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

[Christinapple]

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."

For anyone who wants to read through the statistics for males who have transgender identities who commit sex crimes in the UK here are some.

This was a question answered a month or so ago.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-12-16/20298.

Question from Rebecca Paul (MP Reigate): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HMPPS Offender Equalities Annual Report 2023-2024, published on 28 November 2024, how many of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female were convicted of a sexual offence.
Answer from Sir Richard Dakin (MP Scunthorpe): 23 December 2024

Of the 245 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as male (i.e. those who now identify as women, non-binary or gender-fluid) on 31 March 2024, 151 were convicted of a sexual offence. This includes both contact and non-contact sexual offences. Offence data was not available for 1 individual.

Of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female on 31 March 2024, the number convicted of a sexual offence is five or fewer. We do not provide exact data for such small sample sizes as it risks identification of individuals. This approach is in line with our standards on data disclosure.

To put this into perspective with what we already knew from FOI information. I posted the information to a regular poster from FWR on another thread, who did not acknowledge the information at all, so it seems sticking the info here is appropriate:

Here is data from the MoJ

Here is an FOI request from 30 April 2024

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/populationoftransgenderoffend/response/2641337/attach/html/7/FOI%20240322022%20Annex%20A.xlsx.html

Up to the 31st March 2023, the MoJ stated that of the 88 male transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.

The breakdown was
48 rapes,
0 attempted rapes,
10 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
13 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
0 indecent assault or gross indecency
6 sexual activity with a child under 16
0 other
77 listed here.... BUT there is a total of 88 in the total so there is 11 crimes not noted.

Possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child has not been recorded in this FOI.

However, there is are further discrepancies in the data of the following when you look at TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE.

1 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity
3 rapes
2 sexual activity with a child under 16
3 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,

This equals 9 additional... however the sum for TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE is 99.

Therefore 2 more sex crimes have been hidden from this data.
There were 203 males who were declared as transgender in the prison at the time.

There were 24 NB who were not segregated into male and female. What is key here, is that THIS IS NON-GRC HOLDERS. And we all know that males holding GRCs have increased and they are excluded from this data. NO female people with transgender identities were sentenced to a principal sexual offence. There were 41 female people with transgender identities in UK prisons at that time.

As a comparison, I have stats that say as of April 2019 that the general male MoJ data for male sex offenders was just 16.8% of the male prison population. And there were 3.3% of female people in UK prisons were sex offenders.
I will leave you to do your own sums. But... even using the figure of 88/203 is 43.3%. (And that doesn't include making or possessing indecent photographs of a child remember.)

By the way this exercise was done in 2021. And I checked this data myself from the data source and it was correct at the time. So, it will give some back ground to the above.

The ones that say that in the March/April 2021 data collection period, the MoJ stated that of the 97 transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.

The breakdown was
40 rapes,
8 attempted rapes,
31 possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child,
32 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
20 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
10 indecent assault or gross indecency
9 sexual activity with a child under 16
27 other

The 97 sex offender transgender prisons collected 177 sentences between them.

And that according to that FOI 197 prisoners are transgender.

Oh no - a man thinks women are mean for not allowing men into our changing rooms, toilets and showers to watch us and our daughters undress etc.
How about you and your mates (general you, not personal you) stop abusing transwomen in your toilets and changing rooms and let them feel safe there?

someone calling the police unnecessarily

The person who called the police thought a male went in there. So they felt it was necessary.

If you're posting in good faith (not sure, as the assertion that "females should face increased physical risk so males don't", when there are alternative approaches that could protect both groups, is fairly remarkable to me), I'd recommend reading the whole thread and considering / engaging with some of the issues raised. You'll certainly find lots of stats, websites and logic shattering that comforting "miniscule". Sadly.

Firstly, transwomen are men, so they are included in the men attacking women count.

Secondly, it's disingenuous to say 'oh men will attack you anyway so stop making it harder for them' which is precisely the argument you are making.

Also, what you and your ilk always forget is that it is not just about safety. It's also about privacy and dignity away from the male gaze.

So what are you arguing for? What’s your point caller?

Males ARE banned. Trans women aren’t banned from using bathrooms.

People are banned for entering houses that aren’t theirs without permission. People will do it anyway, and, the chances of being burgled are statistically tiny. Still people lock their doors, have ring doorbells, put in SAFEGUARDING measures. Stating trans women are women dismantles this. It doesn’t state no attacks (burglaries) will happen, but it’s a preventative measure.

Which is a perfect reminder that voyeurism and indecent exposure are criminal offences. There's no evidence that these crimes stop if a man is wearing a dress - apart from in the minds of transactivists intent on removing safeguards from girls and women.

So there are currently 151 transgendered people convicted of sex related crimes in the UK? OK.

There are currently 14,400+ people in prison for sexual offences. So 0.01% of sex crimes are committed by trans people.

There are reasons why fully enclosed gender neutral toilets don’t work for as many people as some
people think, and that is because of how female people use the toilets.

It is just one of the significant differences between the female and male life experiences as well. Female people DON'T just use the toilet to piss.

What do women do in toilets?

I spent many days, often 2-3 time a week, where I had a stroller or pram jammed in the door because I had no one but myself to do shopping. And I didn’t need the change table so didn’t use the accessible toilet if there was one. That included at period time with flooding periods and hormonal diarrhoea. Often with a crying infant.

I have also had to take my wheelchair bound elderly mother to a normal cubicle when there was no accessible toilet available. Where I couldn’t leave her to sit without assistance to remove the wheelchair to lock the door .

Those fully enclosed cubicles that open directly onto public space, how would either of the above situations work?

I, too, have washed clothing out, and at times had to unbutton shirts to get them dry from baby vomit, or leaking breasts.

I have even had to do this at work when I was stuck in an event for hours and could not leave to express so ended up with significant leakage. More than once. Because breastfeeding women work too.

And got dressed in work toilets for various reasons.

And cried there and comforted others. And hid there from men who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I have had friends lose their pregnancies in the female toilets and needed help from other women there. How does this happen in a fully enclosed cubicle that opens into a public space?

I know I am not the only one because several times this past year I have come across half stripped women in the toilets while out dealing with similar issues.

The solution is also not demanding gender neutral toilets. It is not fully enclosed cubicles. A female taking up a cubicle to wash and dry clothes is putting an undue time demand on those waiting to use that cubicle.

Female toilet usage has never been straightforward and fully enclosed toilets opening onto mixed sex and publicly visible spaces limits how those spaces are used.

2/10. Shite effort.

Individual genderless bathrooms not gendered toilet block are safest for everyone.

They're absolutely not, they're far, far more dangerous for women and girls. Attacks by males on females in unisex toilets are in the ratio of 9:1 compared to women's toilets and changing rooms.

It is an ineffective preventative measure. This has already been discussed. Locking your door is a sensible preventative measure against burglary. Putting a gnome on your doorstep is not.

Men are currently coming into women’s spaces and attacking women. Banning trans women from these spaces doesn’t stop them men coming in and attacking women because most of them are not trans women. Yes men ARE banned from women's bathrooms, and yet they are still attacking women in women's bathrooms with much higher frequency than trans women even though trans women aren’t banned from our bathrooms. So clearly banning doesn’t work.

I don’t claim to have all the solutions. It’s like women worrying about being dragged into a bush by a stranger and raped while walking their dogs, but we are much more likely to be raped by our partners/exes/friends/male family members/male colleagues. The issue is complex and therefore the solutions have to be much more complex than banning trans women. Sure, ban trans women! But then what? I’m not in government. It isn’t up to me to come up with all the solutions. But let’s not let them off the hook by simply banning trans women from bathrooms and then saying “ok you’re safe now, will you shut up?” because we will not be safer.

A lot of this is coming down to an implicit (or surprisingly explicit!) acknowledgement from posters such as Lucy and our recent arrival that permitting transwomen to enter female spaces does increase risk to some degree (I really don't see any convincing arguments against this) - and that that's acceptable.

When the stats, evidence and logic say what they do, as clearly as they do, the conclusions you draw about the actions to take come down to values: who, and what, matters more? women's physical integrity and dignity, or men's... dignity (ref. again third spaces, which addresses any largely unevidenced concerns re: transwomen's safety in male spaces).

I'm simultaneously forever grateful to the movement for making me realise how vulnerable women's rights truly are... and deeply regretful - it changed the way I see the world. But it is more important to be aware of this.

But. It takes courage to accept and live with this knowledge. Courage to really read and reflect on the posts here (I wish I could be sure Lucy has read @Keeptoiletssafe contributions especially - they do such important work).

It's not easy.

It is an ineffective preventative measure. This has already been discussed. Locking your door is a sensible preventative measure against burglary. Putting a gnome on your doorstep is not.

Ha ha ha ha ha

You're analogy is ridiculous. Is the gnome the man who thinks he's the woman?

Honestly Lucy safeguarding is not your thing.

And that 0.1% per capita commit far more sexual assaults than so-called 'cis' men.

Why are you continuing to separate men and trans women? They are one and the same. So strange.

Safeguarding isn’t your forte.

So what if it's unkind?

Why should we be kind to men who demand access to women's spaces?

I didn't define her as masculine. In the article itself it says she presents and identifies as masculine. She defined her gender presentation, no one else. And of course I agree there are gender stereotypes. I firmly believe people can dress how they like and I reject gender stereotypes but that doesn't stop them from existing
I'm finding your arguments quite odd and you're just making things up now. Things I have never said anywhere in my posts

No. Women flee from men into the ladies, seek help from other women, have miscarriages (also helped by other women), it is the COMMUNAL nature of the womens block that GIVES SUPPORT to women and girls. Single cubicles prevent a collapsed woman being seen, a woman can be shoved in there by a male and raped, a single toilet is a HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK.

It's the communal female block with females around us, that gives women and girls succour.

& btw..while the police were bothering this poor butch lesbian who was just trying to have a piss, there will have been a woman somewhere actually being raped by a cis gendered man in a women’s toilet with no police there to help her

this makes no sense, assuming that the person who called the police honestly thought it was a man in the toilet…then they should have called the police, the fact that they were wrong is immaterial

otherwise we are saying that if you see what you think is a man entering the ladies loo then you shouldn’t call the police in case they are a masculine looking woman

(ive also been misgendered, and i wear a shit tonne of makeup, some people honestly just see height, build and hair and put two and two together)

@Theeyeballsinthesky bingo Today 21:14

If you work out the ratios using rhe census data, there is a higher ratio of males with transgender identities committing sex crimes than the general male population.

However, I believe that the point is that males with transgender identities, at any stage of transition are committing sex crimes at rate at least equal to the rest of the UK male population. Therefore they should be treated like every other male person in the UK as far as accessing toilets.

They are not committing sex crime at a rate that is equal to or less than female people. Therefore, for safeguarding purposes, they should not be treated as female people.

All male people above the age of about 8 years old should be excluded from the female single sex toilets.

And as far as safety is concerned, if all male people are excluded and we all know they have been, and the laws have been changed and publicised, then female people can then act as we used to. In that, we can leave that toilet and warn others there is a male in there. We can get the security and the police.

There were ways that female people could seek assistance when confronted by a male person in the toilets. Those avenues of assistance have been said to be hateful now and there are repercussions for female people who would do this now.

No toilet was 100% safe. They never will be. However, usability for toilet provision is also very important. There are reasons why toilets evolved to have a single sex public space. Removing those single sex public spaces makes toilets less usable for those other needs, if they are then even usable at all for some purposes.

We shouldn’t need to change toilets to a model that limits how toilets are validly used. We just need to exclude all male people using female toilets by law and have all male people comply with the laws so we are clear any male in the female toilets that are not there to perform maintenance, should not be there.

Considering transwomen sexually offend at 5 times greater rates than 'cis' men, keeping transwomen out keeps us safe. Statistically we are far safer with a 'cis' man than a transwomen. And this bears out in statistics in at least 3 countries.

Apologies lucy i see others have brought this up and you have addressed it

still doesn’t make sense but i appreciate your clarification