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A public swimming pool in Port Townsend, Wash., is temporarily closed because of an uproar over a locker room confrontation that resulted in the banning of an 80-year-old woman.

The Mountain View Pool, which is run by the YMCA, says its employees have been harassed over the phone and in person since news got out about the run-in between Julie Jaman and a teenage pool employee who is a transgender woman.

Jaman claims she saw the employee — whom she refers to as a man — watching young girls using the toilet. The pool management says the 18-year-old staff member was following protocol in accompanying two children from the day camp. “Staff always accompany children in a group of three, and staff members are never alone with a child,” YMCA official Erin Hawkins told the Port Townsend Leader.

Jaman made what the managers characterized as “disrespectful” statements toward the employee and was told she was being ejected for violating the YMCA code of conduct. She refused to leave, and the police were called. The police report described the confrontation: “Julie asked if [the staffer] had a penis and started screaming at her to get out.”

Now permanently barred from the facility, Jaman returned on the following days to stand at its entrance with a sign reading: “Men who identify as women are using the women’s shower / dressing room.”

That spawned a week of protests and counterprotests with up to 60 people. The staff began receiving abusive phone calls and emails — most from outside the county, Hawkins said, and from people who believed the false claim that Jaman “had confronted a man in the woman’s shower area.”

The facility is now closed at least until next week and will not reopen until the management “determines there can be a harassment-free environment for both staff and patrons,” the city said.

Hawkins told the newspaper that all staff members undergo background checks and are trained in recognizing potential child abuse. The facility’s access policy is in accordance with Washington state law requiring that transgender people be allowed to use locker rooms, changing rooms and bathrooms that align with their gender expression or gender identity.

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