The fight for Denny Blaine isn’t over
Friends of Denny Blaine push back against efforts to police the park
Seattle’s Denny Blaine Park has for generations been a rare urban sanctuary—a clothing-optional beach with deep ties to the city’s LGBTQ+ community. But in recent years, the park has been at the center of an ongoing battle over who gets to define its culture.
In 2023, wealthy neighbors led by real estate developer Stuart Sloan pushed for a children’s playground at Denny Blaine, a plan that many saw as an attempt to force out nudity. That effort failed after widespread public backlash, with records later revealing that Sloan had personally lobbied Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, sending him censored images of nude beachgoers while calling their presence “disgusting.”
Now, some of the same neighbors are calling for a park ranger to be stationed at the beach, citing concerns over public misconduct. City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents the district encompassing Denny Blaine, has acknowledged these complaints, estimating that 10% of visitors engage in misconduct—though she later admitted this was merely a guess and could be as low as 0.5%.
For Friends of Denny Blaine (FODB), the queer-led stewardship group formed to protect the park, this push for enforcement isn’t about public safety—it’s about making nudity feel unsafe.
“These aren’t the actual issues Sloan and Hollingsworth have,” says Sophie Amity Debs, a Seattle activist and co-organizer of FODB. “Their issue is with the nudity.”
Debs, who co-leads FODB, is a dedicated community advocate with a long history of volunteer work in Seattle. She spends her Tuesdays welcoming and assisting unhoused vendors at Real Change, a nonprofit supporting low-income communities, and is passionate about ensuring that public spaces remain accessible and inclusive. As a frequent visitor to Denny Blaine herself, she has taken an active role in organizing intervention training programs to address occasional misconduct at the park without police or surveillance. She argues that a park ranger would do little to stop real issues while chilling the open, self-regulated culture that has defined Denny Blaine for decades.
Planet Nude recently reached out to Sophie Amity Debs with a few questions to better understand the perspective of FODB with regards to the proposed park ranger. Below is Debs’ response in full. 🚀
Interview with Sophie Amity Debs
What do you think is really driving the push for a park ranger, and how could it affect the park?
As we’ve seen with the playground proposal, the efforts are mainly focused at de-nudifying the beach entirely. You can see texts between the playground beneficiary and our mayor directly that surfaced as much: Stuart Sloan (the beneficiary) was taking issue with merely the presence of nude folks at the beach, behaving otherwise unobjectionably, and taking his frustration with that directly to the mayor as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved.’
Neighbors have raised concerns about inappropriate behavior. How do you think these issues should be handled without over-policing or unfairly targeting the community?
We want the community to advocate for ourselves when inappropriate behavior is occurring. When you see someone at the beach filming others, or making inappropriate comments about others’ bodies, people should feel ready to step up and step in, rather than being a bystander. Unfortunately, these aren’t the actual issues that Sloan and Councilmember Hollingsworth (who was sympathetic to Sloan’s take, but I’m not sure has ever actually been to the beach) have—their issue is with the nudity. A park ranger wouldn’t catch these nuances or act on these. A park ranger would be stationed to try and make sure that people are uncomfortable in their skin nude anywhere in the ranger’s (and thus Sloan’s) field of view.
Seattle Parks says a park ranger would help de-escalate situations. Do you think that would help or cause more issues for park-goers?
I think a uniformed park ranger being stationed there is a terrible idea. One of the main issues people have at the beach is the fear of being surveilled—and having to walk past a man in a uniform whose express job is to watch everyone at the beach would have a chilling effect on the beach culture, and the people advocating for this know that, which is why they’re advocating for it. That City Council members are even considering this blatant effort to use city payroll to crack down on people using a park the way it is safely, legally, and comfortably used is ludicrous.
Friends of Denny Blaine is organizing intervention trainings. How do they work, and why is a community-led approach better than city enforcement?
We want the community to feel empowered to step in when they see inappropriate behavior. This is a space where people have always policed themselves—nudists have a keen sense of what is and isn’t appropriate, and they already intervene when needed. Having a ranger stationed there doesn’t solve anything. It just makes people who are already following the law feel like they’re being watched.
If a park ranger is assigned to Denny Blaine, what would you want to see happen to protect the park’s culture?
A park ranger will not be stationed at Denny Blaine, in the same way that a playground was never realistically going to be stationed at Denny Blaine. If the City Council wants to try once again to dictate our public lands usage based on the whims of this one billionaire—without even coming to the beach or listening to the huge community that loves it—they surely know that they will be hearing from that community directly and loudly, and it will get about as far as it did last time. 🪐
How to support Friends of Denny Blaine
Friends of Denny Blaine is actively working to preserve and improve the park while advocating for its community. To learn more or contribute, visit friendsofdennyblaine.org.
As a former legislator and local elected government official I would recommend a couple of things for FODB to attempt to do. First do not take pictures, because it could potentially violate someone's right to privacy. But there would and should not be any thing against members of the Friends group to do their own observations. Pick different times and places within the park to observe behavior. If in appropriate behavior is exhibited, note the time, place in the park and type of activity that was observed. What this does it to give you actual data to show the incidences that have been observed. A part if this would also be to observe the number of people in the park at the time of the obsevation. This way you actually see what type of behavior is happening and the actual numbers of incidences versus the number of people using the park at the time of the observation. I would also suggest doing observations at different times of day and evening, different days of the week (weekday vs. weekend). When observing, do not be obivious. In other words try to be somewhat undercover. It will help if you can recruit local users of the park to help. This type of approach can carry much more weight than guessing at what the incidence rate is in relation to the number of users. I would also suggest starting now and then continuing into the summer months as it gives data relative to time of year. I hope this is helpful. I know it is a lot of work, but you may find it is worth it.
Will this work on local government officials. For the ones whose attitude is "don't confuse me any facts, I have already made up my mind" NO But for local officials wanting to have actual facts it could be helpful.
I hope you find this helpful.
Jerry
Evan, thanks for giving this the attention it needs.
That said, I think everyone needs to be honest about the types of behaviors any reasonable beach goer (nude or clothed) and neighboring resident is concerned about. Yes, unwelcome filming is an invasion of privacy and should not be tolerated when witnessed. Yes, inappropriate comments about another’s body are rude, cruel hearted and have to be addressed by the norms among those who visit the beach. However, I’m talking about sexual activity in public.
Has anyone brought this up as the behaviors that are concerning? A tried and true nudist has better sense than to do this. Unfortunately, as havens like Denny Blane Beach become popular, people who have other agenda like getting a sexual thrill will show up. Further making this a problem is that this behavior is sensationalized and sought out on various social media platforms and porn sites.
So my question to Sophie Amity Debs and other FODB members is what have you seen or hear of regarding this type of behavior and how do you propose addressing it? Please don’t tell me it doesn’t happen. It does and unfortunately nudists get lumped into the tiny cohort of people who go to nudists locations to do this type of thing.
Incredibly successful and popular Gunnison Beach in NJ has lifeguards watching for swimmers in distress and they also walk along the beach periodically. I’ve never spoken with a fellow nudist who has a problem with this and have never witnessed any intimidation or harassment on the part of the lifeguards. Why would an identifiable person responsible for public safety be problematic as long as there is mutual respect - which there is at Gunnison.
Self policing will not work on people determined to check the box on a sexual experience in a public space. Please consider this before letting philosophy purity get in the way of a sustainable nude friendly Denny Blaine Beach.
Thanks,
Kevin