Aside from assault (which I am now four times more likely to become a victim of since coming out), my biggest fear and source of anxiety is public restrooms. I literally plan my outings around the availability of a gender neutral bathroom. I'm sure you know why; I doubt I'd have to explain that right now a trans person's right to use gender affirming facilities is quite the source of public discourse across the nation. I am aware of my rights in Washington State that going potty in the women's restroom is protected. I shouldn't have this debilitating anxiety surrounding the common and universally shared experience of needing to relieve myself of the cold brew I am constantly consuming. Unfortunately, social media has been absolutely flooded with stories of fellow trans folk being photographed and posted in an attempt to shame them for the audacity to continue having human bodily functions despite our inherently alien life experience.
Furthering my anxiety I am not exactly what we call ‘passing’ and I can be clocked from a mile away. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love how I look now. Ten months of hormones have graced my 6 ft, 230 lb frame with blossoming B cup breasts and a year and a half’s worth of growth and maintenance has given me shoulder length and bright pink hair! Needless to say, wearing a pair of purple burger leggings and a bright green chef’s jacket…I stick out.
I will say this: I am proud of who I am. I've fought like hell to become her. I am proud of being a loud obnoxious trans woman who will not hide or allow myself to feel any shame in my identity.
Buuuuuuut I am a father — the title I am keeping with pride — of five amazing and overwhelming children. The idea of a scene unfolding in front of them is probably the singular reason I have not used a gendered public bathroom since coming out in April.
And that is what leads me to our story. It's summertime, and the routine I thrive in has gone right out the window! Of course, to give my kiddos the childhood they deserve we have to deviate from the comforts of the known on occasion. This truth led to my wife and I loading our menagerie up to go see the new Disney/Pixar movie Inside Out 2 at our localish drive-in. Ironically, a brilliant depiction of overcoming anxiety.
The plan was solid, we would feed the children McDonald's, giving them the sacrificial offering of a Happy Meal toy that corresponds with the movie we were seeing in a futile attempt to appease them into not revealing the extent of their feral natures. Then we would stop at the Walmart on our way down to replace the lawn chairs we weren't aware had become a recent art project for an unknown one of our brood, and while there I could use the family restroom and change the baby's diaper. Boom: problem solved.
Except the family restroom was not operational and we were unsurprisingly behind schedule. The drive-in only has gendered bathrooms and well, unfortunately, Google maps isn't capable of adding gender-neutral bathroom stops onto your trip.
So, I did what I know a lot of us do. I held it. As Anxiety was spiraling on the screen, my own anxiety was really playing up the urgency of my bladder, while reminding me how much more rural the drive-in was than the Tri-Cities. Panic was doing the math, reminding me that in all likelihood it would be an hour and a half movie, about 15 minutes to load the car back up (my wife and I are PROFESSIONALS at loading and moving our horde in record time), and an hour back to the house to the safety of my own bathroom.
Of course the one-year old throws a wrench in the plan by announcing he was offended at falling asleep during the movie and getting put back into his car seat by screaming at the top of his lungs, forcing us to stop at a local 24 hour convenience store to get milk. I asked my wife to check if there was a ‘safe’ bathroom to use inside.
“There is but you aren't going to like it!”
The Code Red Mountain Dew they have on the fountains at the drive-in was causing a code red bathroom emergency, and safe was all that was necessary!
So in I go, head high, with my loud, “This is What Trans Looks Like” shirt that while being a favorite is entirely unnecessary, and get directed to ‘the back'.
What constitutes ‘safe’ these days could be a scene out of a horror parody.
You would think at 36 I've seen my fair share of inconvenient convenience store bathrooms, but this wasn't located inside the store itself. It involved walking through the usual fluorescently lit energy drink displays and into a second, abandoned looking store. With tables covered in tarps and lights flickering in what was once some kind of sporting store, it now resembled a mad surgeon’s laboratory, making my mind create images of the tarps lifting to reveal the obvious zombies who would happily come after me if I lingered for any kind of time. After this room was another set of swinging doors with the promising bathroom sign above them.
Through this door was a third room that could best be described as ‘Freddy Krueger’s Vacation Home’, a janitorial suite complete with a backed up mop sink in one corner, and a water heater making noises that sounded more plausible as an incubation chamber for the zombies in the previous area than a regular appliance. There, behind a door in this room illuminated by a single naked light bulb, and after 7 grueling hours of waiting, I found it. The safe toilet!
Sitting there I couldn't help but laugh at just how drastically my definition of safety has changed this year. Thankfully I was finally able to relieve myself and return to a car full of happy if not exhausted children completely unaware of the emergency that had been dealt with, and go home to the amazing safety of my own bathroom.
So the next time you see a trans person realize that you have no idea what normal life situation has been an absolute battle they’ve had to face, give them a hug…
…but don't squeeze too hard. You never know how long it's been since they've been able to find a safe bathroom.
Cara Nokes is a local business owner, a parent of five, and trans woman.
