The Never-Ending Bathroom Debate

[betenoire]

innate insecurity?

I get that I'm being off-topic now, but I just can't not.

Please don't say that women are innately insecure. It makes me feel icky. We're not born insecure. In the event that a woman -is- insecure, it's socialised.

I mean, really. Which chromosome is insecurity attached to?

(Maybe men are insecure. Maybe the reason that they don't talk in bathrooms is because they're worried that people will think they're trying to pick up.)

Now, as for women being more likely to question who is around them in a bathroom situation...you gotta admit that the condition of the world around us necessitates us needing to be aware of our environments for the sake of our own safety. Again, that's not innate. That's a direct response to how fucking dangerous being a woman can sometimes be.

[Turtle]

Yeah, so I don't like to derail threads AND

"Maybe it's the innate insecurity in women that they need to talk rather than just go "take care of business".. Maybe it's that same insecurity that makes them question " is just too WTF?

And then it kills the thread/discussion because - believe it or not - there are lots of people out here who don't like to "have words." So,

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Bathrooms - can be tricky and downright painful.

I've been in situations where transmen ID each other and one asks the other if there is a safer bathroom in the place and I'm told that most of the bathrooms in Alaska are "family" bathrooms.

Locker rooms in a club are a bigger problem. Maybe the "family" bathroom, with a changing table and specifically, more space would due for a private changing room, if there is an issue.

[Nat]

I remember walking into a small restroom (2 stalls) in a coffee house once where a masculine female-bodied person (don't want to guess at identity) was washing up, and I am both used to masculine-presenting female-bodied folks and and often attracted, so my first thought in those situations is not "OMG there's a rapist killer man in the bathroom." What I did notice was how this person tensed up on my entrance, and I was pretty sure why. I wished there was some way I could set this person at ease, but realized quickly the best I could do was just go into stall. I think I smiled, but this person's eyes were very studiously fixed on the faucet.

I don't remember who posted it, but it reminded me of one of the posts by a transman in another thread a while back - about the first time he realized a woman was afraid of him when he ran to catch an elevator.

I guess it's one of the sad things about femme invisibility that in a non-queer place, you can walk into a bathroom and unintentionally scare or stress out a person whom you would rather reassure.