Forcibly putting depressed, suicidal, and otherwise mentally unstable women into co-ed psychiatric hospitals with mentally unstable men should be illegal. The fact that it’s the norm for psychiatric hospitals to be mixed sex is truly insane and despicable.
I have heard so many horror stories from women who were committed to psychiatric hospitals and were then violently assaulted, abused, and harassed by male patients while hospital staff did nothing. The fact that male violence is so common in these hospitals, combined with the fact that trauma from male violence is very often the reason why women are struggling emotionally and committed to these places in the first place, is criminal.
It’s very disturbing to have to live with the knowledge that if I were ever to find myself in the extremely vulnerable position of becoming seriously mentally unwell, I could committed to an institution and forced to cohabitate with violent, aggressive, unstable men with no way to protect myself from them.
This needs to change ASAP. All psychiatric hospitals need to be separated by sex.
similarly only women should be allowed to treat female patients
I know of two women who were raped in psych hospitals. One when she was a minor. Abuse from staff is rampant too. It’s so terrifying because patients have no access to phones, no way to physically leave, and are often not believed when they speak out (you’re crazy you’re borderline you lie you want attention). It is the perfect trifecta for abuse.
And I know we’re supposed to say mentally ill people aren’t dangerous but the reality is many men in high acuity inpatient settings are.
I also have to add inpatient psych hospitals are not therapeutic environments. They are places to be stabilized and kept safe. I think a dangerous byproduct of the normalizing mental health discourse is that people think they can check themselves into these kinds of places and get therapy/treatment but that is not the case. Outpatient services, residential, etc are good options if you’re not in active crisis because many women leave psych hospitals more traumatized than when they went in.









