'This Was Totally A Man': Mom's Disneyland Restroom Tale Goes Viral
ANAHEIM (CBSLA.com) — A Los Angeles "mommy blogger" says an encounter she had with a man in a women's restroom at Disneyland has changed her political views.
Blogger Kristen Lavin - author of "The Get Real Mom" blog - wrote on March 13 about a recent visit to the California Adventure theme park, where she was visiting with her son, a friend, and her friend's son.
While she was inside waiting to use the restroom with the two young boys, Lavin says a "very large, burly man in a Lakers jersey" entered and began walking by all the stalls - stalls, she wrote, "that have 1 inch gaps by all the doors (sp) hinges so you can most definitely see everyone with their pants around their ankles...clear as day."
"I surveyed the room and saw roughly 12 women, children in tow, staring at him with the exact same look on their faces. Everyone was visibly uncomfortable," Lavin wrote. "We were all trading looks and motioning our eyes over to him..like 'What is he doing in here?' Yet every single one of us was silent."
Lavin says despite the man's brazen attitude, none of the roughly dozen or so women in the restroom asked the man to leave, possibly because of what she described as a ".00001% chance this wasn't a man."
"Let me be clear. This was totally a man", she wrote. "If this wasn't a man, this was a woman who had fully transitioned via surgery and hormones into a man and had also gotten an Adam's apple implant, chest hair and size 9-10 shoes ....and at that point, [what] are you doing in the women's restroom?"
Lavin - who describes herself as "pretty progressive and tolerant of most things" and says she has previously shared restrooms with "(m)en...who were in some stage of transition and making every attempt to be a woman from mascara to heels" - said the encounter has caused her to rethink her views on transgenderism.
"Gender just can't be a feeling. There has to be science to it. DNA, genitals, amount of Sephora make up on your face, pick your poison," she wrote, "but as a very progressive woman...I'm sorry it can't just be a feeling when theres (sp) but a mere suggestion of a door with a peep hole separating your eyes from my [genitals] or my children's genitals."
A request for comment from a Disneyland spokesperson was not immediately returned.
As for Lavin, she defended linking the issue with transgenderism and says for her, it's about the safety of all women.
"My situation wasn't dire, but for others it could be. We can not (sp) put doubt in women's minds regarding their ability to recognize and identify a man," she wrote. "In a world where 99.9% of sexual assault is done by men, we must...have the right to 'assume someone's gender'. And I will not waiver in that stance."