Bathroom Laws and Baby Faces

[ayun]

I started wearing my hair super-short when I was in elementary school. Hard to say exactly when, but certainly by third grade I had tried it out. That combined with the way I preferred to dress and a somewhat-late and sudden puberty meant that I spent years being routinely mistaken for a boy. Every time it happened I was delighted

Comments

[jasonlizard]

So you've always fucked with people. Color me shocked! Shocked!

I'm a big fan of trying to understand projection - or how we'll often, subconsciously, project our own feelings and thoughts onto others without realizing it. If you're feeling trapped or afraid of something, it's very easy to see that something everywhere. Perhaps then it's logical that in a more gender-tracked establishment, you felt more pushback from the population at large which, like 1986, really couldn't care less about who's in the stall next to them. (and here my assumptions are showing...oh well)

I think with some people, bathrooms have a certain gender privacy element to them. I hear A complain constantly about how disgusting women's bathrooms are as they hover over the toilet and spray everywhere and then don't clean it up. In the men's bathroom, the worst you have is the occasional miss or the asshole, or toddler, who seems sprays on everything either on purpose or because they can't control it. That's the reality. But the fiction is that women are prim and proper and men are beasts, or so we like to stereotype our genders. And the reality is that there are slobs and generally respectful people everywhere.

O has basically had the same length hair for years but when he was younger, people would say, "What lovely girls you have." and sometimes we'd correct them if it was a longer conversation and others we'd just let it slip and move on. We asked O if he cared or not that he was mistaken for a girl and told him it was alright if he wanted to say, "I'm a boy." and sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't. I don't really have any strong feelings on the matter, but just trying to relay the story. I think in some ways, that gender is becoming such an issue with some people means it's become a general non-issue with everyone else.

[ayun]

I think in some ways, that gender is becoming such an issue with some people means it's become a general non-issue with everyone else.

I like the way you put this, and I think I agree. The average level of giving-a-damn is probably lower, but the people who do give a damn care waaaaay too much.