LYNNWOOD—A mother who has long used the Lynnwood Recreation Center with her family reported encountering a male showering in the women’s locker room during a children’s swim meet on July 12, an incident that has prompted an internal review by City of Lynnwood staff and the installation of new shower curtains for added privacy. The story was first reported by Brandi Kruse on her podcast, unDivided.
Maria Varchetto, a Lynnwood resident and annual pass holder at the recreation center, said she entered the women’s locker room shortly before her daughter’s first race with the Lynnwood Sharks swim team. The facility was heavily crowded that afternoon, with hundreds of children, parents and spectators for the multi-hour meet while recreational swimming continued in another section of the pool. Varchetto walked past the private shower stalls on her way to the restroom stalls and saw what she described as a fully erect adult male penis visible through a gap in the shower curtain.
“I walked past and I just saw a fully stiff penis, a very adult male one with very hairy balls and fully erect and just exposed,” Varchetto said in an interview with the Lynnwood Times.
She said the curtain did not fully span the width of the stall and tended to pull inward several inches, leaving a gap of about five inches. She clarified with the Lynnwood Times that she did not open the curtain, step into the stall area or attempt to look around it.
“I wasn’t trying to look,” she said “It was very obvious because it was exposed past where the shower curtain was. I did not look around the corner. I did not touch the shower curtain. I didn’t even step in the vicinity of the shower.”
After using the restroom, Varchetto said she walked past the stall again, saw the same exposure, and spoke aloud, “Excuse me, this is the women’s locker room.” She received no response.
At that moment a woman and young girl were washing their hands at the sinks. Varchetto told them that a man was showering in the locker room and urged them to leave. She then went directly to the front desk and reported the situation to the Lynnwood Recreation Center staff.
“The manager ran out behind the desk and headed towards the locker room, followed by an elderly lady who claimed, ‘That’s my daughter,’” she said.
After returning to the woman’s locker room with the manager, Varchetto said the manager asked, “Excuse me, are you confused? This is the women’s locker room!”
The person in stall showering allegedly replied, “I’m trans.”
The manager responded that staff had not known and apologized: “Sorry, we didn’t know”.
“I WAS PISSED!” Varchetto wrote in a detailed public account she later shared in Facebook groups. “First off, HOW DARE YOU invade our private space! And second, you chose to do this on a day where the locker rooms are constantly being used, during the time when I’ve literally never seen the rec center as packed, during a CHILDREN’S SWIM MEET! And to do it so blatantly was shocking! SHAME ON YOU!”
Varchetto stressed to the Lynnwood Times that her objection of a transwoman in the woman’s locker room centered on privacy for the young girls at the swim meet and safety for women and children; not on anyone’s gender identity.
“Identify as whatever you want, but as you demand people respect you, offer everyone else the same respect in return,” she wrote. “If you want to feel safe, care about who you make feel unsafe! You do not get to go into our private spaces, during a widely populated children’s event, and have your penis visible to anyone who walks by!”
Varchetto told the Lynnwood Times that when she first spoke to the person in the shower she had no information about identity nor intent.
“At this point, I have no idea if he’s a creeper, if he identifies as a woman, anything,” Varchetto said. “He has said nothing to me.”
Varchetto said the manager appeared uncertain how to proceed but conducted herself professionally.
“I don’t care what you do in the privacy of your bedroom. I could care less,” she said. “I don’t care what you want to identify as, anything like that. But when it starts interfering in my life and gets pushed onto my kids, like, then we have a problem. Then I have an issue. It’s a safety issue because you don’t know from anybody if this person is just a creepy pedophile or if this person really identifies as transgender.”
She shared that the recreation center maintains multiple family restrooms and private changing rooms with locking doors that offer complete privacy.
“He could have easily used that instead of the woman’s locker room,” she told the Lynnwood Times.
She said some online commenters defended the presence of the individual in the women’s locker room while others, including at least one self-identified lesbian who said she supports transgender people, argued that genuine members of that community would have chosen the private family facilities to avoid drawing attention or causing discomfort.
Varchetto is no longer permitting her 10-year-old daughter to enter the women’s locker room alone and now uses the family facilities instead.
She and her husband are annual pass holders of the Lynnwood Recreation Center. Their twin sons completed two years of preschool there. The children have participated in summer camps and swim lessons for years. Her daughter, age 10, joined the Lynnwood Sharks with aspirations of competitive swimming and dreams of reaching the Olympics.
City officials confirmed with the Lynnwood Times that they are investigating the matter and are taking the necessary step to ensure privacy of all our Recreation Center patrons.
“Our Aquatics and Recreation teams are actively investigating the situation to ensure a thorough understanding of the event,” Nathan MacDonald, manager of communications and public affairs for the City of Lynnwood wrote in a statement to the Lynnwood Times. “Our facilities team has installed new curtains to enhance the privacy of the locker room showers, ensuring the privacy of all our Recreation Center patrons.”
Lynnwood operates under state nondiscrimination provisions that include gender identity and gender expression. Similar legal questions have arisen in other Washington facilities, including a pending case involving Olympus Spa, a women’s spa also located in Lynnwood.
Varchetto said she hopes the city will post clear signage distinguishing biological sex for the sex-segregated locker rooms while directing those who identify differently to the family facilities.
“I asked the Lynnwood Rec Center to please put signs on their doors that say something along the lines of locker rooms are for biological females or biological males,” she said. “If you identify as anything other than that, you are welcome to use the family restrooms or the family lockers.”
She told the Lynnwood Times that she is “glad the city did something because if the curtain was at full width, none of this would have ever happened.”
Author: Mario Lotmore
