to shower wherever he wants. Since he identifies as a girl, the naked man chose to use the women’s locker room. Then, the Director of Membership for San Diego County YMCA’s, Teri Maas, called Phillips and informed her she was never in danger with the naked man in the locker room.
Speaking to the Santee City Council last week, Phillips broke down crying as she related the incident.
She told the members of the council that while hiding in the shower stall waiting for the naked man to leave and fearing for her safety, she thought of her young sister. She sobbed as she said, “I could only think of my five-year-old sister who I bring to this gym during the summer to enjoy their water slides,” adding, “This is the YMCA, where hundreds of children spend their summer afternoons in child care camps. This is the YMCA where my little sister took gymnastics lessons. The locker room was supposed to be her safe haven to gossip with her friends and shower and change.”
As to the Y’s claim that “she was never in danger,” Phillips said, “I was made to feel as though I had done something wrong when I talked to people at the YMCA.” She went on to say that after her father reached out to the YMCA to complain of the incident, “The YMCA wouldn’t let my father speak to the manager of the Santee branch. After waiting several days, he finally received a call from Teri Maas … the Director of Membership for San Diego County. She informed my dad that I was not in any danger at the time of the incident. That I was safe.” She then said:
But I ask you this … I’m assuming all of you either have a wife, a sister, daughters or granddaughters or are a woman yourself. Could you knowingly send an underage girl into a room with a naked male and say that she was not in danger, that she was safe, or more importantly, that this [was] right?
Phillips — who despite the palpable fear betrayed in her voice, managed to be clear, articulate, and logical in her comments to the council — identified the real point here. A minor girl forced into the presence of a naked man is not safe — and is not right.
When “transgender” activists began demanding a few years ago that men who identify as women should have the “right” to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms corresponding to their “gender identity,” right-thinking individuals and organizations (including The New American) warned that minor girls would become victims. Those warnings were pooh-poohed by LGBTQ activists and the mainstream media. And yet, here we are, again — because this is not the first time, and it won’t be the last time.
It is every decent parent’s nightmare: having a grown man expose his naked body to your minor daughter. In saner times and normal circumstances, such depraved behavior would result in the offending male winding up spending time in jail, the hospital, or both. But both sanity and normalcy appear to have taken the last train out of town before 2023. Because while it is illegal for an adult male to expose his naked body to a minor girl, it is now considered perfectly legal for him to do so as long as he “identifies” as a woman at the moment he engages in that very behavior.
When Phillips sat down with KUSI’s Hunter Sowards for a segment of Good Evening San Diego, she said that her goal in sharing her story is to “spark change in San Diego County.” She told Sowards that although the YMCA offers many wonderful programs, “they’ve gone too far” by having a policy allowing grown men to shower with minor girls.
So far, the YMCA appears to be standing by the policy, albeit with some notable squishiness. In a statement to KUSI, the YMCA of San Diego County wrote:
We are aware of a situation involving two members in the locker room of the Santee YMCA earlier this month. The comfort and safety of all our members is our highest priority.
As a community focused organization, we strive to meet the needs of all individuals. We recognize that birth and gender identity are sensitive subjects. We rely on subject matter experts, laws, and guidelines established by the State of California to ensure our policies are welcoming and respectful for all community members.
As part of this commitment to ensure all individuals feel comfortable, we are reviewing [locker] room floorplans across all facilities within our association. Our goal is to ensure that everyone has access to additional privacy if desired and needed.
As KUSI points out in its report, the Y’s policy is the direct result of a decision by San Diego County in May of 2022 to redefine what it means to be a woman. As KUSI reported Friday, “Supervisors Nathan Fletcher, Terra Lawson-Remer, and Nora Vargas all voted in favor of the ordinance, which has resulted in underage girls like Rebecca Phillips fearing for their safety.”
KUSI is an independent station without any affiliation to a network. As an interesting note, the station broke the mainstream media mold by not calling the man in this case a “woman” or using feminine language (she, her, etc.) to refer to him. The headline for KUSI’s report reads, “Santee YMCA allows naked man to use women’s locker room with underage girls.”
The station also wrote, “Carrie Prejean-Boller joined KUSI’s Logan Byrnes on Good Evening San Diego to applaud Rebecca for being a hero, as publicly sharing her experience takes a lot of courage.” It is certainly true that Phillips demonstrated courage to speak out against grown men exposing themselves to minor girls. Sadly, the leaders of both San Diego County and the YMCA lack anything approaching the same courage as this brave young woman.
