I Wish I Knew Why

 

Image from Anderson Rian
on UnSplash.

It is not like I am new to being out in the world as my authentic feminine self, so I don’t know why I feel certain ways.

One of them happened this morning when I needed to take our car to the shop to get the oil changed before we take a rather lengthy trip to my old hometown later this week. As I have written before, I am still fearful of going by myself to any male dominated businesses.

I think it goes all the way back to when I was a kid when I used to go with my dad to an auto parts business a friend of his owned. There were never any women, and I felt totally out of place. At the time, I felt it was because I was young at the time and I would grow out of feeling self-conscious there. But now I think, it could have been my inner female rebelling at the ideas of being around all that intense masculinity.

Back to this morning, even though I did get an early start, I wanted to be there when they opened at 7:30 AM to get my paranoia over with. I was worried since we are headed into a holiday weekend, they would be busier than they were. Which was a moot point, since I had to figure out what I was going to wear, shave, put on my light makeup and head out the door. After doing all of that, I was still out the door by eight and still was able to get right into the oil change location.

Since I would not be getting out of the car for either of the places I could go ultra casual and wear my jeans along with my “Libra” themed burgundy tank top which I wear with my long hair pulled back so it softly falls over my shoulders which is my revenge for having to cut my hair extremely short when I was young and even later when I was in the Army. I am very fortunate in that I have never had any male pattern baldness, so I have always had a great head of hair.

It turns out all my paranoia was unfounded as none of the male workers did anything out of their way to make fun of me and were professional in every way. Before I knew it, I was on my way and breathing normally again. On my way to my nest stop at my wife’s Liz and I’s favorite coffee shop to pick up coffee and a light breakfast. Other than having coffee and food we like, the coffee shop also has a LGBTQA+ flag proudly on one of their walls. Again, the person who served me was very nice and put me at ease.

On the way home, during my short trip trying out the world again as an independent transgender woman, I was wondering if changing my estrogen HRT patches out today had anything to do with my moodiness about going out in the world alone. Friday, when I make a much longer trip back to my old hometown, Liz will be going with me as I must pick up more copies of my name change documents from all the way back to 2015.

Sadly, I have more negative memories of my hometown than good ones, but I need the legal copy with the judge’s signature on it for a life insurance policy I forgot so long ago. I can procrastinate with the best of them!

To make a small joke about my visit to have the oil changed this morning is that all my fluid levels turned out to be OK. Maybe the true win was to realize what the basic reason I still fear going into male dominated spaces so badly. It is a deep-seated problem which goes back to my youth which makes it very difficult to get rid of.

 

 

 

When Gender Makes a Restroom Call

 

Women's Restroom 
from UnSplash,

Quite early when I began to leave my gender closet behind and navigate the public, it became evident that I would have to do something about how I was going to use the women’s restroom.

Initially, I had two problems and one benefit to deal with. The two problems I dealt with were the forms of liquid I was digesting, beer and coffee. Both of which did not want to stay in my body long, so I had to use the restroom more often than I normally would. The benefit I had was I had had many occasions to be in the women’s room as a man when I managed my restaurants. Sadly, I learned that ciswomen were not the fastidious gender I thought they were as I cleaned up many messes and tried to unclog stopped up toilets when there were trash receptacles nearby for sanitary products. So, I was prepared when I ran into a mess in a women’s room when I entered for the first time as a novice transgender woman.

On the other hand, I recognized the seriousness of entering a women’s only space and set out to be prepared. Naturally, I learned many lessons I added to those I already knew. Out of the many things I learned was I needed to flip totally the male idea that no one looks at another man at all in the restroom. Whereas, as much as I did not want to, I needed to smile and acknowledge other women in the restroom because that was the right thing to do. Little did I know, I was just getting started on learning the basics of survival in the women’s room.

I learned to look for an extra hook in the stall so I could hang my purse up properly and a secure lock to keep my all-important privacy secure. As you might remember, a poor abused lock let me down on a recent vacation to New England. Fortunately, I was just finishing my important business in a stall when I was rudely interrupted by a young girl who broke through the lock and surprised both of us. The disaster was averted since I was almost dressed and had pulled my leggings up. It was the only time something like that happened to me and it gave me the extra incentive to check the locks in the stalls I chose.

When I was younger and more insecure in the women’s restroom, I went to any extent to cover all my transgender bases. Of course, I always sat to pee, which I had seen cross dressers in the past not do, as they even left the toilet seat up. Then they wondered why they lost women’s room privileges. Which leads me to this point, cross dressers or not have to look before they sit on toilets. You can save yourself from bad situations by doing so. Also, when I was younger, just in case a prying woman asked, yes, I did have an extra feminine protection product for her to use. I was that paranoid of being discovered and losing my gender restroom privileges. I even tried to mimic a ciswoman’s urine flow to keep up.

Outside of having the courage to use the “room”, perhaps the second biggest act of courage is leaving the relative security of your stall and leaving. I had to remember that normally there was a line of women waiting to use the stall, so I had to move it along. That also meant ALWAYS washing my hands, quickly checking my hair and makeup and leaving. Hopefully safely without any negative feedback such as being called a pervert by a nasty woman one night. Thankfully, it was an isolated incident which happened years ago, and I have had no further repeats of such a negative experience.

Sadly, with many states coming up with more stringent anti-transgender restroom laws, we trans women and trans men also must become more adept in how we use the restroom. And I can’t imagine how bad it is for trans youth just trying to get by.

My words of wisdom are to look for restrooms which are uni-gender such as coffee shops and easy acceptance venues such as bookstores. Anyplace you can scout out the potential restroom you need to use. Then build your confidence from there. And one more thing (at least) make sure there is toilet paper in the stall you use because the next woman after you will wonder how you used it without paper.

Once you are confident of your transgender womanhood, other ciswomen will notice nothing is wrong with you. Which there isn’t. When your gender makes a restroom call, you are just doing what comes naturally.