Published on June 14, 2024, 1:24 am

An 82-year-old woman from Washington has filed a lawsuit against her local YMCA-operated pool and the city of Port Townsend, Washington after she was banned for life from said facility. Her ban came as a consequence of expressing discontent over a man’s usage of the women’s locker room.

The Center for American Liberty, represented by a team of lawyers, lodged this lawsuit on behalf of Julie Jaman. The case is aimed at lifting her permanent ban and reinstating her access to Olympic Peninsula Pool. She was prohibited from using these amenities after voicing her concern regarding the presence of a man in the women’s changing area.

Jaman provided the following comments amidst the case proceedings: “After witnessing a disturbing incident in the women’s dressing room and raising concerns, I’ve faced a relentless storm of attacks and falsehoods,” she added, “Despite my four decades of community involvement, I’m left with no choice but to seek justice through the courts.”

This legal battle commenced at U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington following an unsettling episode in July 2022 when Jaman encountered a male voice while showering post-swim at the pool’s women’s locker room; claiming she saw a man observing two young girls.

She recalled lodging complaints about this alarming ordeal only to be rebuked by pool staff who labelled her remarks as “discriminatory.” This concerned man turned out to be an employee identifying as transgender at YMCA. Jaman firmly believes that what she experienced within those walls amounted to witnessing criminal activity due to his presence around those girls inside the female locker room.

“When an eighty-year-old woman reasonably believes she is witnessing a crime being committed against young girls in a women’s locker room,” states part of her court filing, “the government’s reaction should be to gather all relevant information and ascertain what occurred rather than immediately engage in partisan politics fueled by ideology.”

The lawsuit stipulated that both the city, and pool establishment violated Jaman’s fundamental rights such as her First Amendment right of free speech and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and equal protection.

With regards to this ongoing legal battle, Harmeet Dhillon, CEO and founder of The Center for American Liberty said: “The City and YMCA’s failure to address Julie’s concerns is a blatant disregard for public safety. By letting political ideology supersede the need to safeguard children, they have established a perilous precedent.” She added that their pursuit of legal action also seeks accountability alongside renewed commitment toward protecting women’s privacy rights including civil ones too.

The city and the pool establishment presently haven’t yet responded to any requests seeking their comment on these developments. As this legal combat unfolds, it indeed dismantles into a classic case of litigation over our trusted news experience set amidst the larger discourse of civil liberties in our everyday spaces particular if viewed from a pressing societal contemporary lens or even a Christian worldview perspective.