Female gymgoers in California’s Bay Area are up in arms that they must share their locker room with a pre-operative trans woman named Sammy, leading to a tense standoff in one of the most liberal regions of the country.
Protesters have picketed outside two area YMCAs that Sammy is known to frequent, including the Stonestown Family YMCA in San Francisco, where dozens of members have petitioned to force her into the designated gender-neutral space.
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It has led to some nasty exchanges.
‘He likes to parade around the women’s locker completely naked in front of women and children,’ Susan Pete, a 58-year member of the Stonestown Y, told DailyMail.com on a recent afternoon.
‘He also likes to blow dry his hair while naked and bent over. I’ve seen that man more than most of my boyfriends.’
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She told DailyMail.com that the first time she saw Sammy, she did a double take while stepping out of the shower.
‘You’re a man and men do not belong in the women’s locker room!’ Pete recalled telling Sammy.
‘Get educated!’ Sammy purportedly snapped back.
It got uglier at the Berkeley YMCA in March when member Elizabeth Kenney said she saw Sammy ‘harassing’ an elderly member who’d asked her to ‘cover up.’
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‘Mind your own business,’ Sammy purportedly shot back. ‘Why don’t you go drink a beer?’
Although the controversial figure hasn’t responded to DailyMail.com, she was caught on camera by Kinney’s husband Travis lamenting over being harassed by other members.
With a distinctly masculine voice and wearing a black one-piece bathing suit, Sammy tells a YMCA staffer a ‘drunk’ woman started lecturing her about entering the women’s facilities.
‘She posted something that has half a million views about me,’ Sammy told the staffer. ‘It’s a crazy lie and I just don’t want her to be near me or taking a picture.’
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However, Women Are Real, a Bay Area organization of about 150 mostly women, have been picking various battles, fighting to defend ‘women-only spaces.’
The group has sought to force the Sammy controversy into the spotlight, staging several protests, and reaching out to the press and legislators seeking to force change.
Local media has largely ignored the hot-button story. However, the group has vowed to continue its efforts, planning additional protests.
Demonstrations in April and May drew modest participation and a mixed reaction. Hecklers on the sidewalks have yelled out, blasting participants as ‘TERFs’, trans-exclusionary radical feminists.
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Cravens, a member of Women Are Real, spoke with DailyMail.com outside the Stonestown Y last Thursday.
She said the woman was lecturing her and that she posted a video that got ‘half a million views’ before pleading to the staffer that she didn’t want to be filmed or be around her
‘We’re concerned about the loss of female single-sex spaces,’ she said. ‘We believe that in order to flourish, women need dedicated spaces, particularly when they’re vulnerable.’
As she spoke, Sammy pulled into the parking lot as if on cue and walked into the gym, wearing green leggings, a black sweatshirt and face mask.
Elizabeth Kenney, who also there watching, muttered, ‘Oh my God, just in time for the children’s swim classes.’
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The management has offered a third option, a gender-neutral locker room with dividers installed so members can stay separate. But neither Sammy nor other women have been willing to give up the designated female space.
‘All of the staff here respect Sammy’s pronouns and her identity,’ one female staffer at the Stonestown Y told DailyMail.com. ‘It’s just these members. We are trying to work on de-escalating the situation, which really shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, it’s San Francisco.’
The young staffer defended Sammy.
‘She’s a very sweet person, just a normal person,’ she said. ‘She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s just using the locker room. Other women also walk around naked in the locker room. It’s a locker room, you know.
A staffer at the organization said Sammy was a ‘sweet person’ and called out Pete by name calling her a ‘nice lady, besides her transphobia, homophobia and racism’
‘Trans men come here too, but they don’t get targeted,’ she added. ‘It’s really just these TERF wars.’
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‘I feel like I’ve stepped out of a time capsule,’ Pete told DailyMail.com. ‘Something happened to our society.’
She described Sammy as a ‘man’ who’s ‘built like a football player’ and described what she referred to as his ‘micro-penis.’ She also said Sammy wears makeup, leggings and one-piece bathing suits covering his ‘slowly growing breasts.’
When she complained about the situation, she said, ‘The manager came in and said, ‘That’s not a man, that’s a woman.’
‘I had no idea what trans was,’ Pete told DailyMail.com, shaking her head. ‘He identifies as non-binary at one point and trans at another.’
Angelina Zhou contrasted a lot of these older women’s sentiments as she supports trans rights, but she did sign the petition to remove Sammy saying she understood why they were uncomfortable
Pete described bringing her 16-year-old granddaughter to the gym last month, and the teen recoiling after spotting Sammy lingering naked in the changing room.
‘She told me that was the first penis she ever saw and that she also saw his (scrotum),’ Susan recalled.
The protesters said a hundred people signed the petition to ban Sammy from the women’s locker room.
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‘I felt like I had to sign it because everyone was,’ Zhou said Thursday after stepping out of the gym. ‘I’m putting myself in their shoes. I could understand why ladies are uncomfortable.
‘Yes, it’s weird that he’s in the women’s locker room naked,’ Zhou continued. ‘I was initially confused why he was there, but I was trying not to judge, so I didn’t say anything to him.’
At the same time, Zhou expressed empathy for Sammy.
‘I don’t think he goes in the women’s locker room for his pleasure,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s harming anyone. He’s just in his own world.’
* Original Article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14750847/sammy-trans-woman-san-francco-protestors-womens-locker-room-ymca.html
