Unless you stumble upon some special progressive washroom configuration, there are always two choices for bathrooms- men or women, boys or girls, ladies or gentlemen, or, if you're in a beach themed restaurant, maybe it's buoys and gulls. As a person who presents gender ambiguously, bathrooms represent one of the ultimate demonstrations of how poorly I fit the mold or, I would argue, how poorly the mold fits people like me. I can go through most of the day without incident and then bam! there's the bathroom dilemma. Society's bathroom dyad asks me- are you sure you're a woman? Do you look like a thin line atop a triangle skirt?
Outside of queer spaces, I get nervous going into the women's room. This anxiety is not unfounded. I have had many incidents in the bathroom. They have ranged from benign elderly women asking me if they are in the right place to aggressive, intoxicated cisgendered heterosexual women at straight clubs invading my personal space and verbally harassing me. I still have not figured out a response that I feel comfortable articulating in these situations.
I want to recount my most recent bathroom incident because a) it wasn't hostile and b) I think it explains something really interesting about people's reaction to the presence of person with a variant gender expression in 'their' bathroom.
I was eating dinner and having drinks at a restaurant in Vancouver that hosts musical performances. When I went to the bathroom, there were two women around 60 years old in there standing by the sink. One of them gave me a prolonged look as I entered. She then turned to her friend and said, "Is there a men's washroom?" Her friend answered that there was. She next asked, "Are we in it?" Her friend answered that no, they were not. I laughed a little because it seemed ridiculous at the time and walked into a stall.
Her basic line of thought upon seeing me was: Are you in the right place? Am I in the right place? And if we're both in the right place- how?
I find this confusion interesting because it really underscores the gender policing that happens on a daily basis. People have such rigid notions of 'woman' and 'man' that the presence of a person who opens up that construct or maybe openly defies it is threatening. But really, what would be so terrifying about a non-woman entering the woman's washroom? There is a tremendous amount of fear of the Other fueling people's responses.
What do you think are good (read: appropriate, educational, witty, empowering) responses for bathroom confrontations?
I find it disturbing that these women would actually make these comments out loud. One would hope that by the time an individual has spent 6 decades on the planet, they would have gained some wisdom and understanding of respectful behavior toward another human being, regardless of their appearance.
ReplyDeleteThese women could have been the obnoxious 13-18 year olds I went to high school with, along with the obnoxious 18-22 year olds I went to college with, and the many petty, shallow women (and by shallow, I simply mean narrow-minded and uncultured) women who make up the portion of our population I do my best to avoid.
for me, any time a person seems like they want to make me uncomfortable, i feel somewhat threatened. i think this is one thing that can be threatening about a "non-woman" being in a women's restroom-- the question of, well are they doing it to defy me, or make me uncomfortable? are they challenging me to say something? if i saw someone that i read as being a cis man (a person who to me would have no reason to be there) in the women's bathroom i would feel threatened. so if for me it would take seeing "a man" in the bathroom to feel uncomfortable, other peoples threshold for gender policing is lower. i think feeling confusion and feeling challenged and feeling uncomfortable can all be really related.
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