Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Lesbian mistaken for trans woman in woman's bathroom in Arizona

1000 replies

Christinapple · 05/03/2025 10:53

https://www.advocate.com/news/lesbian-mistaken-transgender-arizona-walmart

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/masculine-looking-cis-woman-confronted-by-cops-in-walmart-restroom-kalaya-morton-demands-justice-video/ar-AA1AdWpn

But I thought people "can always tell"?

It also led to the irony the only males in the bathroom were two male police officers who were notified by a store employee who mistakenly thought a male had entered the woman's toilets.

"In an alarming incident at a Tucson, Arizona Walmart, 19-year-old Kalaya Morton*, a Black cisgender lesbian, was confronted by two male sheriff’s deputies while using the women’s restroom, sparking outrage and a demand for accountability.
Morton, who identifies as masculine-presenting or a “stud,” recounted the humiliating encounter that occurred when a store employee erroneously assumed she was a transgender woman. The saga began innocuously enough: Morton had entered the restroom with her ex-girlfriend, who was kindly handing her a tampon— an act of friendship that, unfortunately, soon spiraled into something far more troubling. In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, Morton detailed her shock when the two deputies barged in, shining flashlights into the restroom stall.

“You have to get out of here. You have to come out. We need to talk to you.” Imagine trying to pee in peace, only to have the police storm in like it’s an episode of Cops: Restroom Edition.
“I’m still using the restroom. I’m sitting down, I’m peeing. What is the issue?,” Morton incredulously told the deputies as she sat there.
Now, while most people hope for a streamlined bathroom experience, Morton was treated more like a suspect than a bathroom user. The deputies apparently needed to crack the case of “Who Looks Like a Man in the Ladies’ Room,” a particularly absurd mystery, if you ask us."

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:23

Helpmelosemymind · 05/03/2025 16:16

By consent where I'm from! And I don't consent to MALE police officers in FEMALE facilities. The irony that there was no men in this toilet until a terf nvited them in.

You know it was a 'terf' that invited them in.... how? Oh that's right, you're just making assumptions.

Greyskybluesky · 05/03/2025 21:24

@LucyMonth you've said several times we need solutions (plural) to keep women safe from the men-who-are-not-trans but you haven't actually come up with anything except single toilet cubicles, which have proved to be dangerous too.

I took your posts in good faith at first because I thought you might have some solutions. Given that I've been attacked in a toilet and I may be lacking in imagination but personally all I can think of is to keep all men out. So I was genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on what should be done.

lifeturnsonadime · 05/03/2025 21:26

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:23

It isn’t to appease trans people…it’s to make women safer when they go to the toilet. Banning trans people doesn’t make women safer because it is overwhelmingly cis gendered men who are attacking us in our toilet blocks.

If you think it’s too disruptive and inconvenient to install individual toilets to keep women safe then you don’t really care about keeping women safe. Or you don’t actually think the issue is as big of deal as you are making out. It is just factually correct that cis gendered men are attacking us in our bathrooms at much higher rates than trans men. So if you want women to stop being attacked by men in bathrooms then we need to redesign the bathrooms because right now we are being attacked in them by men. All men. Not just trans.

It doesn't make people safer Lucy. Fully enclosed cubicles are a health risk. If my husband (who is not trans) has an epileptic fit he might die in there.

Listen to keeptoiletssafe and stop talking absolute garbage.

I have a medical condition which means I need access to toilets. I am EXTREMELY concerned that businesses won't bother because it is inconvenient and expensive and that I won't be able to get out and about so much.

We really don't want your redesign. It's harmful.

WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:27

Helpmelosemymind · 05/03/2025 16:40

Are you just ignoring the vulnerability of an innocent black woman having the police called on her, in a country with such high rates of police violence towards black people?

Are you just ignoring the fact that it's your ilk that caused this all in the first place, by saying we have no right to female only single sex spaces and that any male should have the right to come in? Look in the mirror.

Catiette · 05/03/2025 21:27

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 20:50

You may have missed further up when I shared that I have been sexually assaulted TWICE by men in women’s toilets. Trust me, no one is more concerned with women’s safety in women’s spaces than me. That is why I am fed up with people obsessing over trans women in women’s spaces as if that is a solution to the problem. It isn’t.

Your safeguarding of thinking that if people saw a man entering a women’s toilet block they’d do something about it in the past but wouldn’t now…naive and wrong. It didn’t help me. Twice. People didn’t intervene then and they wouldn’t now. You may feel less safe now but you aren’t safe now and you also weren’t safe then.

We need to stop being distracted by the trans issue. We need to stop feeding into the media frenzy…such as claiming one article in the Daily Mail about Plymouth University putting a sign up outside all of the toilet blocks is “universities (plural) putting signs up specifically in women’s toilets telling them not to challenge men”. & btw I have never at any point whatsoever said I think trans women should be allowed to use women’s spaces, and I certainly never intimated that I agree with the signs at Plymouth University.

We need to look at solutions that actually make women safer. Not just “feel safer”. Make them ACTUALLY safer. You are right. We can never prevent all attacks but banning trans women from women’s spaces just does not make us safer. It doesn’t. We need broader context. We need better solutions. Not just this lip service bullshit.

As a side note I didn’t share one story of a man attacking someone in train station toilets. I posted four different story of men attacking women in women’s toilets. If you read the circumstances of these attacks it was not a witness saying “oh I saw a man who is very obviously a man because he looked and dressed like a man entering the toilets behind a woman, but because of all the trans stuff I thought oh I better not say anything”. So this idea you have that people are “too afraid” to say anything is simply not true. It just isn’t that simple. I wish it was, but it just isn’t. This article is literally about someone calling the police on a masculine looking woman entering women’s toilets so we are actually hyper aware of trans women in women’s space and seemingly naive to the ways into which men are actually attacking women in women’s spaces.

I'm so deeply sorry to hear of your experiences. And I'm especially sorry to hear that no one intervened. There have been awful cases of very public attacks that have gone on uninterrupted - I think we're all aware of that. It's unthinkable.

These many distressing instances of a lack of intervention still do not, to me, though, represent an argument for removing what protections we do have.

On a population level, the stats posted above show that transwomen are significantly more likely to commit sexual offences than so-called cis-men, and that women are significantly more likely to be attacked in spaces that males can enter. I honestly can't see a strong argument against retaining single-sex access for women in the light of this.

You use some quite absolutist phrasing above - "naive and wrong", and "not true". There are few such absolutes in this debate (in life?!) and the use of them always makes me somewhat wary.

What I would say, for my part, is that...

Overall, though, the stats indicate that, on the balance of probabilities, women are safer when all males are unambiguously denied access. As such, my concern is with anything that substantially undermines this standard, which is why I mention transwomen. I highlight the stats re. transwomen's crime only in response to repeated assertions that they don't present at least the same risk as other males, as justification for their being permitted to dissolve the previous social contract of single sex spaces - the evidence, in fact, suggests that this is not the case. This may be for any number of reasons, including cynical opportunism by cis-men, but the outcome is the same.

As regards the emphatic dismissal that i's "simply not true" about people being apprehensive about questioning males in female spaces the current context, again, I'd love to have your certainty. Here, I don't have reliable statistics and can only rely on personal experience, and very wide reading of books and articles on this subject from a range of perspectives. I think that I'd argue that, when the Victorian government in Oz publishes a video campaign overtly shaming women for hesitating to enter a lift with a lone male, and the ACLU and Amnesty openly censure women for similar, I have fairly solid foundations for believing this - certainly reasons that are far removed from a "media frenzy". My sources do include the Daily Mail, too, though, as this represents another key reason for my thinking this: witnessing leftwing sources like the Guardian - and even the BBC, in one recent, memorable instance - target journalists (eg. Hadley Freeman) who dissent. Not to mention following multiple court cases in which women have been condemned as phobic for requesting rights unquestioned a mere few decades ago. This does, to me, add up to a culture of fear. To return to personal experience, I also know that, to my shame, I once babbled a desperate "transwomen are women" as, quite frankly, a kind of instinctive Hail Mary to ward off an angry teen! It shocked me to reflect on it afterwards. I often think of it.

NB. By referencing the university sign, I don't necessarily mean to imply you agree with this, or, by referencing the toilet attack, that you posted this yourself.

I hope you're in a better place now and appreciate your lengthy response. I hope you don't mind my similarly lengthy one (having been chastised for this earlier!) Unfortunately, these things need such thought and care, because, as you say, they're really, really not "simple".

Regretsmorethanafew · 05/03/2025 21:28

MakeYourOwnMusicStartYourOwnDance · 05/03/2025 11:56

End of. I wasn't offended

Good for you (genuinely)
It can feel threatening being challenged or being told you look like a man though.
Not everyone can just laugh it off or shrug it off as easily as you

Not when you go out of your way to be masculine presenting, as this woman did.

It's ludicrous to try very hard to look male and then act shocked and hurt when someone thinks you're a man. You have to be ready for it.

lifeturnsonadime · 05/03/2025 21:28

MrsOvertonsWindow · 05/03/2025 21:23

Yay!! We finally got the transactivist 's "genital inspection" obsession.

It's really not a thread without that creepy trope being uttered. 😂😂

Good spot, She lost me at persistent use of 'cis'.

Greyskybluesky · 05/03/2025 21:29

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:23

It isn’t to appease trans people…it’s to make women safer when they go to the toilet. Banning trans people doesn’t make women safer because it is overwhelmingly cis gendered men who are attacking us in our toilet blocks.

If you think it’s too disruptive and inconvenient to install individual toilets to keep women safe then you don’t really care about keeping women safe. Or you don’t actually think the issue is as big of deal as you are making out. It is just factually correct that cis gendered men are attacking us in our bathrooms at much higher rates than trans men. So if you want women to stop being attacked by men in bathrooms then we need to redesign the bathrooms because right now we are being attacked in them by men. All men. Not just trans.

Oh be serious! Do you live in the real world? As if every pub, cafe, public building etc etc etc up and down the country can be instantly redesigned to install individual toilets!

And as for this: If you think it’s too disruptive and inconvenient to install individual toilets to keep women safe then you don’t really care about keeping women safe. Or you don’t actually think the issue is as big of deal as you are making out.

Utterly jaw dropping.

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:30

Greyskybluesky · 05/03/2025 21:24

@LucyMonth you've said several times we need solutions (plural) to keep women safe from the men-who-are-not-trans but you haven't actually come up with anything except single toilet cubicles, which have proved to be dangerous too.

I took your posts in good faith at first because I thought you might have some solutions. Given that I've been attacked in a toilet and I may be lacking in imagination but personally all I can think of is to keep all men out. So I was genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on what should be done.

I am just one single woman. I am not an expert. Just because I think we need more robust solutions to keep us safe than “keep men out of our bathrooms” (they are already supposed to be out of our bathrooms, but you and I unfortunately both know they are very much in our bathrooms) that doesn’t mean I have all the answers. I don’t. It is not my job to find a solution. I’m just someone on Mumsnet. I would encourage the people in our government whose job it is to think of solutions to work on this instead of paying lip service with “keep men out of women’s bathrooms”. Ok cool…how? By banning trans women. Ok cool. And the cis gendered men who overwhelming make up our attackers? That keeps them out how? It didn’t 20 years ago when I was attacked and the trans conversation wasn’t even happening. There was no “oh better not say anything they might be trans” back then.

AccidentallyWesAnderson · 05/03/2025 21:30

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:23

It isn’t to appease trans people…it’s to make women safer when they go to the toilet. Banning trans people doesn’t make women safer because it is overwhelmingly cis gendered men who are attacking us in our toilet blocks.

If you think it’s too disruptive and inconvenient to install individual toilets to keep women safe then you don’t really care about keeping women safe. Or you don’t actually think the issue is as big of deal as you are making out. It is just factually correct that cis gendered men are attacking us in our bathrooms at much higher rates than trans men. So if you want women to stop being attacked by men in bathrooms then we need to redesign the bathrooms because right now we are being attacked in them by men. All men. Not just trans.

Again, how does one tell the difference between a man (cis gendered to you) who wants to cause women harm, and a trans woman (also a male) who doesn’t? Both are male. Being male means statistically they are more of a risk to woman than a woman is.

Maybe, as crazy as it sounds, we should just adhere to the social contract that’s been in place for years which is that biological males shouldn’t be in places - toilets - for women? Regardless of how one identifies?

Yes attacks will still happen, but women would still have the right to challenge that presence when a man wearing a dress abs make up tramples boundaries and goes in.

WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:30

Helpmelosemymind · 05/03/2025 16:59

What's insulting about it?

Exactly so the police weren't actually responding to a crime were they ? So where was the justification to harass a black woman in the toilets and how do we prevent this happening?
You and PP sound ridiculous that you can't answer the logic of either there needs to be female officers on attendance if they're going to access female spaces without a legitimate reason or how we allow GNC women to use the toilet without everyone policing their femininity.

They didn't know it wasn't a crime until they were there.

You're embarrassing yourself now.

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:32

Greyskybluesky · 05/03/2025 21:29

Oh be serious! Do you live in the real world? As if every pub, cafe, public building etc etc etc up and down the country can be instantly redesigned to install individual toilets!

And as for this: If you think it’s too disruptive and inconvenient to install individual toilets to keep women safe then you don’t really care about keeping women safe. Or you don’t actually think the issue is as big of deal as you are making out.

Utterly jaw dropping.

& how is every pub, cafe, public building going to start sex checking every patron before they use the bathroom?

WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:32

LionME · 05/03/2025 17:02

oh that’s nice. So much compassion for fellow women isn’t it. Better not look masculine anymore. Never mind the whole feminist take that you should look however you want.

Now what will you do when a transman decide to use the women’s toilet. A transman with full in beard, muscles etc….

Because they ought to be able use the women's right?

So what is your solution for females understandably being on high alert for males in our spaces? Where is your compassion for fellow women now?

WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:33

Helpmelosemymind · 05/03/2025 17:07

You don't need to be hyperbolic KFC - where did I say that? But this wasn't an instance of someone being murdered or raped as I replied to PP - this wasn't them attending to an actual report of a crime - so why are you okay with male police officers in single sexed spaces?

They clearly thought it was a crime. Hence they attended. Do you think they should have psychic powers?

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:36

lifeturnsonadime · 05/03/2025 21:28

Good spot, She lost me at persistent use of 'cis'.

Absolutely not a trans activist. TRANS WOMEN SHOULD NOT BE USING WOMENS BATHROOMS. I’ve said it a million times. I am not at all advocating that they should. All I have ever been saying is that banning them does not keep us safe. We need MORE.

I use the term “cis” for clarity. Trans women are men. Cis gendered men are men. However for the context of this conversation it was important to separate the two.

Greyskybluesky · 05/03/2025 21:37

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:32

& how is every pub, cafe, public building going to start sex checking every patron before they use the bathroom?

OK, I'm out. You've lost all credibility now. I thought you were engaging in good faith given the seriousness of the experiences we have both described on here, but I was wrong. I overlooked "cis" and all the rest of the drivel earlier but I can't debate with someone who uses the term "sex checking" as a line of reasoning.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 05/03/2025 21:38

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:32

& how is every pub, cafe, public building going to start sex checking every patron before they use the bathroom?

Are you very young? We do what society has always done via the social contract (until Stonewall and all the male dominated trans lobby groups started demanding access to women when vulnerable).

Single sex spaces, no demands from men to access, (no matter what they self identify as or what they wear). No insistence that the demands of men from a "sacred caste" outweigh the legitimate rights of people with other protected characteristics.

It will take a while as transactivists aren't used to anyone saying no to them and until recently have been able to trample over the rights of women, people of faith, children's rights to be safeguarded etc. But if society starts recognising that everyone has rights and that single sex spaces are a legitimate right to keep women and girls safer from men, society could return to what we once knew.

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:39

AccidentallyWesAnderson · 05/03/2025 21:30

Again, how does one tell the difference between a man (cis gendered to you) who wants to cause women harm, and a trans woman (also a male) who doesn’t? Both are male. Being male means statistically they are more of a risk to woman than a woman is.

Maybe, as crazy as it sounds, we should just adhere to the social contract that’s been in place for years which is that biological males shouldn’t be in places - toilets - for women? Regardless of how one identifies?

Yes attacks will still happen, but women would still have the right to challenge that presence when a man wearing a dress abs make up tramples boundaries and goes in.

I completely agree. I’ve never said otherwise. Trans women (men) shouldn’t use women’s bathrooms.

That doesn’t take away from the fact that banning trans women (men) from our bathrooms won’t keep us safe as we are being attacked at a much higher frequency by non trans men.

lifeturnsonadime · 05/03/2025 21:40

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:36

Absolutely not a trans activist. TRANS WOMEN SHOULD NOT BE USING WOMENS BATHROOMS. I’ve said it a million times. I am not at all advocating that they should. All I have ever been saying is that banning them does not keep us safe. We need MORE.

I use the term “cis” for clarity. Trans women are men. Cis gendered men are men. However for the context of this conversation it was important to separate the two.

Well blimey if you're not a trans activist you ain't half doing their job for them.

Any response to the fact that your suggestion puts people (male or female of what ever gender identity) who have health problems at serious risk?

Any response to the impact that having less bathroom facilities overall (which will doubtless be the case) has on people who rely on bathrooms to manage health conditions (I am one of them) will have on our ability to get out and about freely?

Why do our experiences not matter? Why are you on here telling us that the known solution to the problem (all men out) and single sex facilities isn't the best solution when all the evidence actually demonstrates that it is the best solution?

Hoppinggreen · 05/03/2025 21:40

People love to say they can “always spot a transgendered person”.

I don't love to say it, its just true.
I have seen women in the ladies loos that present as typically masculine but within seconds its obvious that they are women. Women walk and even hold themselves differently, you don't even need to see peoples faces to see what sex they are.
Because the vast majority of people are polite enough not to point and scream "TRANS!!!!!" at them they (and others) can claim they pass. Its not true.
In fact its about as true as lesbians hanging around ladies toilets sharing tampons and getting arrested

Ereshkigalangcleg · 05/03/2025 21:42

It isn’t at all “whataboutery”.

Yes it is. I simply want all men out of women's spaces. You don't get to decide for me what is important. HTH.

Stefanodad · 05/03/2025 21:44

The position of not letting trans women into toilets feels very unkind to me.

Whether or not you believe in the idea of transition. The notion that women can’t accept a minuscule risk so that trans women presenting as such can avoid a relatively much more probable one seems hard-nosed to the point of mean to me.

LucyMonth · 05/03/2025 21:45

No I’m not very young. Not by a long shot.

You are misunderstanding my question. We can ban men from women’s toilets. Including trans women (men). But how do we actually check that a trans women (man) isn’t entering a women’s toilet? By what “social contact”? If you look female enough cool, if you don’t you have to prove you are female first? How? That’s what I’m getting at.

Also banning men from women’s toilets hasn’t worked thus far. We always have been and continue to be attacked in our spaces by men who appear as men. Banning men who are trying to appear as women doesn’t stop us being attacked.

There is no “returning to what we once knew”. I was attacked by men twice in public toilets over 20 years ago. Trans people were not constantly in the media then. They aren’t campaigning to be allowed to use our bathrooms. Trans people have not caused us to be unsafe in our spaces. We always were unsafe.

WillIEverBeOk · 05/03/2025 21:45

Helpmelosemymind · 05/03/2025 17:53

None of that answers my questions of how we prevent the much more regular occurrence of women being policed for not being feminine enough. If this was all the fault of TRAs, we would be having increasing incidents of women being mistaken for trans women, but that's not what we are talking about and is rarely happening. Instead, GNC women are being accused of being men accessing women's spaces, so how is that the fault of TRAs?

It's the fault of TRAs because they advocate men being in female only spaces.

Btw, transwomen and men are the same thing. So I don't what point you thought you were making.

AnSolas · 05/03/2025 21:46

CarolinaWren · 05/03/2025 20:31

Pretty much guaranteed that this incident was a set up. Someone called the police to report that a man was in the women's restroom. The masculine appearing woman was STILL using the facilities when the police arrived. She and her friends filmed the entire episode and released it to the media. Have you ever called the police for a non-emergency? It can take hours for them to arrive, if they come at all. For something like this, a store employee would almost always handle it themselves and never even think of calling police.

If I was staff I would not be following any man into womens bathroom in a State which allows just about anyone to lawfully carry a gun in my place of employment once they can afford to buy one.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.