The American Parents Coalition is calling for the federal government to investigate the Young Men’s Christian Association’s use of $600 million in annual federal funds “to support policies that endanger children, disregard potential rights, and violate federal law,” according to a Monday letter sent by the organization to Rep. Margorie Taylor Green, R-Ga, as initially reported by the Daily Signal.
Last month, APC sent a similar request to the Trump administration.
“Earlier this month, I filed a Title IX complaint with the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development outlining how YMCA affiliates across the country are allowing biological males in girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and overnight cabins,” APC Executive Director Alleigh Marré said in Monday’s letter.
She went on to say, “The YMCA receives more than $600 million in federal grants annually and is therefore subject to Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Its policy recommendations and guidance, which disregard biological sex in the administration of intimate facilities, place girls in vulnerable situations and raise serious questions about compliance with federal law.”
Marré spoke with The Center Square.
“The reason we started there is, of course, those are the entities that are responsible for distributing the federal funding, so that seemed like a logical place for us to start as far as raising these concerns,” she said. “Then with Chairwoman Green’s role as the chair of the subcommittee on DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency], this is a perfect opportunity for her committee to go in and investigate whether or not they [YMCA] should be in receipt of that federal funding. So essentially, we’re just flagging and reaching out to all of the committees and agencies [that] have some sort of jurisdiction over the flow of the funding that the YMCA has been using.”
The YMCA incorporated women into its purpose statement in 1957. Its mission statement is “To put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.”
The YMCA does not have a single, nationwide policy regarding locker rooms and bathrooms. Individual YMCA locations set their policies, which are often based on local and state laws and may vary.
Two weeks ago, the 2024 case of an elderly woman in Washington state who was barred from the YMCA pool for speaking out against a male in the women’s locker room was settled for $65,000 in what the plaintiff described as a “victory for common sense.”
83-year-old Julie Jaman agreed to drop her complaint against the city of Port Townsend, Wash., and the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, after she received a lifetime ban for raising concerns about a transgender employee supervising girls in the female-designated changing facilities at the YMCA.
Marré told The Center Square that APC has yet to receive a response from any federal agency to their June complaint.
“I can only imagine that they have no shortage of investigations, so you know I’m confident that we’re in the pipeline, and we will continue to find avenues to poke and to bug and passionately request some follow-up,” she said. “That’s why we moved on to the DOGE subcommittee so that we can have another avenue to look into it.”
Marré said APC is also committed to ensuring parental rights are protected.
“We take the mantra that nothing should stand between a parent and their child, and we see this as something that squarely falls within, because there’s not often notification of what these policies are or that they have changed or are different than what you would expect them to be,” she explained. “So there are a handful of cases across the country where there are overnight camps and your daughter could be bunked with a biological male or have a male in their cabin just because of how they identify, and they don’t tell you as a parent.”
Marré said that given the YMCA’s annual federal funding, it should be required to follow President Donald Trump’s federal directive about protecting girls and women regarding Title IX.
“I mean this is a national organization that serves 4 million kids across the country, and the money that we’re talking about is federal money to the tune of $600 million, so it’s both its influence and the expense, and for that reason I’m pretty sure this lands on some of these [agency] radars sooner rather than later,” she said.
The YMCA did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.
