An Illinois YMCA was protested by 300 individuals, including state Republican lawmakers, after a 16-year-old girl reportedly lied about seeing a naked transgender woman in the YMCA’s locker room.

The July 13 anti-trans rally took place in Rotary Park, across the street from the Kerasotes branch of the Springfield YMCA. It was co-organized by six members of the state’s far-right Republican House Freedom Caucus speakers and featured 16-year-old swimmer Abbigail Wheeler — all of whom want the YMCA to ban trans women from women’s lockerrooms even though that would violate the Illinois Human Rights Act.

...During her July 11 and 12 interviews on Fox News, Wheeler said she saw the trans woman naked. But at the rally, she called this a “miscommunication,” saying, “To be clear, I did not see the [person] naked, and no [human] genitalia was exposed.”

During her Fox News interviews, she also said she was kicked off of the swim team after posting signs at the YMCA that said “Women’s Rights,” “Biological Women Only,” and “SafeSport.” However, a May 29 email from Wheeler’s mother to her daughter’s coach clearly says, “We have decided to remove Abbigail from the SPY swim team.”