By getting yourself winded do you mean being punched in the stomach hard enough to lose your breath for a moment, or something else?
What you're referring to is getting the wind knocked out of you.
I would think the rest of the US uses it the same way, just based on talking with friends throughout the country. I'm not sure if our brethren to the north use it the same way.
Curiously, in my karate dojo, we are taught to learn to fight whilst being winded - as in, having the wind knocked out of you.
It is.
So there's a silver lining but there's still a cloud.
My observation: the vast majority of those "mostly-large-males" are extremely nice, even if they do sometimes make scary faces while lifting and look like Danny Trejo. If you pick the right gym (typically in lower class neighborhoods), they might even critique your form, which is incredibly valuable.
Honestly, I know a lot of VERY big guys who lift a heck of a lot of weight. Without exception, every single one of them is the nicest, most even-tempered, welcoming fellow you could imagine. The stereotype of a angry, musclebound meathead is just that, a stereotype.
If you're really too scared, go find yourself the most convenient Crossfit gym and drop by for a free workout. You'll find that MOST Crossfit gyms are well over 60% female and that there are several women there that are leading a lot of the men in weightlifting and overall athleticism. I'm a guy and I've most definitely been shown up by a lot of the women at my particular box and I'm not alone.
Believe it or not, weightlifting/getting fit is going to make you VERY uncomfortable for non-trivial periods of time. You might as well get used to it. Seeing a whole cadre of women lifting heavy and doing it fearlessly might really do you a lot of good from a psychological perspective.
Greg Glassman always said that the biggest adaptation a Crossfitter experiences is between their ears.
Most of the very large men have no need to harass random women - all they usually need to do is walk into a bar and say "hello". And I've never met a guy at the gym who would even be tolerant of such harassment, let alone participate.
tl;dr Fitness is too important to let a one-in-a-million bad event deter you. Statistically speaking, your biggest worries are poor fitness > harming yourself due to poor form/bad luck > getting harassed at the gym.
The fundamental business model of most gyms is to sign up as many members as possible, irrespective of whether those members then attend (that is why you have membership 'contracts', direct debits, etc...)
Hence, gyms are optimised for increasing sign-ups - not for getting you fit. So things look shiny, modern, relaxing, appealing to some imagined lifestyle. Then in reality you end up sitting on your couch eating crisps ('chips' Americans) and feeling guilty.