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aidenonymousGaah! Reading about this made me feel a little ill just now. I actually love the idea of this event, giving cis folks (and maybe binary-identified trans people) an idea of what it's like to be transgender, and especially non-binary identified. But when I read the description, it reminded me of my own cowardice and the toll taken by "the path of least resistance." I would not be able to take this challenge right now!
Obviously I use ungendered restrooms whenever possible, but since graduating, I find them few and far between. When I was at school, I mostly encountered gendered bathrooms far from campus (i.e. road trips. etc.), so I felt pretty comfortable using the men's room when given a choice; however, I don't feel comfortable using the men's room in most situations where I live now because there are so many people around, and I know that I'm almost always misgendered. Additionally, there are no ungendered restrooms where I work, where I'm closeted, so I have to use the women's room there. In an effort to avoid it, I've endured the 90 minute commute home with an uncomfortably full bladder. In the two months I've been working there, I've only used the restroom perhaps four times, each preceded by a fair bit of worrying.
One thing I feel especially guilty about is using the women's locker room at the gym. Since there's a semblance of seasons here in the Bay Area, I can't show up to the gym in my workout clothes like I always did in So. Cal. I initially started using the women's locker room as a temporary "deal" with myself, just for a couple months until the weather warmed up enough to show up in my gym clothes, but after three months I'm getting impatient. Aside from restrooms, the locker room is the only women-only space I've been in since I was in high school, and I'm really uncomfortable there. (Yoga classes in college do not count because they were technically co-ed, just that very few men showed up anyway, so they only felt like women-only spaces and were rather explicitly not.)
Anyway, I feel like I don't belong there and someone's going to figure it out, even though that's not likely because I don't pass worth a damn -- even less so when working out because I usually trade in my binder for a sports bra, so the men's locker room is right out. I feel a little better every time I see another masculine-presenting (but still fairly obviously female-shaped) person in the women's locker room, because I can see that no one's staring at them or looking uncomfortable in their presence. But "passing" as a cis woman is possibly worse, because they're all in there without their clothes because of some kind of trust with the other strangers they perceive to be female, and I don't desire or deserve that trust. I change in a stall and try not to look at anyone, but I'm also uncomfortable hearing conversations they probably wouldn't have outside the locker room where men could hear (about pregnancy, body image, etc.).
Writing this made me think about women's clothing. . . Aside from underwear one week out of the month and sports bras, the only women's clothing I wear is pajamas. I feel like I used to wear more feminine stuff, but I think it's actually that I used to wear my pajamas out in public when I was a student and I obviously don't do that anymore. I haven't bought pajamas since middle school, and any that I've gotten since then have been combinations of gifts from well-meaning relatives (okay, mostly my mom) and retired T-shirts from my horrendously large collection. And they're not super-feminine or anything like that, just generic plaid pants in women's sizes with an irritatingly girly drawstring and girl T shirts I didn't feel like getting rid of. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's worse to see myself wearing this stuff in the mirror first thing in the morning or to see myself naked (and possibly very cold) in the mirror first thing in the morning. /-:
Obviously I use ungendered restrooms whenever possible, but since graduating, I find them few and far between. When I was at school, I mostly encountered gendered bathrooms far from campus (i.e. road trips. etc.), so I felt pretty comfortable using the men's room when given a choice; however, I don't feel comfortable using the men's room in most situations where I live now because there are so many people around, and I know that I'm almost always misgendered. Additionally, there are no ungendered restrooms where I work, where I'm closeted, so I have to use the women's room there. In an effort to avoid it, I've endured the 90 minute commute home with an uncomfortably full bladder. In the two months I've been working there, I've only used the restroom perhaps four times, each preceded by a fair bit of worrying.
One thing I feel especially guilty about is using the women's locker room at the gym. Since there's a semblance of seasons here in the Bay Area, I can't show up to the gym in my workout clothes like I always did in So. Cal. I initially started using the women's locker room as a temporary "deal" with myself, just for a couple months until the weather warmed up enough to show up in my gym clothes, but after three months I'm getting impatient. Aside from restrooms, the locker room is the only women-only space I've been in since I was in high school, and I'm really uncomfortable there. (Yoga classes in college do not count because they were technically co-ed, just that very few men showed up anyway, so they only felt like women-only spaces and were rather explicitly not.)
Anyway, I feel like I don't belong there and someone's going to figure it out, even though that's not likely because I don't pass worth a damn -- even less so when working out because I usually trade in my binder for a sports bra, so the men's locker room is right out. I feel a little better every time I see another masculine-presenting (but still fairly obviously female-shaped) person in the women's locker room, because I can see that no one's staring at them or looking uncomfortable in their presence. But "passing" as a cis woman is possibly worse, because they're all in there without their clothes because of some kind of trust with the other strangers they perceive to be female, and I don't desire or deserve that trust. I change in a stall and try not to look at anyone, but I'm also uncomfortable hearing conversations they probably wouldn't have outside the locker room where men could hear (about pregnancy, body image, etc.).
Writing this made me think about women's clothing. . . Aside from underwear one week out of the month and sports bras, the only women's clothing I wear is pajamas. I feel like I used to wear more feminine stuff, but I think it's actually that I used to wear my pajamas out in public when I was a student and I obviously don't do that anymore. I haven't bought pajamas since middle school, and any that I've gotten since then have been combinations of gifts from well-meaning relatives (okay, mostly my mom) and retired T-shirts from my horrendously large collection. And they're not super-feminine or anything like that, just generic plaid pants in women's sizes with an irritatingly girly drawstring and girl T shirts I didn't feel like getting rid of. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's worse to see myself wearing this stuff in the mirror first thing in the morning or to see myself naked (and possibly very cold) in the mirror first thing in the morning. /-:
