Free Republic

YMCA Chief Fired for Transgender Ball Flap Dec 24, 10:00 AM (ET) CHICAGO (AP) - A YMCA director has been fired and overnight facility rentals banned after the parents of young children arriving for a morning swim meet clashed with participants in an overnight transgender fashion show and ball. Greg Weider, who had been acting director of the New City YMCA for two years, was fired Wednesday. Programming manager Michael Horton, who oversaw scheduling at the center, resigned two days earlier. "We've taken very swift, decisive action, and we will do everything we can in order to restore the...

In an incident the YMCA is calling "a very regrettable scheduling error," kids arriving for an early-morning swim meet Sunday walked into a gender-bending scene of the kind most of them wouldn't be allowed to watch on TV. Several of the kids' angry parents clashed with participants in a transgender fashion show, which had been under way at the New City YMCA since about midnight, resulting in a chaotic melee that was eventually broken up by private security guards and East Chicago District police. A YMCA member had reserved the entire facility, at 1515 N. Halsted, from 11 p.m. Saturday...