By Kathy Athearn

Jen McDougal’s nine-year-old daughter is like many other girls across the country who enjoy taking swim lessons. In September, she had just finished a lesson at Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center in Arlington, Virginia, wanted to change into her clothes, and go home. However, her typical routine abruptly ended when she and her mother entered the locker room and found a naked man standing in the middle of the room.

McDougal described the disturbing instance recently on “Fox & Friends,” saying it was a “very awkward and scary moment” for all of the little girls and their mothers in the locker room. She explained that, normally, the locker room is busy and full of girls giggling and shivering as moms help their daughters get dressed and go home. But this time, everyone was very quiet and didn’t know what to do.

McDougal told National Review that the man’s face and shoulders were covered with a towel, but the rest of his body was exposed. Everyone wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible.

When McDougal approached the aquatic center staff, they told her that the man, Richard Cox, identified as transgender, so there was nothing they could do. He had the “right” to be in the women’s locker room. They dismissed her concerns and did not take down her name or contact information.

Incredibly, this was not Cox’s first time exposing himself to girls or women. In fact, he has been a registered sex offender since 1998 and has a long rap sheet. He was also on the Virginia Department of Corrections’ most-wanted list in 2020.

Two months later, in November, an Arlington area rec center called the police after Cox entered their women’s locker room and they identified him as a sex offender. Police then looked into numerous other events that had occurred earlier at Washington-Liberty, and charged him with indecent exposure. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for next month.

In the meantime, Arlington police have discovered that Cox allegedly exposed himself to women and children multiple times in another area high school and another fitness center. He is facing a preliminary hearing in March for those charges as well. Cox’s charges now include indecent exposure, loitering at school after a sex conviction, indecent liberties with a child, entering a school after a sex conviction, and being near a playground.

Yet, astoundingly, Arlington Public Schools (APS), which houses and operates Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center, is not changing its bathroom policy. Rather they say they are “strengthening the security protocols for signing into our facilities[.] [C]ommunity use, pool access requirements during non-school hours will mirror those during our standard time during the day of a 100% ID check against the sex offender database before anyone is allowed to enter any of our facilities, including the after school non-community time.”

APS says they have also posted “additional signage” to aquatic centers “that reminds all pool patrons to be considerate of others, privacy, cover intimate body areas when using shared spaces.” Superintendent Francisco Durán told APS families, “Arlington Public Schools will continue to foster an inclusive community for all, including members who identify as members of LGBTQ+ community.”

Thankfully, there is reason to hope that schools and other facilities will not be able to excuse dangerous individuals such as Cox for their behavior much longer, now that President Trump signed his “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order on February 5 which, among other things, orders the convening of “representatives of major athletic organizations and governing bodies, and female athletes harmed by such policies, to promote policies that are fair and safe, in the best interests of female athletes, and consistent with the requirements of Title IX …”

In addition, the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) has filed a civil rights complaint against APS. The director of Education Freedom at DFI, Virginia Gentles, told National Review, “Arlington Public Schools must follow Title IX requirements to keep spaces segregated by sex. I want to know that little girls in Arlington will no longer have to be subjected to naked men in the community locker rooms. That’s what I want as a parent, as an aunt, as a community member. From a DFI perspective, I want the U.S. Department of Education to make it clear that the Office of Civil Rights is going to enforce Title IX and the requirements that women and girls’ sports and spaces will be protected.”

Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, told FRC President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Wednesday, “[The incident at Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center is] based on this idea that someone can be born in the wrong body or identify as the opposite sex, which we know is just simply not true. And for people who are confused about that, that’s one thing. We’re concerned for them. We want them to get care. But this person has convictions for sex offenses, and seems to be hiding behind a transgender ideology to use that to his favor. And this is exactly the kind of thing that we’ve warned about as we’ve talked about this issue over the years.”

Kilgannon continued, “I’m very grateful that the Defense of Freedom Institute made such a thorough complaint about this to the Department of Education, and that they’re taking that up. But we shouldn’t have to rely on federal civil rights protections when there are clearly criminal charges that could be made against this person in Arlington County if the police would come. When women call and say, ‘There’s a man in the locker room who’s naked with my children,’ you would think that that would get a police call and a police response. But not in Arlington, apparently, no.”