My daughter had her tonsils out a few years ago (during lock down). She was 21 then. And her biggest worry was that she would be sexually abused on the way down to the operating theatre, or afterwards in recovery.
Isn't that awful? She had previous ops for different things and I always got to accompany her because of this fear. But during lock down she was on her own.
Anyway, we adopted her at nearly 2. She was removed from her birth family at 6 months and there is no evidence of sexual abuse.
But the therapist we saw when she was 5 tld me that her hypervigilance and anxiety were off the scale (though she tried very hard to hide them). Therapist said that those who have experienced early trauma see possibilities for danger everywhere. There was a fireplace in the room. Therapist said that if she asked a child, in that room, what his/her parents might do to them if they were really angry with him/her, a child from a non trauma background would say sth like "ground me" but the kids from a trauma background would say "put me up the chimney" even though none of them had ever been put up a chimney. But they could see the possibility.
And imo this is one of the big reasons we have such a lack of understanding among the elite who run our organisations and the rest of us. We might not be at the "put me up the chimney" level - though some are, and they matter - but we have enough instinct to see the possibilities eg when we see or envision a man in the ladies. And these women in senior positions don't seem to share this. Has it been driven down, out of their consciousness, or did they have amazingly secure childhoods which allowed them to soar?
My daughter can't have men walking in. She would panic, flee (her trauma response). TRAs have told her it's my job to teach her not to panic but it's impossible. Her amygdala is triggered in a nano second, before any thought processes kick in.
All women deserve same sex spaces. Most of us will be triggered by seeing a man in a women's space, but for women with a trauma history, it is especially important, otherwise they won't be able to go out. Same sex spaces are part of the scaffolding my daughter needs to navigate the world safely.