'Not True' Says Transgender Woman At The Center Of Locker Room Debate

SANTEE, CA — A transgender woman will address Santee City Council tonight to set the record straight after a 17-year-old girl publicly claimed to have seen a naked man in the locker room at the Santee YMCA.

Christynne Lili Wrene Wood, formerly Christopher Wallace Wood, claims to be the person at the center of the controversy according to ABC10 News. Wood plans to address the Santee City Council during its Wednesday, Jan. 25 meeting, ABC reported.

“It’s important they finally get to hear the truth and they finally get to put a face on this scary transgender woman who was misgendered,” she said.

The controversy began when Rebecca Phillips addressed Santee City Council earlier this month saying she encountered "a naked male" inside the women's locker room as she was showering.

"Just two weeks ago after finishing my shift at my job, I went to the gym to swim laps," Phillips, who works out regularly at the Santee YMCA, said. "As I was showering after my workout, I saw a naked male in the women's locker room."

Phillips said she immediately went back in the shower where she hid, "terrified," behind the YMCA's "flimsy excuse for a curtain" until the person, who she said she found out later was a transgender woman, left.

"I ran into a bathroom stall to change as quickly as I could, organizing my thoughts to share with the people at the front desk," she said. "As I did so, I could only think of my 5-year-old sister who I bring to this gym during the summer to enjoy their water slides.

"This is the YMCA where hundreds of children spend their summer afternoons in childcare camps," Phillips said as she choked back tears. "This is the YMCA where my little sister took gymnastic lessons."

The locker room, Phillips said, was supposed to be her safe space to "gossip with her friends and shower and change."

When Phillips asked the YMCA about their policy regarding transgender people, she was told that the transgender woman was allowed to shower "wherever they pleased."

"As long as you are not a red flag on Megan's Law, the California Sex Offender Registry, a grown male can shower alongside a teenage girl at your YMCA location here in Santee," she said.

Phillips said that she was made to feel that she had done something wrong when she spoke with the YMCA representative working when the incident occurred.

"Somehow the indecent exposure of a male to a female minor was an inconvenience to them," she said.

Phillips said that when her father spoke to the San Diego County Sheriff's office, they told her that he should never allow her to shower at the YMCA again. She also said that the workers at the YMCA would not let her father speak to the manager of the Santee location. However, after several days he finally received a call from Teri Mass, the director of membership for the San Diego County YMCA, she said.

"She informed my dad that I was not in any danger at the time of the incident," Phillips said.

Phillips asked the city council to consider how they would react if their wife, daughters or granddaughters or even themselves were put into the position she was put in that night at the YMCA.

"Could you knowingly send an underage girl into a room where there was a naked male and say that she was not in danger," she asked. "... Or more importantly that this was right."

Citing the safety of children, Phillips said that the fact that "we are now tailoring our privacy policies and bathroom laws around transgenders, ignoring the blatant threat to safety that this poses is obscene.

"This issue is not unique to one political party, both Democrats and Republicans whom I have shared this story with, have all been equally disgusted," she said, as she implored city leaders to take action. "Whether it is requiring transgenders to use the single stall family restrooms or making them use the bathroom which aligns with their biological identity."

KUSI News reached out to the YMCA of San Diego County for comment and was told the organization was aware of the situation and said the "comfort and safety" of its members is their "highest priority."

As a "community-focused organization, we strive to meet the needs of all individuals," a statement issued by the organization said. "We recognize that birth and gender identity are sensitive subjects. We rely on subject matter experts, laws, and guidelines established by the State of California to ensure our policies are welcoming and respectful for all community members."

San Diego County court records show Wood got a legal gender and name change on February 24, 2017, according to Eric Bartl's San Diego Reader article, "Naked man at Santee YMCA produces litmus test."

In the New York Times piece "Transgender woman Christynne Wood says teen’s graphic YMCA locker room story can’t be true because she had surgery," Wood said that the "most graphic part of the story cannot be true, because she has had gender reassignment surgery."

According to the Times, Wood said she showers in one of the five private stalls in the YMCA’s locker room with the curtain closed and that she was "overwhelmed by the amount of support she’s received and isn’t worried about online threats of violence that have circulated."

Wood has since clarified that she saw the person's naked "backside."

Meanwhile, the Santee YMCA is "reviewing lock room floorplans across all facilities.

"Our goal is to ensure that everyone has access to additional privacy if desired and needed," the statement read.

Watch the meeting live here beginning at 6:30 p.m. tonight.

Read the full story on KUSI.