When officer Meghan Grabow told the Norfolk Police Department leadership about a man staring at her in the women’s locker room, they allegedly dismissed her concerns—because the recruit identified as transgender. Now, Grabow and a colleague who spoke up for her allege they have been targeted by the department and face termination.
“They hired this man who identifies as a woman and then deliberately and methodically tried to keep it a secret,” officer Martin Powers, who joined Grabow to speak out in defense of female-only private spaces in the department, told IW Features.
Powers said he first heard about the transgender-identifying recruit in 2024 when Norfolk Police Academy staff found social media posts of the recruit wearing makeup and a wig. But when training staff questioned the situation, they were told to treat the recruit as a female, according to Powers.
At first, Powers said nothing seemed awry with the recruit class.
“[I thought] maybe everybody was just grossly mistaken,” Powers said, citing that he only saw one female in the group as expected and no transgender individuals.
But when Grabow went to the women’s locker room to change clothing partway through her shift, the transgender-identified recruit walked in.
“I’m completely stripped down to my underwear, and… [in comes] a man,” Grabow told IW Features. “Here comes this man in a suit and tie… And [he] just stared at me.”
Initially, Grabow said she thought he had accidentally entered the wrong locker room. Then, she realized something was wrong.
“What are you doing in here?” she recalled asking.
But the male recruit did not respond and simply went to a locker, according to Grabow.
Grabow dressed, left the locker room, and on her way to her car, she saw her captain and the captain of the training academy. She reported to them what had happened.
At first, she said her captain suggested she was mistaken. Then, Grabow said he asked her, “What were you doing in the locker room in your underwear?”
“Am I going crazy?” Grabow recalled thinking. “This is not happening, right? This is so surreal.”
“That man looked at me like a dude would, not a woman,” Grabow told the captains.
In response, she said she had been asked whether she was intimidated by this individual. Grabow told IW Features that, though she is only 5-foot-3, she has a reputation for being tough and “rough around the edges.” Because of this, she said she felt as though her feeling of being unsafe was diminished because of her personality and reputation.
Grabow added that she was also told that if she felt so unsafe, she should take her gun into the shower with her.
Making the situation even more confusing was the man’s appearance. According to Grabow, he didn’t dress like a woman or even pretend to be a woman, despite the department’s insistence that he identified as transgender.
“[Department leadership] kept it a secret until… it happened to one of us,” she said. “They knew exactly who I was talking about and why they were in my locker room.”
When Grabow returned to patrol with Powers, she told him about the disturbing experience. And as word spread through the department, a female detective invited them to a meeting she had requested with Norfolk Police Chief Mark Talbot.
Before the meeting, Grabow said she heard from several other officers who were supportive. But they were “reminded that they have families, and they have a mortgage to pay for, or they were next on a promotion,” she said.
Despite the pressure they all faced, Powers estimates that 16 officers—split evenly male and female—showed up to meet with Chief Talbot, who was joined by Assistant Chief Michele Naughton and a lieutenant.
The meeting began with a female detective recounting the locker room incident on Grabow’s behalf, but she didn’t get far into the story before Talbot interrupted her, according to Powers.
“The chief held up his hand in a stop gesture,” Powers said. “He said, ‘The proper pronoun is woman.’ And [the detective] didn’t know what to do.”
The detective tried to continue recounting the story without any gendered language, Powers said. Again, Talbot interrupted the detective and, according to Powers, told her, “The proper term is woman.”
The detective was visibly upset, according to Powers, and began to cry as she finished the story using female-gendered language. In the new version of the story, “Meghan [Grabow] looked up and saw a woman standing there,” Powers said.
“If you change the narrative of that one detail, it changes the entire story,” Grabow noted.
As the meeting continued and the topic progressed nowhere, Powers decided to speak up.
“All you’re doing is dictating our speech,” he recalled telling Talbot. “Will you define the word ‘woman’?”
The chief allegedly ordered him to “get out,” but Powers declined. Several people in the room began speaking at once, according to Powers, and they told him that he should not risk his job.
Powers said he asked the female detective who had initially called the meeting whether she wanted him to leave or stay, and at her suggestion, he left the meeting. Grabow followed him out.
The meeting continued, but according to Powers and Grabow’s accounts, no meaningful change emerged from it.
“We [were] now just going to the nearest 7-Eleven to use the bathroom on shift,” Grabow said. “We don’t have anywhere to shower… We all just kind of gave up that anything was going to be done.”
At one point, a female detective even discovered that the transgender-identified recruit had been deliberately using her shower towel, Powers said.
Meanwhile, the sole female recruit was forced to change multiple times per day in front of the transgender-identified male recruit, according to Powers. She reportedly opened up two locker doors to claim a small amount of privacy each time she needed to change.
Unfortunately, the meeting with department leadership was not without its consequences. Powers alleged he was swiftly targeted for not obeying a direct order to leave the meeting immediately.
“My gun was taken at the end of my shift [that day],” said Powers. He was put on desk duty, and by the next Monday, news of the events had spread.
“At the end of that shift on Monday, the captain walked in, and he said, ‘From now on, you just go home and sit at home because you’re making the chief look bad,’” Powers said.
As of January 20, 2026, Powers has been officially suspended from the precinct for not leaving the meeting when Talbot ordered him to “get out,” and he has since been officially terminated. As a result, he has been unable to get a job with another police department, and he worries that the Norfolk Police Department may attempt to decertify him as a law enforcement officer altogether.
Grabow was also suspended and told IW Features that the department went through her file to use an incident from months ago where she was pulled over for a “California roll” at a stop sign that was previously a yield sign. Grabow said that looking for a reason to suspend her, the department “threw every rule, every policy they could” at her.
Grabow is appealing the department’s actions, and Powers is also exploring his legal options.
The transgender-identified recruit did not ultimately graduate his recruit class, withdrawing himself under the rationale of being unable to emotionally handle the job, according to Grabow. However, because of the ordeal, she believes that the female recruit forced to share a locker room with him also left.
Ultimately, the Norfolk Police Department has created a work environment that is hostile to women, she said.
“It has scared women to death,” she shared. “They are terrified to even make a complaint about anything because they know what’s going to happen. The fear of reprisal is so serious.”
Powers told IW Features that Chief Talbot has denied curtailing anyone’s right to free speech and reportedly told officers that their “speech” is only free as long as it remains unspoken or unexpressed.
“The immediate danger is perverted men being allowed into females’ intimate spaces,” Powers said. “The long-term societal danger… is that mindset right there, that ‘speech is only free if it’s in your head.’”
Beyond free speech concerns, Powers said the department’s rejection of biological reality could put citizens at risk. Typically, male officers are required to call a female officer to search female suspects, he said, but under the department’s pro-transgender stance, a female suspect could be subjected to an invasive search by a transgender-identifying male.
When concerned officers brought this up during conversations with leadership, Talbot said, “You are to tell your female suspect, that is a woman, turn around, you are going to be searched,” Powers told IW Features.
IW Features reached out to the Norfolk Police Department for comment but did not receive a response in advance of publication.
For officers like Powers and Grabow, the department’s stance goes against everything they stand for as law enforcement officers. They’re simply fighting for their fellow officers’ and community members’ safety, and yet somehow that’s turned into an uphill battle.
“In the police world, we’re only supposed to deal in truth and in fact—that’s it,” Powers said. “If we start denying objective reality, then we tarnish the profession, and the profession then starts to lose all credibility.”
