I’ve suspected since early last November that I was going to be arrested for something in 2017, I just didn’t know quite what. I think I know now.
I’m going to be arrested for using the wrong bathroom. And I hope you’ll join me. Old ladies, this is a call to action.
The transgender bathroom issue has troubled me for some time. I’m still living my gender assigned at birth, comfortably, and no one in my family is struggling with their gender identity as far as I know. But that’s the point really. It can’t fall to those who are being discriminated against to do the job of standing up against prejudice. It really has to be the ones unaffected.
Those of us who walk up to the choice of “male” or “female” and feel welcome and unafraid inside the one we enter. Those of us whose kids don’t have to be sent to the nurse’s office to change for PE. We are going to have to step up. Well: Sit down. Old ladies, are you with me?
It’s going to have to be the old broads. We’re going to have to cross the modern equivalent of the “color line” and start using “male” bathrooms. Gross. I know. But still.
The writing’s on the bathroom wall, my friends. We are going to have to stop designating public bathrooms by gender. It’s going to be uncomfortable and weird. And the ones who are going to have to do it first are those of us who are least likely to get punched for it: old women.
Think about it: There is nothing but custom to keep me, a 56-year-old woman who dresses like a woman, from walking into public restrooms labelled with the non-dress-wearing stick figure. No one will dare, I’m guessing, look at my grandmother-like demeanor and ask me to show my genitals to prove I can go in. No one is going to ask for my birth certificate, either. And if someone DID, well, they’d have to deal with my matronly face of disapproval. Because I’m a mom. I’ve been a mom for a long time. And I know how to deal with immaturity and insecurity and lost causes.
“Why are we, in the U.S., going through this weird drama over public toilets? Transgender people have been peeing forever: It’s not new.”
Why are we, in the U.S., going through this weird drama over public toilets? Transgender people have been peeing forever: It’s not new. This isn’t an issue because a bunch of activists are causing a fuss, this is an issue because some people are being brave enough to be themselves, finally, and it has revealed the foolishness that gendered bathrooms really is. What’s new is learning that our segregation by gender is weird, when we probably should have figured that out before. You can’t tell by looking at someone if they are transgender, so what people are really losing their marbles over is what you should not be looking at anyway: Didn’t your mother tell you that?
We really care a lot about your genitals, people. We throw gender reveal parties because we think it is the most important fact about you. We think gender is as obvious and black and white as, well, black and white. We haven’t stopped to think about how that sort of “separate but equal” idea worked out for us in the past. We confuse gender with sexuality and that scares us. We believe in some sort of magic spell where separating the genders keeps the weirdos and predators away. We think public bathrooms are about public issues, but we forget that bathrooms are about private things.
Here’s what old women know: We know that when you’ve got to use the bathroom you HAVE TO USE THE BATHROOM. If I could have a frequent wee-er card I could throw away all my frequent flier miles in a month. We older women are Gold Standard Premium level toilet users. Do not get between us and the porcelain bowl. And I’m not showing you my parts first, either, you creeper.
I know this, too, with the benefits of age: that when this old lady thinks of someone being harassed in a bathroom for having or lacking the right genitals I am extremely clear that this is no one’s business and the problem is those who care so much. If your drapes don’t match the upholstery, that’s nobody else’s never mind. And match-y match-y went out in the ‘80s.
This old lady also has enough of a memory to know that people used to hiss and spit over what bathroom people used because of the color of their skin. The idea of urinating in the same room as someone different has caused fighting and fainting before. You know what: We got over it. We’ll get over this. There are countries where you could die for choosing the wrong door: This isn’t it. Yet, at least.
So, with new laws and Supreme Court rulings in the works I have hatched a plan. I think it is genius. That us old ladies start occupying bathrooms. Just by using them. It’s like the Sneeches story we read our kids: If you mix and switch enough everyone loses sight of why the distinctions mattered. Distinctions that don’t matter, and never really did. And we can get back to just peeing.
I’ve chosen what is going to get me arrested in 2017. Because this year we’re all going to stand up for something enough to cause a fuss. I never thought I’d be a Rosa Parks of toilets, but the cause is just and I’ve got a tiny bladder.
