Woman Mistaken for Transgender Accosted in Bathroom

She'd donated her hair to child cancer patients
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 17, 2016 3:51 AM CDT
Updated May 17, 2016 6:41 AM CDT

Aimee Toms says her story shows just how "amazingly ridiculous" the ongoing controversy over transgender bathroom use has become. The 22-year-old retail worker in Connecticut says she was harassed in a women's bathroom at Walmart on Friday by somebody who called her "disgusting" and told her she "didn't belong there," the Connecticut Post reports. Toms, who has a pixie cut and was wearing a baseball cap that day, says she soon realized that she was being harassed because the woman had seen her from behind and mistakenly believed she was transgender. "If it really takes me pulling up my shirt and showing someone I grew these boobs myself for them to leave me alone in a restroom, I don't want to live on this planet anymore," she says in a Facebook post accompanying what she calls a "rant" about the incident.

Toms says her hair is short at the moment because she has just donated hair—for the third time—to a charity that makes wigs for child cancer patients. "I've had people call me all sorts of names for having short hair. I've had people call me a boy, I've had people call me a dyke, I've had people call me gay," Toms says. "I'm grateful that that woman only called me disgusting and didn't physically attack me." Toms says she didn't report the incident because she didn't see where the woman went afterward. She says that after her Facebook post went viral, she received messages of support from around the country, and she wants people to learn from the incident. "People have irrational fears, I'd like for them to know this simply isn't something to be so angry about," she tells the New York Daily News. (Something similar happened in Texas.)

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