I Was Thrown Out of the Gym for Staring at a Woman, but I’m BLIND

Toby Addison shares his daily struggles as a blind 21-year-old man on TikTok. Recently, he found himself in an extremely distressing situation when a woman at his gym thought he was being creepy and kept staring at her. Although you might think the solution to this misunderstanding is simple, unfortunately, you’d be wrong.

Toby prioritizes going to the gym.

Even though Toby is visually-impaired, it’s very important for him to live his life like a fully capable person, especially keeping himself in shape. Addison is a footballer, and it requires a lot of training from him to stay in decent shape.

Of course, he had to implement many adjustments in order to complete a decent workout. He shared that he tremendously depends on staff’s help, who need to guide him to the machines, as well as set everything up for him, and give him precise directions on how to use everything. But turns out there are more obstacles at a gym than Toby initially anticipated.

A simple misunderstanding that escalated too quickly.

Addison shared an unfortunate situation that happened to him at the gym one time, that ended with him being kicked out of there. He started by explaining that, obviously, most of the time he doesn’t know where he’s looking, especially when he’s working out.

He started his story: “So I was just staring straight ahead and unfortunately there was a woman doing some exercises.”

Toby continued: “She came over to me, and I didn’t know she was talking to me at first because I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just doing my thing. She said something along the lines of ’Why do you keep staring at me? Stop. Don’t be so creepy.’”

Addison proceeded to explain to the woman that he was blind, and he actually had his cane with him, it was right on his lap. But the woman wasn’t having any of it, she thought it was for his disguise to be able to freely look at women. The situation ended by the woman getting the manager and having Toby being asked to leave.

Toby says better staff training is needed.

It’s absolutely shocking that something like this happened to a blind person. Addison explained that the gym, where the misunderstanding happened, was a new place for him. At his regular gym, the staff knows him and everyone is really helpful. Safe to say he never returned to the other gym.

Toby shared more instances of being discriminated against as a blind person by staff in his TikTok. For example, he once asked to be escorted to a table at a coffee shop, so the waiter grabbed him by the T-shirt and dragged him to the table, because they didn’t know how to guide a blind person. Overall, Addison hopes for more training to be provided in terms of how to properly help a disabled person in public places.

We really appreciated learning about Toby’s story, because it makes us more aware of the struggles that blind people face on the daily basis. Fortunately, they can also experience a lot of triumphs. Take, for instance, Lucy, a blind and autistic girl, who, despite, the adversities, won a very prestigious piano competition. Read more about her story here.