The Perils of Public Restrooms

By Melanie E.

I don't know if this will show up publicly or not, but this is my (quick and dirty) submission for the Bathroom Anthology. Admins, contact me if changes are needed.

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Public restrooms are a strange thing. After all, everyone needs to go to the bathroom. There isn't a single person in the entire world who doesn't, at some point in their day, need to make that mad dash to the quiet (or sometimes not-so-quiet) corner of their abode where the toilet rests to do what's necessary. What's more, we have no issues with sharing our restrooms at home with people of other sexes. Men, women, boys, girls, often even our pets all use the same room for evacuation and the subsequent cleanup. Yet, when it comes to restrooms in public places, people have a tendency to get up in arms about the least sign of gender variance in those who use them.

Despite the freshness of the Florida issue in many transgender peoples' minds, public restrooms have been a focus of concerns both within the community and outside of it for as long as public restrooms have been a thing. Look at trans fiction and you'll see authors constantly tackling this issue, and overall the problems that we are facing in Florida are essentially just an upscaled version of the problems we often face on a case-by-case basis any time one of us needs to use the bathroom somewhere that doesn't have a unisex toilet of some kind.

Even those of us who haven't begun to transition at all often face issues that can help to show just how important the ruling made on Florida's restrooms could be.

I've never used a women's public rest facility, largely because I've never went out into the world outright seeking to present myself as female in body as well as mind, yet restrooms have been issues for me on more than one occasion. I've had men walk out of the restroom when they saw me at the sinks, or glare at me when I went into a stall, or even outright stop me from going into public rest areas at all on the basis of my gender presentation. Not only have strangers had issues with my use of male facilities, but even friends have shown confusion or concern when I've used men's public facilities before.

The following two stories are pretty indicative of the problems I've had like this.

Summer 2006

College had been a great time for me, even if I was fighting depression over the fact that I wouldn't be able to return for my second year. Despite that, I was thin, healthy, and for the first real time in my life a lot of my public presentation was more in line with who I felt I was supposed to be.

That doesn't mean I walked around in skirts or anything, mind you. No, I still presented as a male, but neither did I concern myself about how I acted or how people saw me.

This turned out to be a bit of an issue one day when me and a friend of mine from college decided to hang out. There was a book store in one of the nearby cities he was wanting to look into, and so we made the trip out to see what there was to see.

Of course, once we checked out the book store there was time to be killed, and we happily cruised a few other shops and places, including the Arkansas behemoth, Wal Mart. While there, of course, nature called, and I needed to use the restroom.

To put things in perspective, I was wearing a pair of men's jeans, and a unisex (though admittedly rather tight) tee shirt. My hair was down, but I wore no make-up, and even my ever-present jewelry was at a minimum. Despite this, my time in the men's room was filled with sideways glanced on my way to and from a stall, and even a couple of door checks by people coming in while I was washing my hands.

Of course, when I mentioned all these annoyances to my friend he just laughed at me, then admitted that he had been confused when I'd went into the men's room as well. To be fair, he knew that I was trans and never used male pronouns for me -- or even my male name -- but despite that, he also knew that I was presenting as a guy.

Would I have been better off using the women's restrooms? Would I have faced less issues, less scrutiny? Or would it have been the same thing all over again, or even worse?

My next story (though not the sequential next time such issues arose) takes place about three years later. I'd moved to Hot Springs, and by this point I was living with a friend from BigCloset, Edeyn Blackeney.

Edeyn was always a very outspoken person, sometimes overbearingly so, but always with the best of intentions. She was never afraid to be who she was, in private or in public, and expected no less from those around her.

One day, that first summer she'd moved down to stay with me, she invited a friend of hers from a NaNoWriMo group down to hang out. It was nothing super-personal, just me, Edeyn, her friend, and her friend's brother all going out to eat and then to see a movie.

I was still presenting as a male. Or at least I THOUGHT I was. I was wearing the same tee shirt as I'd worn in the first story, oddly enough, though this time with a pair of women's jeans and a bit of eyeliner. Nothing really out of the ordinary for me, and honestly an outfit I had worn many times and not had issues.

The lunch with Edeyn's friends went quite well. We all got along well and had fun talking. The problem was we chose chinese, and like chinese food tends to do, by the time we reached the theater rest stops were needed by all.

Edeyn went into the women's room.

Her friend went into the women's room.

Her friend's brother and I went toward the men's room, where he stopped when I entered.

It wasn't until after the movie was over and her friends had left that Edeyn confronted me about using the men's room at the theater, telling me that not only had her friend and her brother been thrown off by it, but she'd had to explain to one of the staff that I was male while I was in the room, all of which embarrassed her greatly.

I hadn't thought nothing of it. I was presenting in my own form of "boy mode," after all, so what was the issue? Yet I was getting in trouble for using what was, according to genital classification, the "right" rest room?

Nowadays, with all the weight I've put on (but intend to rid myself of as soon as possible) such occurrences don't happen often, if at all, but nevertheless the frequency I used to deal with them, and these two times specifically, stick with me to this day.

Public restrooms are, indeed, strange places, with strange rules in place for what's right and wrong concerning who goes where. Florida claims that their attempt to limit trans people to the rooms that fit their biological sex is intended as a way to protect those whose sex and gender align from potential sexual harassment or public humiliation, among other things. So, how does that align with the humiliation and harassment that trans people can and will receive for trying to fit into this genital-defined bubble?

If people have a right or reason to object regardless of which restroom you use, even when you're trying to fit into the mold of your physical sex, then where does that leave you?

More to the point, such requirements can only be upheld if there's some method used to verify the physical sex of those utilizing said restrooms, which in itself is guaranteed to result in humiliation, harassment, and lawsuits galore, especially the first time someone is detained incorrectly from using a stall just because they might not fit the preconceived stereotypes of their sex.

Public restrooms are strange enough, and difficult enough for many people, as is. Gender identification, gender presentation, physical sex, all of these things have so many different variations and possible combinations that no matter what you do, you're going to be rendering a portion of the population uncomfortable. Why make it any worse than it already is?