The Bathroom Issue

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

Woman who donated hair to cancer patients mistaken for trans woman and harassed in bathroom

Has North Carolina’s anti-transgender bathroom bill created an environment of fear and paranoia in public restrooms? One woman named Aimee Toms, who was recently harassed in a Walmart restroom after someone mistook her for a transgender woman, believes that it has.

Danbury News Times reports that Toms was accosted by another woman while she was washing her hands in a Walmart bathroom in Danbury, Connecticut. Toms was wearing a baseball hat and she had very short hair because she recently donated her hair to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer.

She said that she was approached by a complete stranger in the bathroom and was told that “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!” The 22-year-old Toms posted a video on Facebook talking about how the experience opened her eyes to the abuse that transgender people face every day.

“After experiencing the discrimination they face firsthand, I cannot fathom the discrimination transgender people must face in a lifetime,” she said. “Can you imagine going out every day and having people tell you you should not be who you are or that people will not accept you as who you are?”

Toms also linked her experience back to the current debate over whether transgender people should be allowed to use the public bathrooms of the gender that they identify with.



http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/woma...d-in-restroom/

This just highlights for me again my concern that there will be an increase in harassment for gender non-conforming butches. I believe that it will level out and things will go back to "normal" (you know, the "normal" intensity/frequency of harassment butches are used to dealing with <eyeroll>), but I don't know how long that will be.

The other thing to keep in mind though, is that there really isn't any way to know if harassment in bathrooms is increasing or if it is just being publicized.

Too, I am wondering if butches who are often suspected as being male are feeling more anxious now when using bathrooms?

What is stupid about this whole thing, is that I can see the possibility of butches choosing to start using men's room just for safety. Guys don't notice.

I started using the men's room as soon as I started testosterone. It takes a while to see some changes happen. Point is, I looked the exact same. I wasn't hassled at all (unlike the women's room), and I was amazed at how much more relaxed I was. I used to have such crazy high anxiety going into the women's room. As soon as I started using the men's that all abated. I wish I had started using the men's restroom years before I decided that taking testosterone was right for me.

However, if I were a woman identified butch, I would be pissed off at the idea that using the men's room is the only way I would feel "safe". I would also feel like I was giving into the boxes of gender conformity that I had fought against my whole life.

[morningstar55]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

This just highlights for me again my concern that there will be an increase in harassment for gender non-conforming butches. I believe that it will level out and things will go back to "normal" (you know, the "normal" intensity/frequency of harassment butches are used to dealing with <eyeroll>), but I don't know how long that will be.

The other thing to keep in mind though, is that there really isn't any way to know if harassment in bathrooms is increasing or if it is just being publicized.

Too, I am wondering if butches who are often suspected as being male are feeling more anxious now when using bathrooms?

What is stupid about this whole thing, is that I can see the possibility of butches choosing to start using men's room just for safety. Guys don't notice.

I started using the men's room as soon as I started testosterone. It takes a while to see some changes happen. Point is, I looked the exact same. I wasn't hassled at all (unlike the women's room), and I was amazed at how much more relaxed I was. I used to have such crazy high anxiety going into the women's room. As soon as I started using the men's that all abated. I wish I had started using the men's restroom years before I decided that taking testosterone was right for me.

However, if I were a woman identified butch, I would be pissed off at the idea that using the men's room is the only way I would feel "safe". I would also feel like I was giving into the boxes of gender conformity that I had fought against my whole life.

living in the country up in this area where there is a lot of farms and some of them farm girls whom 100% straight .... but have masculine features ... I'm sure have or will run into a issue with this whole mess.

[Andrea]

Guard Charged with Assault After Confronting Transgender Woman Using Women's Restroom, Source Says

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Guard-Charged-with-Assault-After-Confronting-Transgender-Woman-Using-Womens-Restroom-380010941.html

D.C. Police have charged a security guard at a Giant grocery store with simple assault after sources say she had a confrontation with a transgender woman who was trying to use the women's restroom.

The guard, who has not been identified, is a special police officer at a Giant store near Third and H streets in northeast D.C.

Police confirmed they had arrested her there earlier today for a confrontation in the store, though they did not reveal details of the arrest.

News4 spoke with Ebony Belcher, the transgender woman who said she was assaulted by the officer.

Belcher, 32, said the woman came into the restroom and told her to get out. She said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and tried to march her out of the store.

Belcher said she suffers from Parkinson's disease and almost fell while the officer was shoving her.

Giant issued a statement, which read: "As this matter involves a third party that provides security services for Giant and there's an ongoing criminal investigation, all inquiries related to the incident at the H Street Giant should be directed to the local police for a comment at this time."

[*Anya*]

People have gone fucking nuts pure and simple.

[Stud_puppy1991]

Okay, we actually discussed this in my LGBT group at therapy, and I even looked it up and was outraged. I still am. It never fails to rattle me how and why this is a concern to so many people. Before this fiasco began, there was people using bathrooms and not a care in the world. I go to the men's room sometimes, or sometimes I use the Ladies room. If I had to go, I went. And I have been in a bathroom with a trans man or woman and had no issues. I don't see where it's that big of a deal. It's just the bathroom. It's human nature.

[*Anya*]

Today I had a doctor's appointment.

Not thinking and having to go to the bathroom before I came home, I walked into the men's room.

I looked up, saw an older man around 70-years old, peeing at the urinal.

I was so surprised that I squeaked, "I am so sorry, I thought it was the woman's room".

He looked at me in the mirror over the urinal, kept on peeing and said, very drolly:

"Don't worry about it, these days, it doesn't matter".

[*Anya*]

NEWS MAY 26 2016, 4:16 PM ET

Utah Dad Attacked for Taking 5-Year-Old Daughter to Wal-Mart Men's Bathroom

by DANIELLA SILVA

A Utah father taking his young children to the bathroom at a Wal-Mart ended in violence after he was punched in the face by another customer allegedly over taking his 5-year-old daughter with him to the men's room.

Christopher Adams was on a family trip to buy blinds and storage bins at a Wal-Mart in the city of Clinton over the weekend when his two children, 7-year-old Kyler and 5-year-old Emery, had to use the restroom, he told NBC affiliate KSL.

Adams said he took his son and daughter with him into the men's restroom when a confrontation ensued.

"This guy walks in and goes to the bathroom, the urinal, and then he just like turns to me and starts freaking out and dropping the f-bomb," Adams said. "And what he was freaking out about was that my daughter was in the men's bathroom."

Adams said the other man told him he thought Emery's presence in the restroom was inappropriate and started to shove him.

"When I turned back around, I got sucker punched," he said.

Adams said he was punched in the face and kicked in the knee multiple times before he was able to force his assailant out of the restroom.

"I just slammed him to the ground and just held him until associates from Wal-Mart could get there," Adams the distraught dad added.

Clinton Police Lt. Shawn Stoker said the individual who was "determined to be the aggressor" was cited at the scene.

"WHEN I TURNED BACK AROUND, I GOT SUCKER PUNCHED."

The man, who police declined to name, was cited for disorderly conduct and the city attorney was screening a potential assault charge, according to KSL.

"This is a situation where a father felt the most reasonable and safe thing for him to do was to take his children inside the restroom with him," Stoker told the station.

The other customer "took exception to that," he said.

"I want him to understand that he was in the wrong," Adams added. "The way he handled the situation was completely wrong — I just think it's ridiculous."


FIRST PUBLISHED MAY 26 2016, 3:36 PM ET

HTTP://WWW.NBCNEWS.COM/NEWS/US-NEWS/...L-MART-N581021