So, my girlfriend's wife and I were out camping at a national park last week. It was a wonderful trip full of stargazing and canoeing and slowly and painfully crawling out of a tent a little too small for my 6'4" frame. Just a lovely three days.
But on the first day, I had a bit of an experience. I usually wear a wig and breast prosthetics, but didn't bring either camping because I didn't want to damage them and would have nowhere to put the wig while I slept, so I was doing a little less to present as female. Still was wearing a skirt and blouse... my favorite skirt, the one I wear when I volunteer at the zoo. The first thing I've owned in my life that shows a little leg and I'm comfortable with... I'm about to trail off into rambling about my skirt.
Anyway, after a trip to the bathroom, I had a park ranger stop by our campsite. He parked behind our car, got out, asked if everything was okay, then said there had been complaints about a man in the women's restroom. I got very, very nervous, but explained to him that those complaints were probably about me, but that I'm a woman. Told him what "transgender" means, that I hadn't been able to get the gender on my license changed yet because that's a long and expensive process, and told him that I used women's restrooms in part because transgender women are among the groups most at risk of being assaulted. He apparently didn't know any of this before.
So he said that he would go tell the person who complained that there were no men in the women's restrooms, and that they didn't have anything to worry about. And my girlfriend's wife got the fire started and we had S'mores and a wonderful weekend, and I used the right restroom all week and nobody complained and everything went wonderfully.
Sometimes, people can learn.
