City Settles With 83-Year Old Woman It Smeared Over 'Trans' Pool Incident
Julie Jaman was libeled, attacked by a street mob for knowing what a man is
Julie Jaman, who was banned from her city pool and then mobbed in the street for expressing safeguarding concerns regarding a man who was in the female shower and toilet area, has reached a $65,000 settlement with Port Townsend, Washington.
According to the press release from the Center for American Liberty, which defended Jaman’s constitutional rights, the city “also agreed to remove certain information about Ms. Jaman from its website, further underscoring the baselessness of the actions taken against her.”
Jaman was showering after her lap swim in 2022 when she overheard a 19-year-old male, Clementine Adams, entering the city YMCA pool area reserved for females. Adams was supervising at least two little girls as they stripped off their swimsuits to urinate.
Protected only by a plastic curtain, Jaman challenged Adams and told him to leave. Instead of supporting Jaman, YMCA employee Rowen DeLuna called her speech “discriminatory” and banned her for life a few moments later. The Distance helped bring international attention to Jaman’s story.
Instead of listening to Jaman’s concerns, Port Townsend city Manager John Mauro and Olympic Peninsula YMCA CEO Wendy Bart smeared her with false claims of prior bad acts. In an official Q&A discussing the pool shower incident, they accused Jaman of a “documented previous pattern of disrespectful behavior.”
Jaman denies ever being counseled about any supposed misbehavior. The Center for American Liberty demanded documentation of this charge from the YMCA, which manages the Mountain View Pool, in March 2024. Neither the YMCA or the city has ever produced any evidence for this baseless smear of Jaman.
Nor did city officials bother even listening to Jaman, for their minds were already made up. “The written record shows that City Manager John Mauro was not the least bit interested in hearing Jaman’s version of the episode,” Annette Huenke explained at the Port Townsend Free Press website.
“The rush to judgment was immediate and uncompromising, following the arc of ideological narratives one now expects to hear from city hall.”
“This case was never just about one woman being banned from a publicly owned pool, it was about the fundamental right of every American to speak truth without fear of retaliation,” Mark Trammell, CEO of the Center for American Liberty, says in the press release.
“Julie Jaman bravely stood her ground, endured attacks on her character, and today’s settlement affirms that government officials cannot silence dissenting voices through intimidation or retribution.”
Indeed, while the litigation does not address the incident, Jaman and a group of women supporting her were subjected to assault by gender identity activists as they held a press conference outside City Hall.
According to multiple eyewitnesses who spoke to The Distance, police stood by and watched the mob assault the group of women until concerned bystanders shamed the police chief, who was reportedly standing next to the mayor watching it all, into action.
In a streaming video of the altercation, angry male voices can be heard screaming and chanting slogans at the group of women. Sound cuts out as protesters grab at the power supply. Sources tell The Distance that the mob consisted of homeless people, mainly men, who were likely recruited by local activists with connections to City Hall.
Julie Jaman is not a litigious person. However, it was obvious that the YMCA’s unspecified and proofless allegations would not withstand libel scrutiny. “I made every move I knew at the local level to bring the issue forward and the need for training, signage and private spaces to no avail,” Jaman told The Distance after the Center for American Liberty filed suit on her behalf.
“I never imagined that expressing concerns about the safety and privacy of women and girls would lead to me being shunned and banned,” Jaman says in the press release. “I’m grateful that justice has been served and that my voice was heard. This is a victory for common sense, women’s rights, and the right to speak the truth.”
The belated exoneration of Julie Jaman was announced on the same day that the University of Pennsylvania announced an agreement with the Trump administration to vacate all the records and medals awarded to Lia Thomas.
Thomas’s infamous “victory” over Riley Gaines, which took place in May 2022, just two months before the incident at the Mountain View Pool, has proven to be a watershed. Public support for transgender sports participation was low before that event — and collapsed completely in the wake of Thomas being celebrated by the media before a shocked American audience.
Likewise, public awareness of transgender-identifying men in women’s spaces has grown since 2022 due to social media controversies around Planet Fitness and Korean spas on the West coast. Darren Merager, the man who exposed himself at the WiSpa in 2021, was recently acquitted by a jury because California law has been rewritten to legalize his fetish behavior.
The national YMCA policy which made it possible for Clementine Adams to chaperone girls into the toilets unsupervised remains in place. Still, the city of Port Townsend has clearly decided the price of this virtue-signal was already high enough. Policies and even laws will change in time, but only with consistent pressure, mainly through litigation.
The Distance has contacted Jaman for comment. We have also reached out to Mayor David Faber, City Manager John Mauro, and Police Chief Tomas Olson for comment. We will update this story with any replies.
Grieving Skrmetti: An Adult Movement Processes The Loss Of Their 'Trans Child'
Last week, my friend Brandon Showalter quoted me for a piece at the Christian Post. Many thanks to Brandon for the interview. In the piece, I say that what Joe Biden called “the civil rights movement of the 21st century” gave the Democratic Party a “perfect ersatz belief” that subsumed and replaced the old civil rights struggles.