Woman says Boston hotel guard told her to leave bathroom because she ‘was a man’

A couple visiting Boston says they were left confused and appalled after being forced out of the Liberty Hotel during a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday, following what they describe as being confronted and wrongfully accused in the women’s restroom.

Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, both cisgender women, said a hotel security guard entered the women’s bathroom and demanded Baker leave the stall she was using, claiming she didn’t belong there.

“All of a sudden there was banging on the door,” Baker recalled to CBS News.

“I pulled my shorts up. I hadn’t even tied them. One of the security guards was there telling me to get out of the bathroom, that I was a man in the women’s bathroom. I said, ‘I’m a woman.”

Victor, waiting by the sinks, heard the commotion and saw the security guard confronting Baker.

“I looked down and I saw her shoes and that’s when I was like, ‘What is going on?” she told the network.

The couple said that once Baker was escorted out, other women in line hurled insults, calling her “a creep” and demanding she be removed. Security staff then allegedly asked both women to show their IDs to confirm their gender. After a heated exchange, they were told to leave the hotel.

In a statement shared with CBS, the Liberty Hotel accuse the two women of sharing one stall: “An incident occurred at the Liberty Hotel on Saturday, May 3 where several women alerted security of two adults sharing a bathroom stall. The bathroom was cleared out as two adults in one stall are not permitted. After leaving the bathroom, a member of the couple from the stall put their hands on our security team and it was then that they were removed from the premises.

“The Liberty Hotel has a zero-tolerance policy for any physical altercations on our property. The safety of our guests and staff is our priority, and this event is under investigation. The Liberty Hotel is and always will be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community and a place where everyone is welcome and celebrated.”

Baker and Victor insist they were never in the same stall and dispute the hotel’s account of events.

“Once the stall door opened, and I’m the only one in there, it escalated further,” Baker told Boston News 25. “I don’t think that aligns with what they’re saying.”

The couple said they have made sure that Boston mayor Michelle Wu’s office was aware of their experience in hopes that they can stop a similar situation from happening to anyone else.

They also hope their experience can spark awareness and change.

“We know we’re not the only ones that face this kind of thing,” Baker said to CBS. Victor added: “It was a very scary situation, but trans women experience this every single day in the US and across the world.”

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between the administration and the LGBTQ+ community. Some of Donald Trump’s earliest moves in office were to sign executive orders directing the prohibition of gender transitions for people under the age of 19 and banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, instructing the federal government to remove “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.

Trump has also limited access and funding for LGBTQ+ arts, with orders that instruct arts organizations not to fund projects that promote “gender ideology” as well as appointing himself chair of the iconic John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The incident also echoed an ongoing Republican talking point centered on bathrooms and gender identity. In November 2024, the South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace introduced a bill to ban Representative Sarah McBride from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity. Speaker Mike Johnson has supported and subsequently enforced that ban.