An elderly woman has launched a $350,000 case against her Washington city and its YMCA for banning her from a swimming pool after she objected to a trans woman using its women’s locker room.
Julie Jaman, 82, says Port Townsend and its Olympic Peninsula YMCA defamed her and unlawfully banned her from the center and seeks compensation for ’emotional distress’ from the incident in July 2022.
Her lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, a GOP official who heads the Center for American Liberty, this week sent the city and its YMCA a 259-page complaint, urging them to pay up and apologize or face a lawsuit.
Jaman was kicked out of the swimming complex and banned after encountering Clementine Adams, a trans male-to-female YMCA employee, in the women’s locker rooms and asking her to leave.
Julie Jaman says she has no problem with trans women, but that they should not use women’s changing rooms
Jaman encountered male-to-female trans YMCA worker Clementine Adams in the women’s locker rooms
The case spotlights tensions between trans campaigners, who say society must accept their chosen sexual identity, and women who want biological males kept out of their changing rooms.
‘The city’s and YMCA’s unconstitutional actions are the result of the left’s blind loyalty to gender ideologues’ political agenda,’ said Dhillon, a Republican National Committee member.
‘Instead of listening to a longtime patron and taxpayer’s valid concerns about child safety, the City of Port Townsend and the YMCA silenced and banned her for life, without an iota of due process.’
City officials and the YMCA did not answer DailyMail.com’s requests for comment.
In the letter, Jaman revealed new details about the incident, which led to an angry confrontation with Adams, other YMCA staff and the cops which led to her ban and a series of headline-grabbing protests.
‘I was showering in the women’s dressing room when I saw a man wearing a woman’s swimsuit watching little girls undress. I was obligated to speak up and ask for help,’ said Jaman.
She has since ‘suffered mob-like attacks, public humiliation and widespread mendacious reporting,’ said the 40–year community veteran.
GOP bigwig Harmeet Dhillon has championed Jaman’s case and seeks a $350,000 payout for Jaman
The Olympic Peninsula YMCA, of which the pool is pictured above, said Jamal’s banning was the culmination of a series of ‘incidents’ where she has been disrespectful towards staff
After the ban, a protest was held outside the facility involving trans activists and Jaman’s supporters, pictured above
‘If this had been the 17th Century, I would have been burned at the stake,’ she added
She now wants her ‘credibility restored,’ she said.
Jaman says she was changing in the women’s locker room when she heard a ‘man’s voice.’
It was coming from Adams, who identifies as a woman, wearing a female swimsuit and accompanying two young girls.
‘Jaman was startled by Adams’s presence in the women’s locker room and believed that she might be witnessing a crime in progress,’ says the letter.
She asked Adams if she had a penis, and was told it was ‘none of her business’, so she asked them to leave.
Jaman told a member of staff at the pool, and was told by YMCA aquatics manager Rowen DeLuna that trans woman were allowed in women’s changing areas and that she was ‘discriminating’ against Adams.
Jaman says she has since ‘suffered mob-like attacks, public humiliation and widespread mendacious reporting’
Adams in 2022 raised more than $20,000 online for two sex-reassignment procedures
She was told that she was ‘banned from the pool forever’ before DeLuna called the cops.
Jaman was described as having an ’emotional response’ and ‘screaming’ in a police incident report.
Jaman later that month protested outside the pool and raised her concerns at a city council meeting.
A #LetJulieSwim rally supporting Jaman the following month was swarmed by transgender rights activists.
The city and YMCA later alleged that Jaman had demonstrated a ‘pattern of disrespectful behavior,’ but have not identified the nature of this alleged misconduct, the letter says.
The two organizations have led a ‘high-profile smear campaign’ against Jaman, issuing ‘false and misleading statements’ to ‘make her appear to be bigoted and dangerous to transgender individuals,’ the letter says.
Patricia Silva was banned from Planet Fitness after she shared a photo of ‘a man with a penis’ who was using the female locker room to shave
‘This couldn’t be further from the truth,’ says the letter.
‘It is true that Jaman supports keeping women’s spaces reserved for biological women. But she does not harbor hate towards anyone based on their gender identity.’
Whether trans women can use women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and other spaces has become a hot button issue in America’s culture wars.
Conservatives are currently mounting a boycott against the Planet Fitness gym chain over its policy allowing trans women to use women’s changing rooms.
Patricia Silva recently encountered a trans woman shaving in women’s locker room at a Planet Fitness in Alaska. After posting a video online about the incident and complaining to management, her membership was canceled.