Parents Coalition calls on Trump Administration to investigate YMCA for ‘gender-based discrimination’ in its programs
The coalition's executive director said the YMCA's policies disadvantage girls and violate principles of gender equality.
Children walking down a street.
The American Parents Coalition has called on the Trump Administration to investigate the YMCA over allegations of “unlawful gender-based discrimination in its programs and policies.”
In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Alleigh Marré, executive director of the coalition, the group asserted that the YMCA's policies disadvantage girls and violate principles of gender equality.
“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 missive states.
Marré called these policies “morally wrong and legally impermissible.”
According to a report from Fox News, an archived page from the YMCA website, dated July 3, 2017, titled "How to Create a Safe Space for LGBTQ+ Campers," promoted access to facilities consistent with the gender identity of campers and staff, as well as the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
It also urged highlighting stories of LGBTQ+ inclusion in activities and trainings.
Another archived page, dated June 7, 2022, emphasized inclusion without distinction of gender identity or expression, among other factors.
However, the current YMCA website stresses that the organization works so to “ensure that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity,” and emphasizes values such as solidarity, honesty, respect and responsibility.
The coalition argues that the YMCA, by receiving more than $600 million in government grants, is in violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.
“The YMCA’s policies permitting biological men to invade the sanctity of spaces set aside for women undoubtedly violates this law,” the letter states, highlighting instances in which women have reportedly been forced to share facilities with men.
Among the incidents mentioned, Fox4 reported a case in Kansas City, Missouri, where a biological man was accused of exposing himself to a seven-year-old girl at a YMCA.
Another incident, which occurred in 2022 in California, involved a 17-year-old girl who claimed to have seen a transgender woman changing in the women's locker room of a YMCA.
The American Parents Coalition insists that these policies not only compromise women's safety and privacy, but also contravene federal civil rights laws.
The request for investigation seeks to have authorities evaluate whether the YMCA's practices comply with current regulations.
Title IX
In it, it states that it is the policy of the United States to withdraw all funding for educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, resulting in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls, and depriving them of privacy.
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