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.
Not a lot of empathy showing here Teach
And not a lot of a sense of reality either
Whatvyoubare saying is: you can’t use the ladies room, and if you use the men’s room you are somehow forcing something down your throat. Which sounds like something Trump would say.
How are you with her just pissing in the corner?
As a gay colleague told me years ago during the gay marriage wars, “They don’t hate gay marriage, they hate me and want me to hide.”
Crazy cons don’t hate transgender bathroom privileges, they hate the transgendered, and want them to hide.
Jeffrey wrote:
I do remember those days, oh, so long ago, when we were told that what people did in their own bedrooms was nobody else’s business. Then the homosexuals decided that wasn’t good enough, and that they had to tell everybody else what, and with whom, they did in their own bedrooms.
How, I wonder, am I supposed to know that a particular person is homosexual unless he goes out of his way to tell me?
Jeffrey wrote:
How would we even know who is ‘transgendered,’ if they aren’t so obviously the sex they were born?
John wrote:
Empathy means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I cannot answer for our esteemed host, but I certainly cannot “understand and share the feelings” of someone who is clearly delusional, and someone who doesn’t know and understand what sex he is, who thinks that he’s somehow the opposite sex from what he was born, is delusional.
In honor of Meredith Russo…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ScHTQ5uMs
Dana,
That’s the point. Why should someone hide that they are gay? We know, we know… you consider gay an abnormality, like red hair and pregnancy. But if you and your Mrs. can hold hands in public why is a lesbian couple “flaunting” their relationship and sexuality by holding hands in line at the store? They’re not telling you anything about what they do in the bedroom any more than you and your wife are. Just don’t support discriminating against them because they’re gay.
The same with the transgendered. They’ve been using bathrooms of their choice for a long, long time without any problems. And they could have continued except conservative legislators nationwide decided they needed a new campaign target.
Now, pigs like Huckabee and Gutfeld are saying if it had been “legal” when they were young they would have showered with the girls! So maybe you’re right. We had no idea that the only thing keeping conservative men acting civil and decent was their fear of the law.
In honor of Kleagle-dum:
http://image.toutlecine.com/photos/j/u/n/jungle-fever-1991-aff-1-g.jpg
Being that this is from the NY Times, I tend to doubt the veracity of the story.
On the one hand, the author states that his co-workers took the change in stride. Are these the same co-workers who stared at him in the rest room?
And as Tech points out, I doubt any boss would confront him like that.
The NY Times has long been famous for novelizing their stories – part fact, part speculation and mind-reading. You are absolutely right to suspect their honesty.
Actually, even in a big company, if another employee complained, a boss (with or without consulting HR or higher ups) might try to de-escalate the issue herself. It only escalates if Miss Russo objected to the proposed resolution, and it appears that she did not. I was a manager for years in a Fortune 500 company, (100,000 employees worldwide) and we always tried to handle things at the lowest level. Employee lawsuits are few and far between.
Where should Ann (The Man) Coulter pee? She looks like a man with a blonde wig. Have you checked “her” birth certificate?
And how about “Honey” Teach? Look at that picture. Do you really look like that – fine featured, long hair and gold jewelry? Do you need to shave?
JFK stated a long time ago he wanted to put a man on the moon, and now Obama wants to put a man in the women’s room. The scourge of president Zero continues.
Jeffrey wrote:
You can’t say that what you do in your bedroom is none of my business when you insist on telling me what you do in your bedroom.
If you see me walking down the street, you’d probably never give my sexuality a second thought. If, for some reason, you did wonder, you’d probably guess that I am normal, because I don’t go out of my way to put it out there.
So, how can I discriminate against someone for being homosexual unless he does something to tell me that he is homosexual? I can only act on the information I have, or perceive that I have. If someone puts out the information that he is homosexual, he is adding to the information I have about him, and adding information which could factor into any actions or reactions I have toward him.
Jeffrey fails to understand the distinction:
Because heterosexuality is the norm, with 98% of the population being heterosexual, walking down the street holding hands with my wife is really not going to attract much attention; it is a common, normal activity. Two homosexuals walking down the street holding hands will attract a lot more notice and attention precisely because it is such an abnormal situation.
Dana,
So you think it’s OK for heterosexuals but not gays to hold hands in public because there are so few gays.
What is the actual physical manifestation of your unease when you start to imagine what two strangers do in private? Don’t you find that to be an abnormal reaction on your part?
Do you tell the gays that you are displeased? Do you roll your eyes? Do you call them abnormal? Do you physically assault them? Or do you type about on right-wing blogs?
Dana typed:
They’re not telling you what they’re doing in the bedroom, you’re fantasizing about what they do.
And you think that they are abnormal? You imagining what gays do in private is abnormal.
Jeffrey suffers from reading comprehension difficulties:
No, I said that normal couples holding hands in public won’t attract much notice, because it is so common, while homosexual couples holding hands in public will draw more attention.
Conservatives do seem to be more concerned about the sex lives of others. Is there something lacking in their own ?
Most Anericans have changed their views about homosexuality it is no longer considered criminal (although Texas woukd like to change that)