Irish women who say they are living in homeless shelter accommodation have described feelings of ‘intimidation’ caused by the presence of a trans identified male.
Speaking to journalist Paddy O’Gorman, the women described how a man who was sharing their hostel threw a mug at a member of staff before being removed by Gardaí.
“She [the trans identified man] was threatening a lot of people and throwing her weight around, like she got kicked out because she threw a mug and hit the staff member,” said one of the women, adding that the cup had almost hit the female staff member’s face.
The other woman said she and two other women had shared a room with the same man previously.
“It’s very intimidating,” she said, expressing a view that normally even in family situations male and female siblings would not be allowed to undress in each other’s presence.
“She used to strip in the room, and not a bother,” said the woman describing how the man would wear “women’s G-strings”.
“You could see everything,” commented the other woman.
The first woman related asking the man to ‘cover up’, to which he said “I’m as much”.
“No you’re f**king not like,” the woman said she had thought.
“It’s very intimidating,” she said, describing how “big arguments” could start over this.
“We’d be the ones to lose our bed,” she said.
The women also related details of how a fellow occupant of the shelter was recently ‘taken out in a bodybag’ after the women had allegedly hung herself.
They said many of the other women they have encountered in homeless accommodation have ‘severe mental health issues’ and that staff struggle to deal with this as they are ‘not nurses’.
Paddy O’ Gorman previously interviewed another woman who said she had shared her homeless accommodation with a trans-identified male.
As previously reported by Gript, this woman said the man had ‘lost his temper’ and punched a woman – also living in the shelter – and that the impact of the blow had sent her ‘about eight feet’ across the room and ‘split her’.
A Dublin woman who said she was homeless for 19 years spoke of transgender identified men being treated as women by homeless services and being allowed to sleep, change, and shower in women’s facilities.
Seeming to refer to the same alleged assault as the previous speaker, she said that the man had punched a 60 year old woman in the face.
“He fights like a man, he can hit women like a man,” she said, although,“he dresses like a woman and he’s classed as a woman,”
She said the man had attacked a women who she says weighs about six and a half stone “swinging her down the corridor,”
“They’ll always overpower a women no matter what,” she said adding, “they still have men’s muscles and man’s instinct for fighting and stuff like that,”
“It’s still being bashed by a man whether they look like a woman or not,” she said.