‘I am a woman, I just don’t have hair: Transphobe harassed for not meeting the very standards she imposed on others

A cisgender marathon runner with alopecia universalis, Lindsay Walter, has alleged she was victim of a shocking transphobic tirade in a women’s bathroom.

She took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to tell her story. It makes for truly uncomfortable reading. Walter said that she was in an airport bathroom when a woman shouted, “You’re disgusting!” at her. Walter ignored her and walked out, only for the woman to follow her—terrifying behavior—while “shouting that I am disgusting for being in the women’s bathroom and how it is for women.” People began staring, causing Walter to say to the irate woman, “I have alopecia. I am a woman, I just don’t have hair.” The woman backed off with nothing but, “Whatever, just get away.”

This incident understandably devastated Walter. She wrote, “I am sad, mad, embarrassed, heartbroken and just a lot of feelings. I always try to see the good in people and extend grace but I am finding it really hard right now.”

Her story was made with an outpouring of support from the transgender community. Trans television personality India Willoughby responded with, “Shocking. So sorry Lindsay.” Many people pointed out how this was an example of transphobia affecting all women, not just cisgender ones.

But before long, people started reading Walter’s old tweets and some of them decided they had no sympathy, because Walter had referred to trans women as “males” in the past. In a now-deleted post from September 2024, she declared, “I 100% agree males should not be playing against females,” in a post lamenting how she herself was sometimes mistaken for a man due to the hair loss.

Plenty of people have thrown that comment about Walter back at her and pointed out that the woman in the airport was playing by the same rulebook. The story has made it to the popular Reddit forum r/LeopardsAteMyFace not once but twice in the past three days, even.

Walter has issued a statement about the matter, saying yesterday, “I still 110% stand on my message that biological men shouldn’t be playing against women. I didn’t deserve what happened to me in the bathroom and it isn’t karma. I know what God has taught us and what is right and I will stand firm on that.”

However, if a person has undergone male to female gender affirmation, studies have shown they don’t have advantages over cis women. There is also the question of what horrific invasions of privacy would have to take place in order for athletes to prove they are not transgender. We absolutely do not want a world where genitals have to be inspected before a sports match takes place. The thought is disgusting— and yet some people want this to be a reality of children’s sports. It’s a shame that Walter hasn’t done any reflection on this. What happened to her was awful and should never have happened, but the same would be true if she were a trans woman.