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Woman says stranger harassed her at Walmart thinking she was transgender

Posted at 1:46 PM, May 17, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-17 16:05:35-04

DANBURY, Conn. - A Connecticut woman believes she was harassed at Walmart because a stranger thought she was transgender.

Now, her story is going viral on Facebook.

Aimee Toms, 22, said she was at a Walmart in Danbury, Connecticut, when another woman told her she was in the wrong bathroom.

"She said, 'You are not supposed to be here, you need to leave,'" Toms said in a video posted on her Facebook page Friday evening. "So I said, 'Yes I do,' and then she flipped me off and said, 'You're disgusting,' and she storms out."

Toms said she was wearing a baseball cap at the time and she recently donated her hair to a cancer charity.

"She just thought I was someone who is transgender and I was a dude who was hiding in the bathroom," Toms said.

As of Tuesday, Toms' Facebook video had more than 65,000 views.

Warning: This video contains strong language that may not be suitable for all viewers.

On Friday, the Department of Education gave all schools across the country a directive to give transgender students full access to the bathroom of their gender identity.

The U.S. Justice Department is suing North Carolina over their so-called bathroom law. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said North Carolina’s law requiring transgender people to use public restrooms and showers corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate amounts to “state-sponsored discrimination” and is aimed at “a problem that doesn’t exist.”