Saturday afternoon on South Progress Drive, about 40 supporters of the transgender community rallied down the hill from the Xenia YMCA. They waved signs equating trans rights to human rights as well as waving flags, some with a pink and a blue stripe, others featured rainbow colors.
The gathering was in response to a Fairborn trans woman’s arrest on three charges of public indecency. She’s been accused of being unclothed in the YMCA women's locker room.
Jami James is a trans woman and a single parent of two daughters. James said she limits going to public places because she’s afraid for their safety.
“I have a fear if I have to go to the bathroom, I’m going to get attacked. I fear they might get attacked as well for being associated with me,” James explained. “My family and our dynamic has changed because of transphobia and the way people treat us.”
Meanwhile — across the street — about 20 members of the Republican Party and of the Greene County Tea Party prayed, walked up and down the sidewalk with American flags and signs urging the protection of women.
“We have decency laws on the books,” Jeremy Cox, president of the county’s Tea Party, stated. “Men should not be in a woman’s locker room, biological men should not.”
The YMCA of Greater Dayton has said in a statement it’s following Ohio law prohibiting a place of public accommodation from discriminating against a person based on their sexual orientation.
