Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I got kicked out of the girls room today  ::)

Don't really pass, but apparently well enough that people have to do a double take to have any certainty about my sex...and freak out "OMG THERE'S A BOY IN THE GIRLS ROOM"
Not that I blame them :P I think I did that once when I was 10...

But.. um.. should I like try to avoid school bathrooms all together, or just avoid anywhere that's being used a lot (IE not the one by the caf at lunch)

haha, this is new. Happy, amused, and a little bit confused. Mostly quite amused by the whole thing.

I just don't really use the rest rooms at school.  I don't think I did once last semester.

Two of my classes this semester, however, are held in odd buildings [one in the scene shop, and one in a concert hall dressing room] both have gender neutral bathrooms, and luckily thats my long day.  I'll use those, or find the super shady bathrooms no one on campus uses.  When I do I use the mens room though. 

I suggest you should avoid situations where others become disturbed.

You want to fit in, to integrate.

Not be some pervert getting cheap laughs.

I used the boys' room in high school when I wasn't really passing. Guys at least won't get scared/freaked out at the presence of a female-bodied person as long as you're respecting their space and privacy (as you always should in mens' spaces). But if you have a sense that there could be physical danger, I don't recommend going alone; see if you can go when male-bodied friends go. And the more crowded, usually, the better; if anyone wanted to hurt you, they'd have to isolate you first.

If you just can't take that step yet, then try going to the girls' bathroom with a female friend, or going to low-traffic girls' rooms. You'll likely have to find some sort of solution other than not going to the bathroom; having female anatomy tends to make bathroom use non-optional.

I think this brings up the "obvious" question: "DUDE! WHY NOT YOU GOT TO THE GUYZ TOILETZ!?"

Quote from: spacial on February 17, 2010, 06:35:08 PM
I suggest you should avoid situations where others become disturbed.

You want to fit in, to integrate.

Not be some pervert getting cheap laughs.

If people become disturbed because someone else is doing what they need to do in order to go to the bathroom, that's their problem. If someone finds trans people taking a piss in their vicinity "disturbing," too bad. I don't care.

I hate having to use the girl's bathroom at school, so I completely avoid it unless absolutely necessary. If the girls are thinking there's a guy in the girl's room, you should probably stay away, just in case they say something to one of the people in charge. Just a thought though.

Quote from: The Unforgiven on February 18, 2010, 12:40:41 AM
I hate having to use the girl's bathroom at school, so I completely avoid it unless absolutely necessary. If the girls are thinking there's a guy in the girl's room, you should probably stay away, just in case they say something to one of the people in charge. Just a thought though.

Dude! use tha boyz toiletz!

My advise, just use the bathroom you feel most comfortable in! Who cares? If others are uncomfortable with someone using the bathroom, that's their problem, not yours!  Sorry, but I think people really need to get over it, everyone needs to use the bathroom, it shouldn't be a big issue!

If you feel more comfortable using the women's if you don't feel you pass well enough, then use the women's! If you would rather use the men's because you ARE a guy, then use the men's! Sad fact is, when you're still in that awkward 'in between' stage, you can have people whining no matter which bathroom you use!


I wish the 'family bathrooms' would catch on in more places, they really seem like the best idea in my opinion! You'd think they'd catch on especially for all the people with children! (even though I thought it was so cool to be 'allowed' to go into the men's bathroom when I was out with my dad when I was little! ha)

I hate this issue.  Luckily my department has two disabled bathrooms so I use those.  In public I try to look for disabled/family bathrooms or places with unisex/individual rooms.  If all else fails I will go in the ladies but be very quick and hide in the stall until any women in there leave.

It's really not ideal.

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on February 18, 2010, 12:27:32 AM
If people become disturbed because someone else is doing what they need to do in order to go to the bathroom, that's their problem. If someone finds trans people taking a piss in their vicinity "disturbing," too bad. I don't care.

In an ideal world toilets would be unisex.

But if your presence is likely to cause a negative reaction, as it did in this case, the best thing to do is avoid it.

Quote from: Myself on February 17, 2010, 11:57:19 PM
I think this brings up the "obvious" question: "DUDE! WHY NOT YOU GOT TO THE GUYZ TOILETZ!?"

DUDE THIS! (see quoted)

Quote from: Alistair on February 18, 2010, 03:34:31 AM
isn't a good idea. Unless you pass as what you are presenting.
School is one of these places. Only use the men's room if your school is in agreement that this is ok.

School figures it's a non issue right now. Yeah, right.
Next two and a half years are gonna be fun...


I was planning on saying something more intelegent, but i'm missing words right now.

Quote from: spacial on February 18, 2010, 05:33:15 AM
In an ideal world toilets would be unisex.

But if your presence is likely to cause a negative reaction, as it did in this case, the best thing to do is avoid it.

No, it's not. Using bathrooms is non-optional when you have a female body. Not only is there likely a week out of every month when you must have access every three hours or so (unless you can tolerate introducing even more female hormones into your body to prevent it) but even just on a daily basis, avoiding bathrooms poses serious health risks.

If you drink enough fluids but try to "hold it" till you get home, you're drastically increasing your risk of urinary tract infections that can lead to deadly kidney infections; if you restrict fluids, you're risking your kidneys and your heart. And during the red death, if you don't have access to a bathroom for six straight hours, you could be putting yourself at risk of toxic shock syndrome (tampons) or bacterial or fungal infection (external pads, especially improvised toilet paper ones).

Find a bathroom you can use - the one you're comfortable using - and use it when you need to. The absolute last thing you want is to develop a medical problem involving those parts. It's a truly miserable experience - both having one, and getting it diagnosed/treated.

Why would these situations be any more difficult in a unisex toilet?

You go into the stall, close the door and the world can go, wherever.

The point about unisex toilets is they stop being meeting places and become what they are intended for.

In some schools, which have introduced these, the space outside the stalls is limited. Making it uncomfortable for people to hang around.

I wasn't talking about your ideal world - I agree that unisex is the ideal. I was objecting to the advice you gave after that:
"if your presence is likely to cause a negative reaction, as it did in this case, the best thing to do is avoid it."
Practically, in the real world he lives in, that means not going to the bathroom - risking his health for other people's comfort. That's not ok.

Quote from: insanitylives on February 18, 2010, 06:27:54 AM
DUDE THIS! (see quoted)School figures it's a non issue right now. Yeah, right.
Next two and a half years are gonna be fun...


I was planning on saying something more intelegent, but i'm missing words right now.

DUD! I am having so much fun doing that :D
But anyways, I think that if the reaction he gets when going in the girls bathroom is "OMG! GUY IN THE GIRLS BATHROOMS! PERVERT! HELP! UHHHHHHHHHH!!!" then he is pretty much passing? O_o

You didn't mention what kind of school it is (high school or college, large or small).  This is just what I would do if it were me.

For high school and (very) small colleges:  If you're passing well enough that this is happening, have a talk with your school guidance counselor.  Let them know what happened and you would like permission* to use the men's bathroom (a carry letter from a therapist would help here).  This is all unnecessary if there are gender neutral bathrooms available or if your state allows you to use any bathroom you prefer regardless of legal gender.

For larger colleges:  Just use bathrooms (either men's or women's, whichever you feel most comfortable with) on a different part of campus.  Try to find the deserted ones that no one uses.  If someone sees you and/or asks you to leave, just look confused/lost and do it or just be confident and go about your business without being confrontational.

*I wouldn't word it this way though.  While you are asking for their permission, it shouldn't be asked like that.  It should be said it such a way that it makes it seem like there is no other option.  That's why a carry letter from a therapist is a good idea; it gives you and your request credibility.

When I went to high school, it was before I transitioned. I dropped out to transition. I got kicked out of the girls room several times in school, much to my amusement. Made me more confident that if I passed as a guy, or confused many people on my gender, people who I knew and went to school with...it would be no problem using the men's room anywhere else. And yep, it's no problem.

Quote from: kyril on February 18, 2010, 07:41:55 AM
I wasn't talking about your ideal world - I agree that unisex is the ideal. I was objecting to the advice you gave after that:
"if your presence is likely to cause a negative reaction, as it did in this case, the best thing to do is avoid it."
Practically, in the real world he lives in, that means not going to the bathroom - risking his health for other people's comfort. That's not ok.

Understand. But I was most certainly not suggesting anyone should not go to the toilet. Even if that were possible.

Whew Spacial that was harsh. When i came out as a lesbian it was still in the days when you got beat up for it and when you went to a club you had pint glasses thrown at you just for daring to be in the same room as 'normal' people. The youngsters here are living in a more tolerant society than we have ever known and that changes their perspective on things. Worries go from being will i end up in hospital tonight to which toilet should i use. But that doesn't invalidate their worries it just makes them different to what some of us lived thro. and yes their are some that will change their minds when it goes out of fashion and yes there are some that give others a bad name but you can't lambast all the young ones on the sight just because we had a hard time

I'm sorry, I don't mean to lamblast anyone or any group in particular.

But there do seem to be some who treat the whole experience as some sort of social rebellion.

Toilets are the most signifiicant issue. But the solution is to just back down. Ours is not a strong position yet.

On reflection the fashion TGs will probably treat that post as much of joke as everything else. I really hope that the majority of genuine TG people are not offended.

I really do.

I think I'll delete it.

Spacial, it seems to me that you've internalized a lot of negative, anti-trans bias from the dominant, mainstream culture. I understand that your life has been hard, and I respect that - I have two silver teeth because I was beaten up for being queer. I know what it's like.
I also understand that this is like so many other arguments within oppressed minority populations between people who want to cooperate with the dominant culture and people who don't.

However, I can't help but be enormously unnerved by your willingness to bend to the insecurities of gender-ignorant and gender-insecure people. Talking about the "sanctity" of gender-binary bathrooms implies that trans people are somehow unclean, that we violate sacred mores by our existence, that we ought to accept substandard lives - like the one you yourself have had to put up with - so that the cisgender folks don't have to deal with the awkwardness that is trans people.

And you know what? We do violate sacred mores - the sacred mores of the gender binary on which this society is built. That is fact, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, and it means that sometimes, we have to make other people uncomfortable in order to live our lives at an acceptable and tolerable level of comfort. There's just no way of getting around us.

Why demean yourself by talking about the concerns of "family values" groups as if they have any grounding in reality whatsoever? Those people think being transgender means being diseased, perverted, sick and twisted! Those people hate us and fear us, because we make them feel insecure, we undermine the foundations of their "traditional" patriarchy. That they are incredibly uncomfortable with trans people - in "their" bathrooms or anywhere else - tells me not that they have "legitimate concerns," but that they need to grow up and stop seeing life as a battle between the Real Americans and the evil outsiders (i.e., anyone who's not white, right-wing, Middle American and evangelical protestant). If people were comfortable with gender variance, there wouldn't be a "bathroom problem" in the first place. It's not like they have to watch us relieve ourselves! That's what stalls are for.

I find the idea that having a "TG persona" is "fashionable" laughable and ridiculous. Just because some subcultural artists here and there like to use trans imagery or themes does not mean that being TG is in any way fashionable or popular. I am an art student in San Francisco, so I should be in a pretty good position to say that transphobia exists even within "fashionable" and countercultural art circles. In fact, there's plenty of it in punk rock. Always has been.

Much of your rant seems to be aimed at genderqueer and intentionally nonbinary trans people such as myself, whom you seem to view as "posers" of some kind or insincere. Need I even mention how insulting this is? You clearly have had a difficult life as a result of being trans. Guess what? So have I, and so have many young, subcultural queers and trans people just like me. The idea that we're just using gender identity as a convenient way of "annoying the normals" is preposterous. I have made major, serious sacrifices in my life because of my gender identity.

I also find your disparaging comments about punk, your disgust with other people's sexuality, and your appeals to "normalcy" very telling. The idea of young gender-variant people being "perverted" and "creeps" shows the extent to which you're uncomfortable with gender variance yourself.

I don't want this to get any more emotional or heated; I understand that I'm perhaps going a bit far myself. However, I just have to make it perfectly clear that I am not genderqueer for a bit of a laugh, and neither is any gender-variant youth I know. Stop treating us like we're the boogeymen and phantoms of right-wingers' transphobic nightmares. We're not.

EDIT: It seems that Spacial has deleted the post I was replying to.