Bathing in Discrimination
Filed By Guest Blogger | December 13, 2012 10:00 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2012/12/bathing_in_discrimination.phpEditors' Note: Guest blogger Levi Pine is a trans man and a union organizer in Chicago who spends a lot of time with Fierce Ladies in housekeeping uniforms. He draws strength from his queer and union families, and he once wrote enough complaints to get a bunch of Tucker Max rape-culture-promoting ads removed from the L trains in Chicago.
I'm a transgender man - born female, now male. Earlier this year I wrote a blog post about what it felt like to be inducted into male spaces for the first time once I started passing as male consistently. This weekend I was ejected from a male space for the first time since I've been passing. It was humliating, enfuriating, and nonsensical.
I've been taking testosterone for about a year and I'm pretty hairy but otherwise intact as I came. This weekend, I was in my full hairy birthday suit in the men's wet spa area of King Spa & Sauna just outside Chicago when a fully clothed manager approached me. While I was naked, he asked me if I am male or female. I explained that I am transgender.
He both wasn't sure what I was talking about, and also wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to tell me about that, but he was pretty sure that people didn't want me there. He told me other customers had been complaining about me being in the men's area, and that they needed to move me to a private area.
