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Dori: Is it ok for women to be uncomfortable with self-identified women in locker rooms?

May 3, 2019, 12:50 PM

I-1552, locker room...

(Dyer Oxley, MyNorthwest)

(Dyer Oxley, MyNorthwest)

I got an email from a listener who called herself “Bewildered in Tacoma.” She was coming out of the locker room at her gym when she noticed a person who appeared, based on looks and voice, to be a man, coming out of the showers.

When the listener asked the front desk how a man could be allowed in the women’s locker room, she was told that the person identifies as a woman, and, according to state law, must therefore be allowed to use the women’s facilities.

The listener was very upset, because the gym is located near a homeless camp, and based on the beat-up old van the person using the locker room had driven away in, she feared that it was a guy from the homeless camp just using the locker room to have a shower.

She wrote, “What about my rights as a woman? … If you are transitioning, at what point are you the ‘other’ gender? I want to be supportive, but at the same time, who is supporting me? Am I safe going to a gym knowing that ‘men’ will be in the locker room?” She then asked what law could allow this to happen.

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My answer to you, “Bewildered in Tacoma,” is that it’s not a law. It is the Washington State Human Rights Commission, which does have the power to fine entities that don’t follow their rules and regulations.

This particular rule was pushed through by this un-elected Human Rights Commission in our state between Christmas and New Year’s a couple years ago. They timed it this way for the same reason as when you intentionally use the ‘Friday afternoon news dump’ to bury news, because people will forget about it over the weekend. I always take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, as do many other people. That’s a time when you can sneak things past. We’re all either too busy traveling or with family that we don’t consume as much news.

The reason I know all of this is because a couple of months after it was snuck through, there was a man at a local swimming pool, where a girls swim team was using the women’s locker room. Parents were deeply upset that a pervy male was in the locker room with their 10- and 11-year-old girls. Government employees who worked at the pool said that if the man says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman. It is an incredible convoluted rule. I feel bad that these businesses have to enable the insanity of the Left in our state.

Now, if somebody is actually transitioning, that is one thing. But if it’s some homeless guy who gets his kicks by showering in the women’s locker room at the local gym, that should not be tolerated. The problem is, by not tolerating that guy, you’re going to have him go screaming to the Human Rights Commission, and they will fine the entity that tries to kick him out.

So to answer your question, “Bewildered in Tacoma” — and I wish I had a better answer for you — no one is looking out for your rights except for me. No one in government is, that’s for sure. It’s like the story we had a couple of weeks ago, where there was a high school boy in the girls locker room at the high school. The girls said, “What about us? Everyone says we have to make him feel comfortable, but what about how uncomfortable we feel?”

Nobody is looking out for the people who are, not just uncomfortable, but potentially in danger. Especially in this #MeToo era, I would think the radical Left would have some care about women and girls who feel threatened by a biological man in the locker room with them. But, no — in the hierarchy of what the radical Left cares about, cis-gendered girls and women who don’t want to be next to a biological man are very low on the priority list.

That’s your answer, “Bewildered.” I’ll keep watching out for people like you, but you are the wrong gender identity to be cared about by anyone in government. That’s the sorry reality of things around here right now.

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Dori: Is it ok for women to be uncomfortable with self-identified women in locker rooms?