Not sure what to do, college

[AdamMLP]

Yesterday I had a pretty strange day at college where we were doing a taster day/health and safety course.  There was probably about 150 people there, split into three groups, and out of those there were only three females, one of them happened to be in my group.  I only knew one person, who wasn't in my group and one of the lecturers eventually recognised me, and there was another guy who had heard that I was on my previous schools girls rugby team, but everyone else was reading me as male, especially as it was in an almost exclusively male group.  Then my friend introduced me to someone else he knew as "Oh, this is ___, she's our lesbian, but we love her anyway."  I know that I'm not really able to go there as male because there are people who are going to let it slip, and my family ignore the whole thing, but I felt like I'm in limbo there, being read as male until I write my name down or someone talks about me.

And then there's the question about how I'm going to survive using the toilet there, because even if my whole class knows I'm "female" other people on different courses will still probably be reading me as male. I won't be at home from 7:45am until 5:30pm so there's not much chance of just not having to go.

I'm just kind of lost how to handle this whole thing.

[Bexi]

That sucks. I'd have a quiet word with your friend, just say how you're a guy and that his 'introduction' was unintentionally hurtful. He seem's to be a good person so i'm sure he'll understand and amend his ways.

Regarding the toilet situation, maybe you could wait until you have a break or go at lunch when nobody is around? I'm considering doing this when my semester starts back.

AND finally  If you have any concerns, like about your name or even the toilet issue, i'd have a word with your student counsellor. Most of them are nice people who are there to specifically help you and make your time at higher education tolerable. They could send out a memo to your teachers regarding your situation or maybe mention that you'd prefer to be known as "Mr Such-and-such" in the classroom? Just a thought.
X

[AdamMLP]

I should have probably made it clearer, but my parents aren't unsupportive, but they're not particularly supportive either so getting my name put down on records as Alec and male isn't something that's going to be very possible without lots of questions being asked at home.  I thought about trying to get people to just introduce me as a gender-neutral shortening of my name, but with my first name being short as it is and my last name unpronounceable to most people I couldn't see how.

I'll have to see how many people are around when I properly start there in September, as it was only the new students that had to attend yesterday and we were in a different building to usual.  I'll always be carrying an ID card so if I do use female toilets then I suppose I can just show anyone who freaks out that, in the same way that I always make sure that I have my passport on me when I'm using airport toilets (just about the only other place that I ever have to use public toilets).

I'm sure that they're normally nice people, but I've already fell out with one of them, who said that she was going to sort something out for me when I came in during my holiday to do a test and then left me sitting there for half an hour as she messed around and threw paper at her collegues before clearing off and going to lunch.  So I don't really have too much faith in them there

[Bexi]

Could you ask people to call you your preferred name? Like, "Hi my names 'Whatever' but most people call me 'Mr Bojangles'*". Most people are understanding and tolerant and im sure would get to know you as your chosen name. Sorry - before I meant the name change thing being informal, similar to above really, where you could ask your teachers/lecturers to call you Alec instead of the name on the register.

Yeah theres some advisors that are just *****s. In my first year of uni, I was in an 'altercation' and missed over a week in hospital. When I got back most of the people were fine about it but one of the counsellors asked for a note from my doctor  I was in crutches AND had half my face bandaged up! I wasnt a happy bunny!
X

*Oh and sorry for the rubbish made-up names  !

[Adio]

Addressing the bathroom issue (because it's really hard to control how other people introduce you--unless you jump ahead and do it yourself):  Is there a place near your college where you can go during break?  Petrol station, etc?  Might be an option for you at least for now.  Or a unisex/gender neutral/disabled/family toilet somewhere nearby.

[Jamie D]

Alec, I believe you will find many, if not most college students to be pretty open to your situation.  If confronted on the restroom issue, just say "Sorry, I'm in the right one."  (You didn't actually say which one used wanted to use.)

[Arch]

My grad uni has an LGBT center that posts a list of the unisex toilets on campus. If your school has an LGBT center, check out their site or ask about such amenities.

Even if the LGBT center has such a list, it might be incomplete. So regardless, I would take a few hours out to tour the campus myself, scour every building, and find any unisex toilets. Or, if there are no unisex bathrooms, find the toilets that people don't use very often. This means you would need to locate a lot of bathrooms beforehand, estimate how much traffic they get, and then, when the campus is busy, find out which ones really are low-traffic.

As for the name issue, some schools will allow you to add a preferred name in the computer. I would ask the registrar about options.

[mm]

Restroom use can be a problem when some students know your history and some do not.  I attend a large univ with many buildings.  I use the restrooms in a building in which I have no classes and students who know me are very unlikely to have classes there as well.   I also try to go when most students are in class so there are no or very few guys using them.  It does take some planning ahead of time to find restrooms.  I had an experience last year when I was attending a special lecture in an older building that I had never been in and had to ask the security person where they were.  She directed me to the men's I realize when I got there, I needed to go bad and didn't have much time so I went in even thought there were many guys doing the same.  I used a stall washed my hands after and left; no one said or looked at me strangely.  This was my first  and only experience with using one in a crowd.  I am on campus many days from morning until evening time and have had to change tampons some months in the restroom there.

[aleon515]

About the outing you. Yikes that's sucks. I actually don't begin to pass, but I also don't like getting misgendered. I am really assertive about it. If I were in a group, I'd say "Please call me ____" right away. Head it off at the pass, so to speak. I am actually almost aggressive (wonder what I might be like on T ). I had someone come to look at my roof. I knew I was in for many ma'ams. I said "Please call me ____" immediately. This is not the first time that people have been apologetic!

Get your name out there right away. (Probably didn't think was going to happen, but a good idea for a second time.) I'd also take my friend aside for future reference.

--Jay Jay

[AdamMLP]

Quite a few good suggestions have been made so I'm gonna respond to them all separately so I don't miss anything out.  I had a pretty triggering situation when I was in the library today as I was taking a book out and when you give them your library card they can see all the details about you and she wouldn't believe that it was my card until she asked me what my name was and I had to tell her my birthname.  She covered up fairly well, saying that she'd read the details on the screen wrong but it was still obvious that she was pretty flustered.  I know that I'm going to have so many more experiences like that over the next few years, especially at the start of college, which hit me pretty bad (I was actually crying and thinking bad thoughts as I was driving home).  So I'm not looking forward to it and need to sort something out.

Could you ask people to call you your preferred name? Like, "Hi my names 'Whatever' but most people call me 'Mr Bojangles'*". Most people are understanding and tolerant and im sure would get to know you as your chosen name. Sorry - before I meant the name change thing being informal, similar to above really, where you could ask your teachers/lecturers to call you Alec instead of the name on the register.

I might consider doing that, or start calling myself Alex which is unisex (I actually prefer that name and called myself it as a kid but my ex started going by that name and I was too bitter to use it straight afterwards), so there will be less questions if one person who knows me as female and another who knows me as male meet.

Yeah theres some advisors that are just *****s. In my first year of uni, I was in an 'altercation' and missed over a week in hospital. When I got back most of the people were fine about it but one of the counsellors asked for a note from my doctor  I was in crutches AND had half my face bandaged up! I wasnt a happy bunny!

Sorry to hear about that, there are some people who are just awful.

Addressing the bathroom issue (because it's really hard to control how other people introduce you--unless you jump ahead and do it yourself):  Is there a place near your college where you can go during break?  Petrol station, etc?  Might be an option for you at least for now.  Or a unisex/gender neutral/disabled/family toilet somewhere nearby.

I'll have a look, I don't know the area that well, but all I know of is a pub across the road which has quite a bad reputation so I'm not too keen on going in there.  I suppose I could check out the sports centre but I'm not sure whether they would kick off about people using their toilets and not their facilities/if you'd have to go into a members only area to get to the toilets.  I think there are some disabled toilets but I feel pretty bad using them as I have absolutely no right to them being an able-bodied person and in my mind I feel I'd get more abuse by using those than a gendered toilet (I don't know how true this is, just how I feel).

Alec, I believe you will find many, if not most college students to be pretty open to your situation.  If confronted on the restroom issue, just say "Sorry, I'm in the right one."  (You didn't actually say which one used wanted to use.)

I'd rather use the male ones, but I've never been confident enough to do so other than twice when I was on holiday, where I could be absolutely sure that no one who knew me would recognise me, and if I was questioned they'd think that my higher voice was an accent issue rather than because I'm FAAB.  The problem is that if I'm hanging around with people who know me from my old school/other situations then I'm likely to need the toilet at the same time as them and it'll probably get really awkward and he'll probably out me in there if he ever saw me there.  He'd certainly freak out the first time.  But then in the female ones they're going to go nuts if most of them read me as male, it was okay in my old school where we had uniforms with skirts and it was tiny so everyone knew each other, but even then I got a few second looks when I was in sports kit.

My grad uni has an LGBT center that posts a list of the unisex toilets on campus. If your school has an LGBT center, check out their site or ask about such amenities.

Even if the LGBT center has such a list, it might be incomplete. So regardless, I would take a few hours out to tour the campus myself, scour every building, and find any unisex toilets. Or, if there are no unisex bathrooms, find the toilets that people don't use very often. This means you would need to locate a lot of bathrooms beforehand, estimate how much traffic they get, and then, when the campus is busy, find out which ones really are low-traffic.

I don't know if they've got stuff like that there, I'm not sure how liberal they are, and even at my old school which had quite a high proportion of openly gay people they knew absolutely nothing about trans issues despite claiming that they did and ended up telling my parents that I had issues with my sexuality, which I really don't.  I'll probably have a look around the buildings for some lesser used toilets, but I've not actually been in the building which we're going to be using most yet, and won't have chance to until September. It's a pretty old and falling down place by the look of it so I'm not holding out much hope for many toilets in there unlike the newer buildings which have one in almost every corridor.  That said as it's probably mostly used solely for Engineering I might get lucky and find unisex toilets.  Sorry, I'm thinking out loud here.

[/quote]As for the name issue, some schools will allow you to add a preferred name in the computer. I would ask the registrar about options.[/quote]
It's possible I suppose, as long as they could not send letters to me using that name, my parents prefer to pretend that I'm over this whole thing and as there's nothing I can do medically for another two years I don't really see the point in making things really tense over it.  Although following the library incident I'm thinking that I might be wrong there, I'm not sure if I can cope with passing 80-90%of the time but having everything under a female name and "correcting" them for that long anymore :/

Restroom use can be a problem when some students know your history and some do not.  I attend a large univ with many buildings.  I use the restrooms in a building in which I have no classes and students who know me are very unlikely to have classes there as well.   I also try to go when most students are in class so there are no or very few guys using them.  It does take some planning ahead of time to find restrooms.  I had an experience last year when I was attending a special lecture in an older building that I had never been in and had to ask the security person where they were.  She directed me to the men's I realize when I got there, I needed to go bad and didn't have much time so I went in even thought there were many guys doing the same.  I used a stall washed my hands after and left; no one said or looked at me strangely.  This was my first  and only experience with using one in a crowd.  I am on campus many days from morning until evening time and have had to change tampons some months in the restroom there.

That might be one of my best bets, I suppose, although I'll probably still find it pretty risky.  There's only a handful of buildings here though so I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to get away from everyone I know, might have to take a trip up to the hairdressing section or something.  You've just reminded me of that awful time of the month.  It's bad enough dealing with that when using female bathrooms... joys.

About the outing you. Yikes that's sucks. I actually don't begin to pass, but I also don't like getting misgendered. I am really assertive about it. If I were in a group, I'd say "Please call me ____" right away. Head it off at the pass, so to speak. I am actually almost aggressive (wonder what I might be like on T ). I had someone come to look at my roof. I knew I was in for many ma'ams. I said "Please call me ____" immediately. This is not the first time that people have been apologetic!

Get your name out there right away. (Probably didn't think was going to happen, but a good idea for a second time.) I'd also take my friend aside for future reference.

He doesn't know any different so it was to be expected really.  I'm not sure if I want to explain it to him and risk losing the only friend that I have there, although I'm pretty sure he'd be cool with it, even if he didn't take me 100% seriously to start with.  The odd thing is, I didn't really mind being his "favourite lesbian" at my old school because that meant that it was somewhere where I could be open about my girlfriend instead of having to pretend to just be friends around my family and in the pub.  But the idea of getting my name out quickly might work as long as I can catch him first.

[Bexi]

Hey, I just learned about this via ->-bleeped-<-

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/transquat/id521546602?mt=8

Its a gender neutral bathroom location finder app (they should abbreviate that or come up with a snazzy name  ) which could solve your bathroom worries

x

[AdamMLP]

I've just looked on http://safe2pee.org which is basically the same thing but free and online and there seems to be nothing even in my county.  I live in a fairly rural area and I don't think things like this reach us very quickly.

[Icarus389]

If you're in a rural area, you might want to scout around campus for a private place outside. If there isn't a unisex bathroom around, I've resorted to this even in the middle of the city. Sometimes, there are no better options.