Ansley Baker tells PEOPLE the experience was her “worst nightmare” come true
Ansley Baker tells PEOPLE that she and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, were confronted by security at the Liberty Hotel in Boston while attending a Kentucky Derby party there on Saturday, May 3, as first reported by CBS affiliate WBZ.
Baker, 28, says that the couple was confronted in the women’s bathroom of the hotel when a security guard entered the facility and began “banging” on Baker’s stall door while Victor, who was also in the bathroom but not using a stall, waited for her.
“I hadn’t even tied my shorts yet. I walked out and there was a security guard just standing in the middle of the bathroom right in front of my stall, telling me to get out, that I was a man in the women’s room,” she says.
Baker, who was born a woman and identifies as a woman, says she was asked to show her ID to the security guard to prove her gender after she stepped out of the stall.
She says that both she and Victor, 27, were “heated” over the request, but tells PEOPLE, “I gave him my ID because there’s this huge guy standing there intimidating me in the bathroom.”
She and Victor left after the incident, but Baker says that on their way out of the bathroom, she was yelled at by other women waiting in line, who said things like, “Get him out of here.”
Baker says the whole experience was “humiliating,” especially because it played out “in the bathroom in the middle of everyone.” While she tells PEOPLE that she’s not bothered by the “comments and weird looks” she sometimes gets while using the women’s bathroom, she says she was shaken that the security guard “acted out on that.”
“Honestly, my worst nightmare came true,” she says.
In a statement shared with PEOPLE, a spokesperson for the Liberty Hotel said they “take this matter seriously” and have since suspended the security guard and are “conducting mandatory retraining” for staff about “creating a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The hotel also pledged to donate to a local LGBTQ+ organization on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
In their statement, the hotel said that the general manager has reached out to both Victor and Baker, but Baker says only her girlfriend has been contacted. She tells PEOPLE that she has experienced “absolute radio silence.”
When contacted for a response to Baker’s claim, the hotel did not immediately reply.
While she says the experience at the Liberty Hotel was “really rattling,” Baker says she’s been met with “incredible” support — including from the Boston Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA2S+ Advancement — since coming forward with her story, which she chose to share because “this isn’t the first time this has happened, and unfortunately I don’t think it will be the last.”
Baker says the experience was “horrible to go through,” but adds that “everyone’s support has just meant the world. I hope everyone gets that who has to go through something like this.”