JACE JACOBS
Special to The Leader
Going to the bathroom is something so completely mundane that most people don’t give it a second thought. For some of us, however, going to the bathroom is anything but mundane; it’s terrifying.
In the world of transgender and gender-expansive people, using the bathroom can be the difference between a normal day and an awful day, and in extreme cases, it can be the difference between life and death. With the intense and ongoing debate about transgender people using the bathroom across the nation, it is time for us to examine the situation on our campus.
As a transgender man, using the restroom is an extremely difficult thing to do while on campus. On a typical day when I’m traveling between classes, there’s only one gender-neutral bathroom available for me to use between point A and point B on my journey. If that bathroom isn’t open (which is more often than not), I speed walk to the building my class is in, throw my stuff down on my desk, and head for the most terrifying place on campus for me: The men’s restroom.
On my walk to the bathroom, I have to start thinking about making a plan of action. If there are men at the urinals, don’t look or make eye contact. If they look at me for more than two seconds they’ll figure out what I am. If there are no stalls available, act mad and leave, like a normal guy would, then walk down the hall to the next men’s bathroom and go through the same plan.
If there’s someone in the first stall, take the second stall, but keep your pants pulled up as high as you can in case you need to get out of there fast. Then wait for the person next to you to do their business and leave. If they won’t leave, fake it til you make it. Wipe a few times. Make it seem like you did the same thing that they’re doing. If you come out of the bathroom and someone is at the urinal and they look at you, give them the “sup” nod. Like “real” men do. Don’t take too long washing your hands, men don’t care about that. Then just leave as casually as you can, like nothing just happened.
That’s the process for days that I choose to dress more masculinely. But on days where I wear jewelry or makeup or a light-colored sweater or patterned pants or leggings or anything else that isn’t stereotypically male, the process that I go through becomes worse — if you’re that worried that you won’t pass as male, just hold it. Or go in the middle of class when no one else will be in there. Or, act gay even though you’re not. Or just try to own it and try to recall the self-defense skills you learned in high school, or keep your keys in your hand while you walk in and out, or take off your jewelry, or keep your jacket on, or just try to walk super masculinely and talk super deep or pull your mask below your nose and mouth to show you have facial hair or…
Although my list of preventative tactics seems infinite, it’s quite the opposite, and there’s no proof that these tactics will work in my favor and keep me safe. This is the sad reality of being a transgender person, especially on a campus with a lack of facilities open for trans and gender-expansive students to use in academic buildings.
So many trans people end up with UTIs and other similar physical health issues because they either choose not to go to the bathroom at all or have no bathroom they feel comfortable using.
On the SUNY Fredonia campus, we have a decent amount of gender-neutral bathrooms. Decent is good, decent is better than none, but decent is the bare minimum. I was recently made aware that there are gender-neutral bathrooms “hidden” in some academic buildings. Why aren’t these bathrooms public knowledge? Why are trans students being forced to risk their health and their safety to complete a basic human function?
When I sit in a classroom close to a men’s restroom in a building where I am unaware of gender-neutral facilities, I have an internal debate about whether or not I can hold it for an hour, or if I feel like interacting and challenging cisgender men by just being myself.
Having this talk with myself daily has become exhausting, so much so that it begs the question trans people have been asking for years: Why are trans people, particularly trans people on this campus, scared of interacting with cis people in bathrooms?
When it comes to transgender people using bathrooms, there’s a long history of trans people getting attacked and even killed. Trans women of color are always the most targeted, and people say that trans women are men in dresses attempting to prey on children. Trans men are seen as an easy target for multiple forms of violence. They’re just women dressed as boys, right? They’re easy to take down. And gender-expansive people have been seen as being beyond human comprehension. All of these groups of people are prone to so much hatred that they have begun to expect it anywhere they go.
As a trans man, this is what I think people think about me. When I walk into a bathroom with a body that looks more feminine, I feel like I am clocked immediately. I’ve been met with stares when walking into and out of the bathroom before. I just have to pee. I don’t want to be seen as a threat, and I don’t want to feel threatened. Transgender people use the bathroom for the same reason as everyone else does, so why can’t we be treated the same way?