Let’s talk bathroom usage. I’m not sure if I’ve already addressed this on this blog, but we’re going to go more in depth with it.
My current battle of the year has been bathroom usage. I don’t like using public gendered restrooms and haven’t since I came out as trans. I passed as a woman for quite some time, so I sucked it up and used the women’s restroom. It was so ingrained that even single-stall restrooms that were gendered, I’d use the women’s room. I don’t know where I picked that up, seeing as I’ve had cis women tell me that they’d use the men’s single stall restrooms if the women’s were in use. I never would have dreamed.
Flash forward to the night I spent in the library with a group of my friends. I got up the courage to use the men’s room because it was just us in the library at 4am in the morning. They were single stall restrooms, which helped, and opened hella doors to me.
I think the locker room incident was in the same year, or within a year, which kicked me so far back. If my friends couldn’t accept my presence in a male space, how were strangers supposed to? This was especially key when I didn’t pass at all. A single moment conditioned me that I wasn’t welcome in male spaces, that I didn’t pass as male, that I wasn’t seen as male, that I never would be seen as male. It colored my vision. I could never use men’s restrooms without men knowing I was an ‘intruder.’ I’m not an intruder.
I came out at my first job, at my previous job, and at my current job. My first job, I wasn’t taken seriously. My second job, I had changed my name legally, so people seemed to take me seriously (other than the fact that I didn’t choose an obviously ‘male’ name, as a supervisor had commented). The women tried to use the right pronouns (they messed up, understandable, I guess given that I didn’t pass as male, but they still corrected themselves. I often got ‘the apology,’ which was fine at the time. I appreciated the effort. I still appreciate the effort, but I don’t need the repeated apology speech). The men didn’t even try and I had one male who had issues regarding LGBT+ issues that I excused way more than I would anyone else because he had a shitty family situation, which I could relate to, somewhat.
Anyway, context, I had a boss who would ask questions, who I’d talk to about stuff regarding trans things. She was nice and understanding. She’d ask ignorant questions such as if I planned to get ‘the surgery.’ I tried to explain that that wasn’t the best way to ask, that many trans people don’t appreciate that question, but explained why I would love top surgery, but didn’t exactly plan on getting any ‘bottom’ surgery in my lifetime. It was a cute sort of ignorant rather than malicious. She didn’t mean it and she learned from it. Maybe about a few months before I left that job, she offered to put a lock on the men’s room, a small restroom, but not single stall, so I would be able to use the restroom of my gender. I never gave her an answer because things were getting so I didn’t even want to stay and I rarely used the restroom anyway. I don’t think I ever told her, but I appreciated the thought so fucking much. There’s not many who would have thought to ask or even thought of that solution or even just fucking thought of ‘it’ to begin with. I loved working with her and I miss her a lot. She mentioned that she’d had sensitivity training, which isn’t exactly a common thing here it seems, and honestly, that made such a fucking impact on me.
My current job, unfortunately, that wouldn’t be possible. We take inventory, so we go into different buildings daily. Everything changes. We’re there for maybe 8 hours at the most and then we’re gone for six months. I can’t ask them to make special accommodations for an 8 hour period for once every year or six months. So I just didn’t use the restroom and if (IFFFFFF) I had to, I’d quickly use the women’s restroom and hope like hell no one saw me. I think it was maybe five times in the first seven months???
Then I started hormones a couple months into this new job. Things started changing. My voice started changing. I started passing much better. I got male pronouns more than half the time from strangers. However, it still posed an issue given that my aunt who works at the same company, who helped me get the job, refers to me as ‘she/her.’ I was introduced to everyone as ‘she/her.’ Only after some time and some explanation to people who actually cared to listen was I accepted somewhat as male. I still get people misgendering me (I work with a lot of older cis gentlemen who have an issue with gendering me correctly, but we’re getting there, I guess. It’s a long process). I’m trying to get better about correcting people and people tend to refer to me as my ‘Riley’ or ‘they/them,’ which I will take over ‘she/her.’ It got so bad I was starting to associate ‘Riley’ with ‘she/her’ pronouns, but it’s getting better.
Anyway, it took some time. Probably 5-6 months in, I finally talked to a supervisor about my issues with using public restrooms. He actually talked to me about it, offered solutions where he could, and even offered (and did) talk to our manager about it. I was prepared to do it myself, even asked him to make time to talk to me about it, but apparently this supervisor took it upon himself to talk to our manager about it, which I was grateful (and super fucking surprised) for. There aren’t many cis men who would take the time and awkwardness to talk to an older man (our manager) about another person’s right to use which restroom. I was also super surprised to hear this manager, who’s clearly never had to deal with another trans person, say it shouldn’t be a big deal. I had already gone through the list several times:
“I’m a man, I should be able to use the men’s restroom. I pass more than half the time as a man. Our state legislation states that in public restrooms, I am able to use the restroom that I self-identify as. As long as there’s a stall, it shouldn’t matter. I would like to not use the women’s room because it makes me dysphoric. I should have access to a restroom for a variety of reasons, whether I need to get something to blow my nose with, or need a moment to myself, or need to fix my packer in private (something I REALLY, REALLY didn’t wish to bring up, js), or to simply just fucking pee. I’m starting to pass really well, women might have an issue with me in the women’s restroom.”
I went through this list so much in the week leading up to this. All to be let down after I was told ‘yeah, I was already talked to and I don’t think it’ll be an issue..” I was so fucking stressed and defensive. I was relieved, don’t get me wrong, but I also think I should have been part of the conversation. I’m the one it impacts. I still avoid public restrooms at work, not because of the staff of the store, but because of our staff (which always contains at least one male). I don’t feel like looking for the males on our team on the floor just to make sure I can use the restroom, if it isn’t single-stall. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I’m already uncomfortable enough for the both of us. I just want to pee (or arrange my goddamned packer because goddamn that thing is inconvenient). The last thing I want to do is see anything I’m not supposed to. Because let me tell you, I may be into men and women, both and neither (yay pansexuality), but I am not in the fucking restroom trying to get off. I just want to take care of what I need to and leave. It does not involve you.












