Dear Jeremy,
I saw your video yesterday (sorry I can't find the link again) about shopping in the 70s with your mother and seeing a David Bowie album cover that blew your mind and informed your ideas around transgenderism.
I also had an experience in the 70s that informed my ideas.
I was 6, my Mum took my baby sister, my middle sister age 3 and me to the children’s play area in the big park in town.
We needed to use the toilet so my Mum put my youngest sister in the pram, my middle sister hopped on the footplate and I followed along to the toilet nearby.
We went into the toilets, 5 basins on the left, 5 cubicles on the right, one door in and out. 3 of the cubicles were closed, my Mum chose a cubicle at the far end, opened the door and put the pram in the entrance of that cubicle leaving the door open and turned to help my sister.
I went to a toilet and came out and washed my hands. I could hear some really strange noises, like grunting, panting and rustling, coming from one of the closed cubicles, I’d never heard a noise like that before and I was wary and scared of what it was - I remember thinking that perhaps a strange wild animal was in the toilets with us?
I soon found out as the cubicle door behind me slammed open violently making us all jump and a huge man in garishly coloured high heels, fishnet stockings, a plastic mini skirt pulled up with something wet, dripping, dangling beneath it, an open shirt, a bra and a hairy chest with many necklaces and a funny lopsided wig, he grinned a big smile at me and winked, he stepped towards me and my Mum flew out of her cubicle and rushed up to me, spat on her hanky and grabbed my chin, pulling my face unusually roughly so that I was looking at her and not at the man, she proceeded to clean my face which was weird as I’d only washed it an hour before and she was acting really strange - I stared at her in confusion trying to work it all out, the man left and she said to me “stay away from men like that”.
It was only later, years later that I realised why my Mum was acting so weird that day and why I didn’t recognise her reaction - it was fear, she was absolutely terrified - I’d never seen my Mum frightened before so I didn’t know what it was.
As an adult I could see that she was trapped in a small space with 3 young girls with no way out and no way of fighting this man off and no idea if anyone would come into the toilets and rescue us. Trapped with a man who had already broken social rules. Trapped with a man who was intent on pleasuring himself. Trapped with a huge man grinning at her daughter.
I’m sorry this is long, it’s stayed with me and haunted me for nearly 50 years.
So that, Jeremy Vine, is why I don’t want men in women’s spaces.