Police are seeking witnesses to a disturbance at the Cowichan Aquatic Centre in North Cowichan on Saturday evening that sparked calls for a protest surrounding safety and privacy of single-sex spaces.
North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP responded to “a reported disturbance/fight” at the centre on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. A 33-second video showing a portion of the incident — which appears to have been first published on Facebook on Sunday — alleges that a man had entered the women’s changing room.
“I could identify as a lady with a beard. There’s nothing you could do about that,” the person could be heard saying shortly before the camera was obscured by someone else.
The video showed the beginnings of a physical altercation before it abruptly cut off.
The partner of the man in the video told CHEK News that the incident happened because her kids went into the wrong change room.
Jupitor Butler, who lives on Salt Spring Island, was visiting the aquatic centre with her partner, Natus, and a neighbour. Butler said she planned to go into the family change room, but her kids followed her neighbour into the women’s change room.
“So I was like, OK, they’re all running in there, and they already started changing into their bathing suits and stuff, but Natus, my partner, he hadn’t come in yet. He was still outside, and I have his swim shorts,” Butler told CHEK News.
“And I also needed his help, because he’s the dad of our family, and so that’s what ended up happening is that he came into the woman’s this one time, he’s never come into the woman’s change room with us ever before.”
Butler said Natus changed in a bathroom stall both when the family was entering the pool and after they got out. The person who posted a video of an altercation claims her partner was naked in front of children, but Butler is adamant that did not happen.
The altercation caught on camera happened when two women asked Butler why Natus had been in the change room, she said.
Sgt. Kris Clark of B.C. RCMP confirmed to the Times Colonist that the video, which is being widely shared on social media, is the same incident that’s under investigation by police.
All parties involved have been located and officers are working to gather and review all available evidence, he said in a statement.
Witnesses to the incident are encouraged to call North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP detachment at 250-748-5522 to speak with investigators.
The incident sparked a call for a protest Tuesday afternoon in front of the aquatics centre from a group calling themselves Concerned Canadian Citizens Against Drug Abuse (Duncan/Cowichan).
The call has been amplified by a local federal Conservative candidate applicant as well as gender-ideology activists on social media.
Note to readers: This story was updated to include more information on the incident.
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