Remember when the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was a place where young men could learn skills, engage in humanitarian work, and participate in sports? Well, it appears it has now become a bastion for progressive gender ideology.
YMCA branches across the country have been quietly implementing radical gender policies that endanger children while violating federal law, according to the American Parents Coalition (APC).
I recently spoke with Alleigh Marré, Executive Director of APC, about the organization’s effort to stop the YMCA’s effort to enforce and promote gender ideology in its branches. The group filed a formal Title IX complaint with the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS,) Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Education.
The APC alleges that the YMCA is using taxpayer funds to impose policies allowing biological males to enter female locker rooms, restrooms, cabins, and other private spaces — all without requiring parental notification.
“Over the last year or so, we noticed scattered public complaints across the country — mostly from women — reporting biological males in locker rooms, changing, ogling them, etc.,” Marré told me. “Unfortunately, we found that not much had changed. YMCA websites across the country stated policies that allowed individuals to access bathrooms, locker rooms, and camps based on gender identity—not biological sex.”
The APC’s complaint alleges that the YMCA is “engaging in unlawful bender-based discrimination in its programs and policies,” and points out that the organization receives a whopping $600 million in federal grants. “The YMCA’s policy of disfavoring and imperiling young girls and favoring and empowering those who choose to present as a gender other than their own is antithetical to the principles of federal civil rights law and gender equality,” the letter states.
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One of the most egregious issues is the YMCA’s refusal to be transparent about its gender policies. After the APC exposed its practices and shared them with parents, the group tried to conceal its policies. “The Y took down a ton of pages or put behind password protection a ton of pages on their website… Not change their policy—scrub it,” Marré said.
“If nothing else, that shows an admission of guilt—that there’s an understanding that there’s something there to be hidden,” she added. “At least, that’s what my parents taught me when I hid a bad test grade in the bottom of my backpack as a kid.”
There have been several disturbing incidents that have resulted from this policy. A YMCA branch in Kansas City allowed a naked biological male to share a women’s locker room with a mother and her young daughter. “Instead of promoting the safety of the two women, who were in the correct changing room, the YMCA defended the male’s presence,” the complaint states.
There have been several other incidents at other branches. An elderly woman was banned in Port Townsend, Washington, after she complained to staff because there was a male in the girls’ locker room watching teenage girls undress. Instead of investigating the matter, the YMCA revoked her membership and banned her from the facility. She later sued the chapter.
In St. Cloud, Minnesota, the YMCA agreed to a $140,000 settlement with the EEOC after a male manager was accused of harassing teenage female employees. “According to the civil lawsuit filed by the EEOC last year, the manager of the St. Cloud Area Family YMCA made demeaning remarks about women, propositioned an employee, and made sexual comments about the employees’ bodies,” CBS News reported. “One of the teenage employees reported the incidents to her supervisor and director, but the director refused to address the harassment and instead accused the employee of gossiping.”
To be clear, not all YMCA chapters are pushing gender ideology. Marré explained that the national YMCA allows each branch to set its own policies regarding gender.
However, she said the branches that are pushing this agenda are doing so without parents’ knowledge. “There are also in many of these places no parental notification requirements,” she explained. “So if I send my daughter… she could be bunked and roomed with a male who identifies as a female—and no one would tell me about it.”
These incidents are part of a larger trend of radical ideologues using institutions to force their ridiculous views on others. However, most Americans — regardless of political affiliation — are not on board with this movement. Marré pointed out numerous polls showing that Americans agree on having spaces segregated by sex. They also agree that female athletes should not be forced to compete against biological males in sports.
Marré explained that the objective of APC’s campaign is “to have the YMCA explicitly say that all of their branches need to comply with and follow federal law…The baseline is privacy and safety.”
And if the YMCA refuses to bend? “We’ll do what we gotta do and keep pushing until we get that result,” she said.
You can watch the interview below:
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