Thank you everyone for validating my experience. I am gonna cancel my membership and join another gym. Gonna sperge out a bit more, because I've never had a place to voice these thoughts before.
When a man is doing something creepy, we are taught to recognize it immediately. When a trans woman is doing something creepy, we have to analyze if it is actually creepy, because she is a "woman" like us, right? Why would she do that? If a man decides to go clean a the ladies locker room when a woman is changing, alarm bells would go off instantly. Because it is a trans woman, I had to mentally work through it and still doubt myself in the end, despite my gut reaction of feeling violated. On top of that, I've had to be completely silent about this interaction, without being able to confide in my family and friends.
With this, we are taught to ignore our instinctive danger signals. The pro trans narrative really risks putting women in danger by being too trusting around trans women. The reality is, they are biologically bigger and stronger than most of us by default due to being born male. We are supposed to ignore these facts of reality, even when it puts us in uncomfortable or risky situations. On top of that, we can't tell anyone about these minor things that happen, unless we are actually assaulted, because we will be considered a transphobe who is being discriminatory.
No one would want to sweep a locker room while people are using it. And janitorial work like that is usually done at closing or if necessary when there is a lull and no one is using it. For either sex or either locker room, I would think.
You are right that either gender wouldn't do that in their respective locker rooms. She normally does clean random areas around the gym frequently, so I was doubting myself at first because of that. It was just too instantaneous of a response to me walking in there in street clothes and a gym bag.
Pronouns are just the start of the gaslighting. It's not about respect, it's about controlling the way you think.
Thank you for explaining this. We are so engrained to go along with it to make them feel comfortable, but as you can see, it makes us doubt the way we think naturally and the reality of the situation.
If you have a job that involves going into places where there is some expectation of privacy, you try to avoid doing so when there are people there. It’s basic safeguarding.
I get that she likely does have to clean the locker room periodically, but it was dead as fuck, and I know she sat on her ass for like an hour before I walked in there with my bag to change.
if you're in a position to do so, try to write a few public reviews of the gym saying that it is not a good place for women because the staff there have made you feel uncomfortable .... This guy is almost definitely doing it to other women as well, and they deserve some warning.
I don't want to on my public accounts, but I will look into making alternative accounts to do that. I was thinking of saying something when I go in to cancel, but I'm only going to do it if they are really assholes about me canceling.
You saying that second part made me realize there used to more women at that gym earlier in the year. I thought it was because it was the end of the year, but maybe the same thing happened to them, so they stopped going. Last time I went there were only like 2 women there, and maybe 15 men. But earlier in like summertime, there were dozens of women every day, and I saw the same women frequently.
