By Anna Ballard
Reader Contributor
I’ve always believed that decency could stand on its own. But lately I’ve been realizing that even decency needs defenders. When we stay quiet, fear fills the space we leave empty and I don’t want to mistake silence for peace anymore. If anything’s going to change, I want to be part of that change and not with noise, but with truth.
I’ve been reading about what’s happening at Litehouse YMCA, and what strikes me most isn’t the event itself, but the reaction. A person, described as “a man in a bra,” was seen using the women’s locker room, and within hours, hundreds of locals were online calling them a predator, spreading panic and urging people to cancel their YMCA memberships.
How did we get here? How did we get from someone existing as themselves to the language of assault and hysteria? Fear has become our favorite drug. We feed on it, pass it around and call it “protection.” But fear isn’t wisdom, it’s just adrenaline dressed up as moral certainty. And when we let fear steer, empathy dies.
The YMCA is one of the last true community spaces we have, a place where kids learn to swim, where elders exercise safely, where people rebuild their health and sense of belonging. To punish the YMCA, to try to close it down over one person’s existence, is not protection. It’s destruction.
I understand wanting safety. Every parent, every woman, every person deserves to feel safe in shared spaces. But that safety has to include everyone, or it isn’t safety at all. The transgender community already carries the weight of misunderstanding and violence. Adding another wave of public humiliation doesn’t protect anyone; it just deepens the wound.
Real safety doesn’t come from excluding people. It comes from learning how to share space with respect, clarity and compassion. It’s possible to protect privacy and protect dignity. It’s possible to hold boundaries and stay kind. But that takes courage — the kind that listens before judging, that chooses love when fear would be easier.
If you’re dropping your YMCA membership out of outrage, please pause and think about who you’re really hurting. It’s not just the staff or a policy, it’s the kids who learn to swim there, the elders who find friendship there, the families who rely on it as a safe and welcoming space.
Maybe we could start with listening instead of labeling. Maybe we could stop mistaking discomfort for danger. And maybe, just maybe, we could remember that the measure of a community isn’t how loud we shout about our fears, but how bravely we love through them.
Sandpoint is better than its panic. We can lead with heart, not hysteria. The world doesn’t need more people tearing things down, it needs more people standing up, gently but firmly, for kindness, inclusion and community care.
Anna Ballard is a born-and-raised Sandpoint local who now resides in Hawaii.
