Ana's Post

How much time do you spend examining the other people in a public restroom?

There has been a lot of press lately over the issue of the Target bathrooms being inclusive. I know that addressing this may cost me a few fans or upset some people but I wanted to address something that many people may never have considered. There is a 90% chance you have used a public bathroom with a transgender person before and had no idea. Now, I have no math to put up that number it is just an estimate but think about it.

I know for a fact that I have, I want to share the story for all of you:

I was eight years old and visiting Boston, MA with my father on a business trip. Once we entered the hotel I noticed a lot of women but as I later told my dad "ugly women" (yes I was eight and had no filter) My dad explained to me that it wasn't nice to call people ugly and that they were not women but men dressed as women. He explained that they were "Transvestites". It had came to his attention, per a sign, we were staying at the same hotel as a convention. "Oh ok. They need to work on walking in heels." I responded to him. I was not disgusted or confused. I didn't think about it again until later that evening when I was using the bathroom in the hotel restaurant and encountered three of the convention goers in the restroom. They were fixing their make-up and chatting at the mirror. They said hello to me as I entered and I did the same. I used the restroom and when I got out of the stall they had left. I washed my hands and returned to my table. I was not victimized or traumatized and until this came up in the media I never really thought about this experience. They were doing the same thing in the bathroom that I was, they were not there to harm me and to believe that the function of person using the restroom of the gender they feel they are not the one they were born does not bother me as it didn't when I was an unfiltered child.

Had I not known they were men dressed as women I would have never known the three women I encountered in the bathroom were not in fact women. This occurred in 1994..just think about that before you freak out over bathroom usage. This has been a normal thing for a very long time and you only now care because it is a hot button issue.

Your Thoughts?

Ana