A teenage girl wept before a Californian city council as she recalled her trauma at seeing ‘a naked man’ inside the women’s changing rooms at her local YMCA.
Rebecca Philips, 17, addressed the meeting in Santee, a city suburb of San Diego, on Wednesday night to demand reform to the existing policy after encountering the unidentified transgender woman.
The Mail Online reports: She told the council how, two weeks ago, she was getting changed after swimming at the Santee YMCA when she saw a transgender woman naked in the changing rooms.
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‘As I was showering after my workout I saw a naked male in the women’s locker room,’ she said.
‘I immediately went back into the shower, terrified, and hid behind their flimsy excuse for a curtain until he was gone.’
Philips, who went on to discuss the area’s transgender policies, said she was haunted by the thought of her five-year-old sister, who she brings to the gym in the summer, encountering the same situation.
Her voice quivering, she said: ‘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.’
Philips says staff told her the trans woman was perfectly entitled to be in the changing rooms, and that only those on the sex offender’s registry were banned from entering.
Women’s facilities – changing rooms, shelters, prisons – can be used by anyone in California thanks to a state law saying people must be allowed to use facilities which align with their gender identity.
And in May 2022 three Democrat supervisors for San Diego County decided to redefine the word ‘woman’ to include trans people.
Nathan Fletcher, Terra Lawson-Remer and Nora Vargas all approved the measure. The two Republicans serving as supervisors voted against the bill.
Philips told the council she was horrified by the experience.
Philips said that the YMCA management, asked about their transgender policy, told her ‘the man I saw was indeed allowed to shower wherever he pleased’.
She added: ‘A grown male can shower alongside a teenage girl at your YMCA, here in Santee.’
Philips said she was dismayed at the response from the YMCA staff.
‘I was made to feel as if I had done something wrong,’ she said.
‘The indecent exposure of a male to a female minor was an inconvenience to them.’
