We all wanted to know, and “Meredith” Russo tells us
(NY Times)Â I AM a trans woman, meaning I identify as a woman rather than the sex I was assigned at birth. I transitioned all at once in 2013 while working at a call center; one day I came in a man, and the next I came in a woman. Things went well at first, with co-workers taking it in stride and customers reading my voice as female, but then one of my bosses demanded to speak with me.
She wanted to talk about bathrooms.
“Have you had the surgery?†she asked. (Have you ever talked about your genitals with a superior at work? It’s not exactly a party.) I told her no. “Well, then, you’ll have to use the men’s until you do. We can’t risk a lawsuit.â€
I’m calling BS, because the vast majority of companies and bosses wouldn’t raise the issue without checking with HR and Legal, and having a representative of one or both present for that conversation. Not unless they wanted a potential lawsuit on their hands. And, if there’s a call center, there’s a pretty good chance the company is big enough to have HR and Legal.
I headed to the men’s room, where I waited for the solitary stall to open up. I considered going all punk rock, hiking up my skirt at a urinal and flipping off any man who looked at me funny. But there is probably no meeker creature on earth than a newly transitioned woman.
The man who emerged from the stall looked at me as if I were a jug of spoiled milk. I waited on the toilet until the bathroom was empty again, but as soon as I started washing my hands, another man entered. He looked at me for a long time and then made a beeline for the urinal next to the sink, inches away from me, his stare never breaking.
Uh huh. Perhaps they were wondering why someone with a pronounced Adams apple, who probably looked like a cross-dresser, was bringing their perversions to their place of business.
There was a lot of turnover at this job, so every two weeks a fresh batch of employees seemed to come in. This meant that every two weeks new men would come into the bathroom, assume they’d accidentally entered the women’s room when they saw me there, and then glare at me when they figured it out. Some insisted that I was in the wrong place — until they realized what I was, and got really angry. It got so bad that I stopped going to the bathroom at work altogether, and I developed urinary tract infections. So then I stopped drinking water before and during work.
That’s on you, “honey”. You made the choice to act on your confusion, but did not take the steps to do more than pretend you are a female. You’re attempting to force your “morals” on other people, who won’t necessarily cotton to them, and you’re being intolerant of their concerns.
That doesn’t mean it’s not still an issue when I have to use a public restroom. The fear is still there — that someone will take offense, get angry and attack me, or that I’ll be made to leave a business, that I’ll be accused of sexual misconduct, arrested and sent to men’s jail.
That’s the main thing I wish the supporters of these laws would realize: We are much more frightened of you than you are of us.
We aren’t frightened of the gender confused. We have serious concerns about them being in showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms with wives, girlfriends, and children. We’re annoyed by you trying to force your confusions down our throats, that you don’t give a damn about our concerns, that you’re being intolerant. And we’re very much concerned that your in-your-face push for forced acceptance will enable and embolden scumbags, esepcially pedophiles, to take advantage.
Just because you’re gender confused doesn’t mean we have to accept it.
