I clearly recall the first time my perceptions of the gender binary were challenged in a public restroom. The year was 1997 and I was vacationing with a friend and his partner in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I wasn’t married yet and didn't have kids. My friends and I had decided to hit the town that evening and check out a drag show at a popular gay bar. It was my first drag show and I was excited. It, however, never even dawned on me that there was a possibility that I would be sharing public pee space with a drag queen, let alone how I would feel about it.
At some point in the evening prior to the show, Nature called. Upon entering the women’s restroom, I was met with a participant of the show who was getting ready to go on stage. Stunned, I remember thinking “Is this ok? This person is a man and is in the wrong bathroom! Or wait, maybe I made a wrong turn?”
“Hi there!” she greeted me warmly, apparently oblivious to my apprehension.
While my trans-virgin brain attempted to process the information and the situation before me, my body went into autopilot and guided me to a stall. Once in the stall, I heard her murmur, “Damn eyelash! These things never go on right.” Not sure whether to respond or not, I muttered some kind of agreement over the stall door, which was totally ridiculous since I had never put on a false eyelash in my life. We chuckled cordially and I proceeded to try to do my business. But, truth be told, I was quite uncomfortable, even though I rationalized that I had no reason to be. She was also a woman –with boobs (!)—just like me, and she wouldn’t take advantage of me. Would she?
The anticlimactic ending to this story was that I finally got past my own stage fright (of sorts), hurried out of the restroom, and rejoined my friends, all without incident. Ultimately, I relaxed and enjoyed a wonderful show.
Fast forward thirteen years to Labor Day weekend 2010 where I found myself at the annual Gender Spectrum Family conference in Berkeley, California. Over 50 exceptional families full of love, gratitude, and acceptance swarmed the Double-Tree Hotel for three very memorable days. Children on the gender spectrum were all around giggling gleefully as though it were Christmas morning. Most of the parents who were present would have been considered “gender normal” but there were plenty of others who very definitely exercised their own unique expression.
Upon checking in at the registration booth, I was informed that the two restrooms provided for the conference had been converted to “gender neutral” for the duration of the event—meaning, either gender could use either restroom (which had once been men’s and women’s specific) the entire weekend.
Before I continue with this story, let it be known that in theory, I fully supported this action. It represented everything we were there for that weekend—full inclusion not based in biological gender assignments or binaries. It was the right thing to do by the conference organizers. However, what I came to understand was that in practice, it wasn’t quite that simple for me.
In between workshops on the first day, I nonchalantly strode into one of the ungendered bathrooms. As soon as I entered, I realized I was in what would have otherwise been the men’s room. For, on the walls were several urinals, one of which was actually occupied.
In addition to feeling immediate embarrassment, I mentally locked up similar to my encounter in Puerto Vallarta. In spite of my rational mind knowing it was ok for me to be there, peeing in the same room as a person of the opposite gender just felt… weird. Forty-one years of recorded messages about “appropriate behavior for boys and girls” played back, rendering my ability to re-record a progressive message over pretty tough—even though I was trying hard and even though I unconditionally accept Alex for who he is as a gender nonconforming child.
Once again relying upon auto-response, I made haste to one of the separate, enclosed stalls and completed my business with as much composure and speed as I could muster. I desperately wanted out, and I longed for the comfort and ease of “my” gender-specific bathroom. At the risk of exposing my shame for saying so, the whole experience just left me feeling uneasy to my very core.
As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Over the course of the next few days, I heard comments about what it was like to share bathrooms with mixed genders. One nineteen year old transman joked that he never realized until he transitioned that an understood code of conduct among men was to never talk in the restroom! This brought on howls of laughter among the men in the audience, and blank stares and looks of curiosity among the women. But of course, transmen, transwomen, transboys, and transgirls have all lived and learned this lesson. Hard-core. First-hand.
After several months of reflection, it has finally occurred to me that there is something for me to learn from my reactions and recoil that I felt on both of these occasions. Perhaps my “take away” from it all is that children like my Alex as well as all gender nonconforming individuals feel that same uneasiness every single day, every single time they must make a gender binary selection—whether to use a restroom, or to fill in a bubble on a Scantron form, or to enroll in a gymnastics class. I was hit with the realization that so many of our daily decisions are based in the binary.
Like most other gender nonconforming kids, Alex has had his own bathroom issues to deal with. Last summer, when we were considering whether to send him to our area’s most Awesome Summer Camp, the question at the tips of our tongues was whether he would have access to a gender neutral bathroom like he did during the school year. If not, he would need to make a decision to attend The Awesome Summer Camp as a boy so that he could use the boys’ restroom, or else “as himself” and have the camp counselors lock/unlock a separate bathroom each and every time he had to go. Although he fully presented himself as a girl in attire, he did not insist on changing his pronoun usage and, in fact, still went by his birth (and male) name. Ultimately, Alex determined it would be easier to stifle his gender expression and wear boy clothes to The Awesome Camp—all so that he didn’t draw attention to the fact that he would use a separate, special bathroom that the other kids weren’t allowed to use.
It’s somewhat comforting to know that schools and some organizations are taking calls for action against this imbalance in our society seriously, and promoting the need for gender neutral bathrooms. The more exposure to and compassion for gender nonconformity we have, the more people will feel freer to express their true inner selves. The more we see this freedom and right exercised, the more we will realize that binary definitions of gender are a completely fabricated construct perpetuated by fear and hatred. But we’re not there yet. Not even close. Even with so many motivating reasons why I should personally be ok with sharing a bathroom with a man, I struggle. I recognize that it takes “practice” and more exposure to normalize the concept of blended gender restrooms.
When I ponder the notion of what it would feel like if it was actually me who constantly felt out of place, I can’t help but feel deep compassion for people who experience the emotional dilemma that comes with falling outside the norm and being denied the basic acknowledgement of person—of self—in order to perform even the most basic bodily function. For the people in our society who have not found this compassion within themselves yet, and who even go so far as to harass and condemn transgender people “in the name of God,” I have to believe that it is part of their own journey toward enlightenment. Rooted in fear, greed, conformity, and compliance, two-dimensional and archaic mindsets on life, government, religion, and people simply cannot sustain our forward momentum as a species on this planet. Knowing this gives me hope that someday, even the most unmoving hardliners will realize the beauty they’re missing in all the glorious shades our species has to offer.
In the name of benefiting a group of over-looked, but otherwise entirely capable, creative, and upstanding members of our society, in 2011 I resolve to do my part in raising awareness starting by seeking out gender-neutral toilets and peeing alongside my fellow (hu)man. Will you?
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Patti Green
Green Pumpkin
binarysubverter
megwc
Sarah Hoffman
Sparking
Salon.com
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But now all the dorms were co-ed. Roommate assignments were single-sex, but there were no designations of particular suites or areas to any particular sex. Bathrooms were shared between students from multiple nearby suites.
Which meant that all dorm bathrooms were co-ed. That's right. We showered, we shaved, we did our business in fully co-ed bathrooms. The shower stalls were made of this amazing real limestone full of interesting fossils to look at while pooping, and they afforded a lot of privacy.
As far as I know, no one ever had a problem with this arrangement in the four years I was a student there. In fact, I barely even noticed or thought about it. Really, nothing seemed amiss.
After I finished, I attended an even older university for graduate studies. My first year there, I stayed in a graduate dorm, which consisted long hallways with single rooms and one big bathroom on each floor. This dorm was also built before the co-ed revolution.
Although these two schools were just a few hours apart by car, attitudes and policies here were very different. At this school, maintaining single sex bathrooms was an important matter. How was this matter resolved, with only one bathroom on each floor? Well... bathrooms were designated male or female on alternating floor for the first semester, then switched for the second.
I was frankly rather irritated. We'd never had even one problem or incident with co-ed bathrooms as an undergraduate. And now I was being asked to expend extra energy climbing stairs to solve a problem that, frankly, I did not even know existed. The biggest surprise was that the whole issue was presented in such a way as if --- OF COURSE --- it's obvious that maintaining single-sex bathrooms in a dorm was important. Sorry, it was not obvious to me.
I guess that different cultures have different values, and there are many ways to make things work.
For the purposes of restrooms, I qualify nominally as male. But I'm also a parent, and I do a significant part of the child care (and my kid is wonderful amazing, but don't get me started). Eventually, I end up in a public place needing to change my child's diaper. Where do I go to do it?
The most enlightened and forward-thinking places put changing tables in all bathrooms --- airports, IKEA, etc. Even better, some offer "family bathrooms" --- essentially private facilities with a changing table. When you're loaded down with bags and your kid, that privacy is REALLY nice.
Unfortunately, some places --- even some that are newly built --- adhere to traditional sexist roles. Meaning... no changing table in the men's bathroom, even if there is space for one. Involved fathers aren't a new idea, you would think you'd only find this in small or out-of-date places. But no. Retrograde examples include one suburban town's lavish performing arts center built within the past 10 years; and a 100 seat+ restaurant we frequently visit that was renovated just this year.
What do I do in that case? I generally choose among one of the following options, sometimes at random:
a) Knock on the women's restroom, if no one answers, then go inside and get to work changing my kid's diaper. If anyone comes in while I'm changing the diaper and gives me a dirty look... well, isn't it obvious why I'm in here?
b) Change the kid on the floor outside in the hallway.
c) If there's enough counter space in the men's bathroom, just change her there (but that's tricky).
If people don't like to see (a) or (b), then they should complain to management. This is an issue of restroom equality just like any other.
Thanks for posting. Like you, I struggle with the "correct" response to things, altho my struggles have been different. Interestingly, in college we had co-ed bathrooms and I never blinked an eye. At our conference in Philly I did tend to use the original female bathrooms, as did most of the more feminine people there, while the more masculine did use the original mens' rooms.
I agree there should be gender neutral bathrooms, and these are often integrated with those for people with disabilities. That said, I hope all those who identify as different from their natal gender can go to their bathrooms of choice.
That next summer, dressed for camping, I came out of 'the bathroom' to comments from those waiting in line that I had mistakenly gone into the 'wrong' (womens) bathroom. I guess gender-neutral dressing hadn't caught up with the times.