The state of Washington has responded to a man who undressed in a women’s locker room with a pretty simple explanation.

The state’s Human rights Commission issued a release in response to an incident which saw a man undress himself in protest against a new law to allow transgender people use gender-appropriate restrooms.

Seattle Parks and Recreation department last week said they were trying to figure out how to proceed after the man used the rules to walk into the woman’s locker room and began to strip.

Witnesses said there was nothing to suggest the man was transgender or identified as female, and when approached by staff he said the law was on his side.

“The law has changed and I have a right to be here,” the man is reported to have said.

However the Commission has now made clear that the man was simply making “some kind of misguided point”.

The statement attacked the man for making “the women and girls in the restroom upset and uncomfortable”.

“His behavior is inexcusable and reprehensible. And it is absolutely not protected under the law,” read the release from the Commission’s director Sharon Ortiz.

“Men cannot go into the women’s locker room, as this man claimed he had the right to do,” the news release continued.

“Only women – including transgender women – can go into the women’s locker room.”

In response to the claims from staff at the time that they did not know how to proceed, the Commission said: “If a business has a reasonable belief that a person is in the wrong place, there is no rule that states that the person cannot be questioned and required to leave.”