Republican Officials Target a Trans Woman for Prosecution Over Changing at the YMCA
A trans woman in Xenia, Ohio has been charged with 3 misdemeanors, apparently for changing in the women’s facilities at the YMCA after Republican officials asked local women to file a police report.
by Evan Urquhart
A trans women in Xenia, Ohio, has been charged with three counts of public indecency after local Republican officials encouraged other patrons to file a police report. Information about the heavy involvement of these politicians in escalating the situation to law enforcement, while publicly available, has not been covered in other reports about the case. Here’s a summary, from one of those outlets:
screenshot from Dayton Daily News
“We got together with our state council and our law director and our city manager and we said ‘Hey, we want to take this up,’” explained Republican Wil Urshel, the Republican president of the Xenia city counsel, in a video on YouTube that captures him speaking to a Tea Party group. “We went to three families that had their wives and daughters had to witness these things, and they filed police reports, and our detectives investigated, and we filed chargest against the individual.”
These statements, from a YouTube video showing Urshel speaking to a Greene County Tea Party audience on Jan 24, clearly indicate that Urshel and other Republican officials were the driving force behind the charges that have been brought against Rachel Glines, who seems to have been following the policies of the YMCA. At this time there has not been any suggestion that we know of that Glines behaved inappropriately, or engaged in any behavior other than being a trans woman and changing in a changing room.
The issue seems to have come to Republican officials’ attention after a local pastor, Van Holloway, railed against the Y’s inclusive policies because his wife had encountered the trans woman in the YMCA changing room. This first led the city council to seek guidance from the state about whether the YMCA is correctly interpreting the non-discrimination law, and subsequently resulted in these charges being brought.
Neither the trans woman nor her lawyer have commented publicly on the case. A spokesperson for a local LGBTQ+ organization have said that no one knows exactly what happened, according to an ABC affiliate in Dayton, OH. The YMCA has repeatedly stated that it believes its trans inclusive policies are required by state laws which prohibit discrimination in public accomodations based on sex.
The Dayton Daily News, a conservative local outlet, quoted some of Urshel’s statements from the video, but the story left out the part where Urshel made it clear that he and other city council members were the driving force behind chargest having been brought. However, the city later clarified that they do not plan to bring charges against the YMCA.
screenshot from th Dayton Daily News
Urshel went on to suggest that, if they succeed in prosecuting the transgender woman, they might move on to targeting the YMCA for aiding and abetting. He also suggested that he would like to pass a law defining sex inside the city limits so that it would explicitly exclude trans people from protections against discrimination. These latter statements, though not the earlier ones claiming credit for the prosecution of Glines, were reported by the Dayton Daily News.
screenshot from Dayton Daily News
The situation in Xenia comes in the context of what may be a growing focus on YMCA policies from conservative Christian groups, as reported by the Daily Beast.