About 10 years ago, I walked into the women’s restroom at work and there was an odd atmosphere - almost frantic, as women rushed around the perimeter of the small restroom interior like startled guppies.
I was looking at them as I cleared the entry hall and entered the main room and suddenly to my right, towering over me was a very large person all out of proportion to everyone in the room. Without thinking I flattened against the left wall and veered along the front of the sinks while trying not to stare. I was shaken by my intense, confusing level of fear. I glanced at this person and it was obviously a man in the women’s room, wearing a wig and a dress; he was watching me closely (my reaction).
Back then this was new. There were a few more women in the room than usual, but with this massive person present it felt like the room was tiny, the ceiling was oppressively low, the room lighting was too dim and as if there was no air, despite active ventilation.
It’s natural instinct to get away from this threat. Ordinarily, you have seconds to TRY to elude a man with faster reflexes, catching you by surprise.
I briskly washed my hands and rushed to dry them and ‘escaped’ (to find a restroom the next floor down). None of this was conscious fear - I had knowledge that something was very wrong and I was no match for this ‘visitor’ should he become aggressive, and the fact that he wanted to be there suggested predation or at the very least, he was not entirely rational and could not be trusted. We were instinctively afraid of someone powerfully built where he do not belong, and we knew he had a complete aggression advantage so we certainly avoided his notice.
Given that was a few seconds out of my life but I vividly remember it still, I can’t imagine what it’s like for women to have to undress in locker rooms and showers around men who seek this ‘opportunity’.
It must even worse when alone. I would have felt so much more fear if I was alone when I cleared the entry hall and moved into the main room to find a 6’ 2” man towering over me, observing my reaction. These beauty contestants have my sympathy. IN that restroom 10 years ago, it felt like the social equivalent of 5 women and a bison together in a small room - and it’s not polite to make the bison feel unwelcome even though he may kill you.
Many of those men trying to recover from the mutilating madness of medically ‘transitioning’ to female ruefully say they had a mental illness and were prayed upon by the industry (medical and social) which drives ‘trans.’ Many of these men detail the wreckage those trans ‘pushers’ (my word, not theirs) have made of their lives. One of the insights these men provide, is that they have co-morbidites (mental illnesses, depression, bi-polar, Borderline) etc., and they had a mental illness called ‘gender dysphoria’ - but that something not spoken of, but true of them and other males seeking to become female - is that they have a mental illness called autogynophilia (the men called this ‘AG’), in which these men are sexually aroused by their own portrayal of a ‘woman.’
Here’s a pub med description of autogynophilia from 2011 (ah, those were the days).
Autogynephilia is defined as a male’s propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female. It is the paraphilia that is theorized to underlie transvestism and some forms of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism. Autogynephilia encompasses sexual arousal with cross-dressing and cross-gender expression that does not involve women’s clothing per se. The concept of autogynephilia defines a typology of MtF transsexualism and offers a theory of motivation for one type of MtF transsexualism. Autogynephilia resembles a sexual orientation in that it involves elements of idealization and attachment as well as erotic desire. Nearly 3% of men in Western countries may experience autogynephilia; its most severe manifestation, MtF transsexualism, is rare but increasing in prevalence. SNIP
Autogynephilia exemplifies an unusual paraphilic category called ‘erotic target identity inversions’, in which men desire to impersonate or turn their bodies into facsimiles of the persons or things to which they are sexually attracted.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005209/
So women in close quarters with trans are dealing with someone struggling with mental illness and defensive about rejection while at the same time sexually gratifying themselves at women’s expense. Great...just great.
You walked into the restroom and found a physical threat.
Why did you wash & dry your hands instead of instinctively fleeing the threat?
*Fight or Flight.