mcdonalds bathrooms & verbal abuse

At my local McDonalds I was leaving the women's toilet as a girl was going in on her own. She was maybe 9 or 10, old enough to go to the toilet unaccompanied. As I was leaving a young man in a short skirt, heels and make up was approaching the women's toilet. The men's toilet was the opposite end of the corridor so I indicated that he was going in the wrong direction. He called me a bigoted bitch but did turn around to use the men's. I didn't want the little girl to come out and wash her hands only to find a 6 foot man next to her doing the same. For me, that was reason enough to say something.

#unitedkingdom #mcdonalds #bathrooms #verbalabuse #toilets

sexual harassment in bathroom

Although it was many years now, I was just a young girl, 16 or 17 I think. I went into a bathroom at a function I had been attending with my brother. It was late at night and there was what I thought was a female at the mirror. I didn't really look, just walked into the toilet stall and came out when finished.

While I was washing my hands, ‘she’ (clearly a man who was transitioning) approached me. He was probably in his 40's I think. He was extremely tall, much bigger than me and i was terrified. He stroked my hair and told me I had the most beautiful hair he had ever seen and continued to run his hand down my hair and down my back. I was utterly terrified because I knew it was a man and I was all alone and the toilets were at the back of the building. Iniitally I froze as I was so scared but then managed to run out as fast as I could, but I've never forgotten it. I should have felt safe, I shouldn't have been put in a position where I had to deal with that. I shouldn't have been put in a position where I didn't feel safe.

#australia #bathrooms #sexualharassment #unwantedadvances #fear #safety #toilets

women-only hospital ward

I had an emergency surgery to remove a tumour from my neck - the surgery that was supposed to last 3 hours extended to 9 hours due to complications and I woke up severely effected by the anaesthetic and feeling very vulnerable. I was in hospital for 2 weeks and couldn't walk for the first 5 days after surgery.

On the women-only ward there were several male nurses - some straight some gay. I felt deeply vulnerable and disturbed as a young women to be looked after by males. One man in particular was so rough in his "caring duties" that my mum, a nurse in another hospital, made a formal complaint and the man was sacked - apparently there was a history of complaints about this person. As a survivor of sexual assault, I felt frightened to be around men in my vulnerable state. It left me feeling constantly in a state of hyper alert and panic.

I didn't come into contact with any men who called themselves women - but this one experience tells me that under no circumstances should women only spaces, like hospital wards, ever be mixed.

#unitedkingdom #hospitalward #womenonlyward #malenurses