On Sunday afternoon, three Seattle Police officers showed up to the queer hangout and nude beach Denny Blaine and told the naked people there that being naked outside, which is legal in Seattle, was actually illegal and that everyone had to put their clothes on.
by Vivian McCall
On Sunday afternoon, three Seattle Police officers showed up to the queer hangout and nude beach Denny Blaine and told the naked people there that being naked outside, which is legal in Seattle, was actually illegal and that everyone had to put their clothes on.
Witnesses who spoke to The Stranger at the beach say the cops stuck around talking to beachgoers for close to two hours, and told one transgender woman, who was lying naked face down on the ground, not to come back to the beach for a week.
While police were talking to beachgoers, there was also a man parked at the beach who told an advocate that he was with a private security firm that was representing “community interests.”
Advocates and beachgoers confirmed that this was not the first time in recent weeks that police have shown up at the beach investigating claims of lewd activity.
Neighbors have been going after the nude beach for over two years now. In late 2023, beachgoers learned of a plan to construct a playground at Denny Blaine, after neighbor and millionaire owner of University Village Stuart Sloan anonymously donated $1 million for its construction. The plan failed after public uproar, but last month Denny Blaine Park for All, a group of neighbors that includes Sloan, sued the city for allegedly allowing the beach to become a “regional venue” for public masturbation and public sex, a characterization that more than 50 beachgoers who’ve spoken to The Stranger in the last year and a half totally dispute. Advocates say that masturbation does happen at the park, but it’s rare, and the overwhelming consensus is that the community knows how to deal with it and that the police do not need to swoop in. The suit also goes after legal nudity, making the argument that the Parks Department is violating its Code of Conduct by depriving neighbors enjoyment of the park. Surely this is remedied by making sure nobody else enjoys it either.
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office has told The Stranger numerous times that he supported the right of people to use the park nude. It did not respond to a Sunday request for comment. The Seattle Police Department, whose public affairs office is closed on weekends, also did not respond to a Sunday request for comment or a Monday morning follow up email.
Beachgoers say police arrived around 2:40 pm.
Carlos, who didn’t want to use his full name to protect his privacy, says he was lying naked on the grassy upper level of the park when an SPD officer approached him and said he needed to cover up.
Carlos, who has been coming to the beach for seven years without issue, told the officer this was not true. He’s right.
Nudity has been legal in Seattle since the 1990 case Seattle v. Johnson found a later repealed local law against lewd conduct violated the right to free expression. Washington State has a law against indecent exposure, but SPD guidance posted by former chief Gil Kerlikowske in 2008 says that officers shouldn’t take action unless there’s “lewd or offensive behavior.” Carlos says he was only sunbathing, as was the transgender woman who was trespassed, witnesses say.
Carlos says the officer told him she didn’t see the difference between nude sunbathing and indecent exposure. Soon, she was joined by a sergeant and another officer.
Carlos texted a telegram group for beachgoers run by Friends of Denny Blaine, the park’s queer-led stewardship group, to sound the alarm about cops telling people to put their clothes on.
Colleen Kimseylove, co-founder of the friends group and a key activist who organized against the playground plan, says they rushed over and spoke to all three officers.
The responding officer told Kimseylove repeatedly that nudity was not legal in Seattle, “period, end of story.” The sergeant told them that nudity at Denny Blaine was a low enforcement priority and that he thought there had to be a “reasonable solution,” but that “they had been directed by our higher-ups to engage in regular patrols of the park.”
“It’s very ominous to speak to representatives of the law in Seattle who don’t know the law of Seattle and are willing to act on the beck and call of millionaires,” Kimseylove says. “It’s not a good feeling.”
The officers told Kimseylove that people would be trespassed if they didn’t put their clothes on immediately, or arrested if they proved belligerent. Kimseylove then asked the twenty or so people there to put their clothes on. Only one person, a trans woman, refused.
John, a man who sat on a wall at the park with his bike, says the woman shouted that people “did not have to comply,” and several witnesses say she was threatened with arrest. Police told her not to come back to Denny Blaine Park for a week, witnesses say. The Stranger was unable to reach the woman.
Several beachgoers say a blonde man parked in a grey Chevy Tahoe, allegedly spoke to one of the officers when she arrived, and they suspected that he made the call.
The man would only smile sheepishly at The Stranger, but he would speak to Kimseylove—who says the man did not give his name or the name of his employer but says was hired as private security by “interests in the neighborhood.”
This weekend’s events are the most recent in a new wave of neighborhood actions against the beach. In addition to the lawsuit against the city, it seems the Seattle Police have been keeping a special eye on Denny Blaine recently. This isn’t even the first time they’ve told people to put their clothes on.
On April 2, Blake Waddell was “Pooh bearing it” (shirt, no pants) at Denny Blaine when an SPD crisis officer approached him and asked about reports of “indecent exposure” at the beach. It was a cold, not so “glorious day” at the beach, Waddell says. Not many people were there. None of them were masturbating.
Slipping on his boxer shorts, Waddell explained to the officer the local nudity law and the history of the beach. The officer, who admitted he didn’t know much of that history, stood thumbs in his armpits, and told Waddell that if a parent with a child had been “affronted or surprised” by nudity there, it could count as indecent exposure. The officer also told Waddell that the enforcement priority at Denny Blaine was coming from a “higher level,” echoing what officers told Kimseylove on Sunday. In a recent email, SPD said it did not know the nature of Waddell’s conversation with the officer.
Two days later, on April 4, Waddell took video of a police boat cruising slowly by the beach. About thirty minutes later, he says two squad cars rolled up. Waddell again slipped on his boxers to meet them in the parking lot, a little angrier this time. He says three officers stepped out and gave him the “same spiel” about stepped up patrols over reports of public urination and masturbation. Again, Waddell saw nobody urinating or masturbating at the beach. Video shows a mostly empty beach.
Waddell, who was at the beach Sunday, says he filed an official on-the-spot complaint with the police sergeant.
Another beachgoer and volunteer with Friends of Denny Blaine told The Stranger that he’d been removing invasive blackberries from the shore on March 26 when two Seattle Parks Department Park Rangers told a naked man to either put his clothes on or move to a lower level of the park away from the street. The volunteer talked with the rangers for about 30 minutes, and like Waddell, explained to them both the law and the park’s long history of nude sunbathing.
The volunteer emphasized that the rangers, polite and receptive, listened intently. He believed it could have been a mistake. The Parks department told The Stranger that it was a mistake and that the police would take reports of lewd behavior from then on.
Beachgoer Nicole Baich says she has also seen police patrol boats cruise slowly by in recent weeks. She called the police presence Sunday “gross.”
“I didn’t expect to pull up to the beach at 3 pm on a lovely, cloudless Sunday afternoon and have it be devoid of my friends and culture because of the cop cars that are down here,” she says. “They’re menacing.”
John, the man with the bike, didn’t know what to think. His friend Bill sitting on the wall next to him did. He cut in.
Bill says he’s come to Denny Blaine for more than ten years. The only people unhappy with the beach were the neighbors. He turned his head to Sloan’s house and said they were here before it was even built. Bill remembers the old brick mansion that used to be there being rolled onto a barge on its way to Bainbridge Island.
But even then people complained. They’ve always complained and the cops have answered those complaints by telling them to put their clothes on. They’d comply, only to take them back off when they left. (Back in 1988, The Seattle Times ran a story about police cracking down on topless sunbathing. Even earlier in 1982, The Seattle Gay News ran a similar story of police citing a woman. Nudity wasn’t legal yet, but the women argued the law was sexist. Nobody was cracking down on topless men).
“You know, there are people who are wealthy who are naked-friendly, and this would be an ideal house for one of those people to buy,” he says. “They paid premium money for it. Then they could invite us over to their hot tub.”
Gun violence continues to impact communities nationwide, with Seattle being no exception. Recently, community members, leaders, and youth convened at the Northwest African American Museum for an event titled Voices for Change: A Future Without Gun Violence. Organized by Seattle Cares Mentoring Movement and the 4C Coalition, the event focused on fostering open dialogue and developing community-driven solutions to tackle the issue.
Don Cameron, Executive Director of Seattle Cares, meets with Christopher B. Bennett for this episode of the Seattle Medium’s Rhythm & News Podcast.
Hi friends! We’re on week three of my 12-week practice in writing one bite-sized topic per week — scoping it down, writing straight through, trying real hard to avoid over-writing or editing down to a pulp.
Three points in a row makes a line, and three posts in a row called “On [Something or Other]” is officially a pattern.
It was an accidental repeat last week (move fast and break things! ), but I think I like it, so I’m sticking with it.
Next on the docket: pronouns and mandates
This week I would like to talk about pronouns (as in “my name is Charity, my pronouns are she/her or they/them”) and pronoun mandates, in the context of work.
Here’s where I stand, in brief:
Making it safe to disclose the pronouns you use: GOOD
Normalizing the practice of sharing your pronouns: GOOD
Mandating that everyone share their pronouns: BAD
This includes soft mandates, like when a manager or HR asks everyone at work to share their pronouns when introducing themselves, or making pronouns a required field in email signatures or display names.
I absolutely understand that people who do this are acting in good faith, trying to be good allies. But I do not like it. And I think it can massively backfire!
Here are my reasons.
I resent being forced to pick a side in public
I have my own gender issues, y’all. Am I supposed to claim “she/her” or “they/them”? Ugh, I don’t know. I’ve never felt any affinity with feminine pronouns or identity, but I don’t care enough to correct anyone or assert a preference for they/them. Ultimately, the strongest feeling I have about my gender is apathy/discomfort/irritation. Maybe that will change someday, maybe it won’t, but I resent being forced to pick a side and make some kind of public declaration when I’m just trying to do my goddamn job. My gender doesn’t need to be anyone else’s business.
I totally acknowledge that it is valuable for cis people to help normalize the practice by sharing their pronouns. (It never fails to warm the cockles of my cold black heart when I see a graying straight white dude lead with “My pronouns are he/him” in his bio. Charmed! )
If I worked at a company where this was not commonly done, I would suck it up and take one for the team. But I don’t feel the need, because it is normalized here. We have loads of other queer folks, my cofounder shares her pronouns. I don’t feel like I’m hurting anyone by not doing it myself.
Priming people with gender cues can be…unwise
One of the engineering managers I work with, Hannah Henderson, once told me that she has always disliked pronoun mandates for a different reason. Research shows that priming someone to think of you as a woman first and foremost generally leads them to think of you as being less technical, less authoritative, even less competent.
Great, just what we need.
What about people who don’t know, or aren’t yet out?
Some people may be in a transitional phase, or may be in the process of coming out as trans or genderqueer or nonbinary, or maybe they don’t know yet. Gender is a deeply personal question, and it’s inappropriate to force people to take a stand or pick a side in public or at work.
If **I** feel this way about pronoun mandates (and keep in mind that I am queer, have lived in San Francisco for 20 years, and am married to a genderqueer trans person), I can’t imagine how offputting and irritating these mandates must be to someone who holds different values, or comes from a different cultural background.
You can’t force someone to be a good ally
As if that wasn’t enough, pronoun mandates also have a flattening effect, eliminating useful signal about who is willing to stand up and identify themselves as someone who is a queer ally, and/or is relatively informed about gender issues.
As a friend commented, when reviewing a draft of this post: “Mandating it means we can’t look around the room and determine who might be friendly or safe, while also escalating resentment that bigots hold towards us.”
A couple months back I wrote a long (LONG) essay detailing my mixed feelings about corporate DEI initiatives. One of the points I was trying to land is how much easier it is to make and enforce rules, if you’re in a position with the power to do so, than to win hearts and minds. Rules always have edge cases and unintended consequences, and the backlash effect is real. People don’t like being told what to do.
Pronoun mandates were at the top of my mind when I wrote that, and I’ve been meaning to follow up and unpack this ever since.
Til next week, when we’ll talk “On something or some other thing”,
~charity
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), but I think I like it, so I’m sticking with it.
GOOD
And I think it can massively backfire!
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