Are genital checks inevitable?

Eighty-year-old Julie Jaman has been banned from her local YMCA swimming pool in Port Townsend, Washington, where she’s been a member for thirty-five years.

Why? She “discriminated against” and “harassed” a transgender employee who was in the locker room by asking “Clementine Adams” “if he had a penis” and demanding he leave the ladies’ room.

The disturbing incident has sparked a controversy and way more uproar than should ever exist over something so bizarre and perverse, leading one to wonder: are genital checks inevitable?

Jaman recounted to the media: “I heard a man’s voice, very distinctive. I saw a man in a woman’s bathing suit where two toilets are and there were two little girls standing there taking down their suits to use the toilet. I looked at him and I said, ‘Do you have a penis?’ and he said, ‘It’s none of your business.’ And I said, ‘You need to leave now.’”

Adams is being painted as the victim in all this, though it appears “Clementine” does probably still have a penis. Adams started a GoFundMe campaign asking for $25,000 toward gender-affirming surgeries and later to “fund my transition more broadly.” (Evidently, after the YMCA incident, this person realized he could squeeze more money out of progressive supporters and changed his mind about being philanthropic, writing, “I previously committed to donating extra funds to other charities and fundraisers myself, but after a lot of consideration I’m amending this.”). Adams has not yet met his fundraising goal — deductive reasoning holds that he still retains male genitalia.

The Port Townsend City Council debated the matter. During the public comment section, Port Townsend resident Rebecca Horst said: “This individual is not a man identifying as a woman. This individual is a woman. I think that we need to have respect and inclusivity and we need to respect this person. It is inappropriate for people in this day and age not to recognize what transgender means.”

“This individual is not a man identifying as a woman,” eh? How does Horst know that? The transgender person in the ladies’ locker room said his or her gender was “none of [Jaman’s] business.” How do we know this person wasn’t just a straight, cross-dressing, peeping Tom pervert?

“It is inappropriate for people in this day and age not to recognize what transgender means.” Well, excuse us, Ms. Horst, but it’s pretty hard to “recognize what transgender means” when the meaning itself is so transitory, it ends up meaning nothing. Get a load of this “definition” of transgender from Planned Parenthood:

Transgender people express their gender identities in many different ways. Some people use their dress, behavior and mannerisms to live as the gender that feels right for them. Some people take hormones and may have surgery to change their body so it matches their gender identity. Some transgender people reject the traditional understanding of gender as divided between just “male” and “female,” so they identify just as transgender, or genderqueer, genderfluid, or something else.

Transgender people are diverse in their gender identities (the way you feel on the inside), gender expressions (the way you dress and act) and sexual orientations (the people you’re attracted to).

Do transgender people themselves know what transgender means? And if it’s “none of our business,” why do these people have their own flag and hold “inclusion” events and a “day of visibility”?

The YMCA pool has been shut down until the facility can “assure that each employee can come back to a harassment-free environment for the benefit of their staff and patrons.” When Jaman held a rally with supporters, trans activists shouted over her, ripped down her group’s suffragette signs and caused Jaman so much alarm that she asked someone to call the police, according to the New York Post.

Body parts are, of course, the business of anyone like Jaman, who doesn’t feel comfortable being naked in front of the opposite sex and who simply seeks “privacy, safety and dignity for female human beings… when dressing and showering” (or how about always?!). Don’t “cisgender” people, their feelings and concerns deserve “respect and inclusivity” too?

The ability to simply identify as something or someone is a precedent ripe for manipulation and abuse, and the predator-pretending-to-be-a-transgender fear has already been realized. Therefore, facilities like the Port Townsend YMCA that are committed to encouraging LGBTQ lifestyles need to have separate locker rooms and bathrooms for people who identify as such, or they need to make genital checks mandatory. There’s no skirting the issue.