A rush to judgement

BY C ORY VAILLANCOURT P OLITICS E DITOR

Social media posts alleging multiple instances of improper activity by a transgender person at the Waynesville Recreation Center last week prompted outrage, violent threats and dehumanizing rhetoric from a number of people — including political candidates — who accepted the unsourced post as unimpeachable fact, but after an investigation including video evidence, it was clear that all they did was enjoy the pool and the sauna.

The Ninth Commandment

Jess Scott, of Clyde, is a service tech at Dodson Pest Control and also serves Fines Creek Memorial Baptist Church as a youth leader, song leader and teen Sunday school teacher, according to his Facebook profile.

A Facebook post made by Scott on the evening of July 12 says that his teenage daughter and young niece went to the Waynesville Recreation Center that day, with their grandmother, to swim.

“Afterwards my daughter tells us that after swimming, while they were in the women’s locker room changing, a FULL GROWN MAN walked in and started changing into a bikini,” he wrote.

Scott said he was “upset and angry that this was allowed to happen” and that his daughter “was very upset and uncomfortable and said other women and girls were also creeped out and left.”

He concludes the post by saying he won’t return to the

Waynesville Recreation Center and also urges others to “stay far away.”

Scott’s wife, Stephanie, commented on the post, saying she “whole heartily [sic]” agrees and that they’ll not be back.

As the post spread across social media, reactions initially ranged from disbelief to dismay but soon evolved into graphic threats.

“To bad the dad’s weren’t there to put him in the e.r.,” said Michael Monteagudo, commenting from his “Mike’s Property Detailing” Facebook account.

“Need to go back and bust his head it’s time for good men to do some bad things and try to right this country,” said Chad Lanning, owner of Chad A. Lanning construction.

“They can identify as a woman I’ll identifies as the tooth fairy and I want teeth,” said Sam Wood, an Asheville resident who works at Arby’s.

Others wasted no time in politicizing the matter in advance of Waynesville’s November municipal election, implying that Waynesville’s elected officials tolerated such behavior.

Pam Arrington, a frequent commenter on The Smoky Mountain News Facebook page, said that “this is what our current leaders accept.”

Sharon Walls, who’s spread false information about crime and drugs at government meetings in the past, encouraged people to attend the town’s next board meeting and called for the support of “a few people that are running for office” in the November municipal election.

One of those people is Stephanie Sutton, owner of Mountaineer Oxygen Services. Sutton filed to run for

Waynesville Town Council on July 18 and just one day later spoke out about the supposed incident with a Facebook post of her own — sort of.

“To say this event is disturbing would be a gross understatement,” Sutton’s post read before she deleted it. “A grown man entering the women’s dressing room at the Waynesville Rec and changing into a bikini with women and young girls present. Can we just think for a minute of how traumatic that was for every female exposed or witness?”

In prefacing her post, Sutton credited her friend Melanie Williams for the words. Williams is a well-known local conspiracy theorist who has promoted debunked anti-vax propaganda since even before the Coronavirus Pandemic began.

Joey Reece, a retired DEA agent running for Waynesville mayor, said on Facebook that he visited the Waynesville Recreation Center and observed a trans person, whom he referred to as “it” multiple times.

Even the misinformation-laden Haywood Happenings website, where users don’t have to identify themselves when they post, got in on the act in July 18 by saying that the Waynesville Recreation Center was “allowing Trans Men to disrobe in front of children in the Women’s Locker Room.”

The person who made the Haywood Happenings post calls the situation “appalling and sick,” and asks county commissioners “to put an end to indecency in front of our children” by passing some sort of ordinance.

Haywood Happenings’ half-baked hyperbole completely misses the mark.

In the aftermath of North Carolina’s HB 2 debacle, the Republican-dominated General