SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — WAND News sat down with the women at the heart of the controversy at the Springfield YMCA. July 13th, the Wheeler family spoke at a press conference with lawmakers after their daughter shared concerns about sharing a locker room with transgender women.
"I felt very uncomfortable. I went to my coach, Alex and told him that there is a man in the women's locker room," Abigail Wheeler said at the press conference.
Wheeler was joined by the Illinois Freedom Caucus, who are demanding changes to Illinois law that allows transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender in which they identify.
Now the women Wheeler said she encountered, are sharing their side of the story. Christina Newton and Candice Clotfelter said they were sitting and talking in the YMCA locker room, when they encountered Wheeler. They said she came up to them and said "these are girls' lockers". The women said they told Wheeler "we are women".
The pair said they had already changed into their bathing suits and were getting ready to swim. They didn't think much of the interaction until seeing online reports and the press conference last week.
"I have been getting treated different. People give me weird looks now or don't even talk to me," Christina Newton told WAND News.
"My true friends and my sister know who I am—I don't have to prove it to anyone else," Newton added.
Candice Clotfelter and Christina Newton
Both said they've always changed in stalls and have never exposed themselves to anyone else in the locker room. They are asking the Freedom Caucus to become more educated about trans issues.
"And we're not evil, we're just people trying to be ourselves. We're trying to live our lives as ourselves and I'm tired of trans people being attacked," Clotfelter explained.
Both told WAND News they forgive those who have been spreading hateful messages about trans people since the incident has gone viral. They are also thanking the YMCA for the way the situation was handled.
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