Yeah back in the day (idk if it still is I’m just really post transition) switching bathrooms was a right of passing (heh). It was done when you started getting stares in the old bathroom. I last used a men’s room back in college when I was at a urinal (it was late and I was in a hurry) and a guy came in, saw me, walked out, then came back in, clearly having had to check the sign on the door. It’s been many years since, I’m nearing 10 years on hormones and 4 post bottom surgery and I look somewhere between androgynous and female. I get misgendered sometimes but I’ve had coworkers comment on my menses. And the thing is, I’ve met cis women who look more trans than I do.
I dunno if it is much a right of passage as it used to be. Where I am we’ve had bathroom freedom for a long while now and since we have a larger than usual trans population (Vancouver BC) folk transition bathroom use a little earlier than double take type passing but like anybody who crosses into the other side at minimum definitely looks properly trans. Abroad I have been bodily chased out of bathrooms by women when I was younger and passed for more androgynous even though I am an AFAB who never went on T. I ended up using the gents for awhile just because it meant nobody tried to clock me in the head with a purse but like… it sucked worrying that someone would clock me the other direction while I was waiting for a stall. Never personally happened so I never figured out how that experience shakes out but I was definitely trying to lay low.
Even with it being a city that puts “trans people welcome” over the bathrooms us enbies / non physically transitioned folk tend to have a pretty brutal self assessment of how we clock before we pick which restroom to take. It’s really sucky how people take the whole “We don’t owe you presentation” quote to infer like the way we personally choose to present doesn’t actually factor into how we make choices or navigate the world… Like we still don’t want to make people uncomfortable! Half of us enbies are so socially anxious that causing social friction gives us the bloody horrors and we accommodate other people at our own expense more often than not.
Like really… It boggles the mind how so many straights seem to think we operate as some kind of all powerful gender authoritarians who can force people to unquestioningly not even glance at us sideways or else we trot them to the censorship guillotine!
Yeah back in the day (idk if it still is I’m just really post transition) switching bathrooms was a right of passing (heh). It was done when you started getting stares in the old bathroom. I last used a men’s room back in college when I was at a urinal (it was late and I was in a hurry) and a guy came in, saw me, walked out, then came back in, clearly having had to check the sign on the door. It’s been many years since, I’m nearing 10 years on hormones and 4 post bottom surgery and I look somewhere between androgynous and female. I get misgendered sometimes but I’ve had coworkers comment on my menses. And the thing is, I’ve met cis women who look more trans than I do.
I dunno if it is much a right of passage as it used to be. Where I am we’ve had bathroom freedom for a long while now and since we have a larger than usual trans population (Vancouver BC) folk transition bathroom use a little earlier than double take type passing but like anybody who crosses into the other side at minimum definitely looks properly trans. Abroad I have been bodily chased out of bathrooms by women when I was younger and passed for more androgynous even though I am an AFAB who never went on T. I ended up using the gents for awhile just because it meant nobody tried to clock me in the head with a purse but like… it sucked worrying that someone would clock me the other direction while I was waiting for a stall. Never personally happened so I never figured out how that experience shakes out but I was definitely trying to lay low.
Even with it being a city that puts “trans people welcome” over the bathrooms us enbies / non physically transitioned folk tend to have a pretty brutal self assessment of how we clock before we pick which restroom to take. It’s really sucky how people take the whole “We don’t owe you presentation” quote to infer like the way we personally choose to present doesn’t actually factor into how we make choices or navigate the world… Like we still don’t want to make people uncomfortable! Half of us enbies are so socially anxious that causing social friction gives us the bloody horrors and we accommodate other people at our own expense more often than not.
Like really… It boggles the mind how so many straights seem to think we operate as some kind of all powerful gender authoritarians who can force people to unquestioningly not even glance at us sideways or else we trot them to the censorship guillotine!