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Is there a female is here?

I froze. I shouldn’t have answered. I should have ignored it. I should have ripped the guy a new one.

Hindsight is 20-20.

Last Friday, my best friend and I went shopping. We’ve sworn to return to out old gym-junkie habits, and seeing as how that means 5 days a week sweating in the gym, it was clear we were going to need more work-out clothes.

Last time we tried this, I got a great pair of shorts from KM*rt, so we decided to head over and see what we could find. After perusing a seriously depleted array of sports bras (weird enough since I’ve not worn anything other than binders and compression shirts for over a year now) we headed up to the men’s section to find me some suitable shorts.

There was a door marked “Fitting Room” in the corner, so while I searched for clothes, she rang the adjacent bell. An employee appeared and told her that she needed to go try on her things downstairs; this was the men’s fitting room. My friend amicably agreed to do so, but, pointing to me, said, “My friend has some things he’d like to try on.”

The woman gave me a little bit of a weird look as I walked over, but I ignored it and kept talking to my friend while she let me in to the room with all the stalls. I entered one, sports bra neatly concealed between pairs of baggy shorts, and started to go about the business of trying things on. Neither pair of shorts fit particularly well, and although I suspected the sports bra would be fine, I decided it couldn’t hurt to try it on.

I’d just pulled my compression shirt off when I hear the voices outside the door. Figuring better safe than sorry, I pulled my pants on quickly, and turned my back to the stall door. (I know you can’t really see through those things, but I wasn’t going to take chances. I was at least going to shield my chest.) As I stood there topless facing the mirror, I could see in its reflection the red shirt of a KM*rt employee entering the dressing room area. Then came the words.

Is there a female is here?

I froze for a moment, wrestling yet again with that dilemma that hits me every time someone or something demands I pick a side. Now was the time to own MALE if I was going to do so… but what do you do when you don’t feel fully male? Is it a lie? Are you doing the trans community a disservice? Was claiming that masculinity an appropriation? Would they know I was claiming privilege they hadn’t given me?

Like I say, I shouldn’t have answered; but I did. Mustering up my courage and reaching for the lowest depths of my range, I tried to sound confident, casual, and male.

No.

A pause. Well you SOUND like a female. You’re going to need to use the women’s dressing room downstairs. This is the men’s dressing room.

Shit. Trying to recover. Say something reflective of you gender-identity beliefs. Don’t trip over your words. Still trying to sound nonchalant. Well where do genderqueers fit in your spectrum? God I hate how that sounds when I identify that way out loud to other people.

Another pause. This is the men’s dressing room. You need to take your items and use the women’s dressing room downstairs. What would you do if there was a man in here and you got attacked?

Well, I guess I’d consider it a hate-crime against transgendered men. Shit! Can I say that? I don’t really consider myself a transgendered man… fuck fuck fuck it’s really quiet out there. (And at this point I lose my moxie) ::very quietly::…but, if it’s easier… I’ll just… go.

I gather my clothes, fold the shorts. The woman said I could leave them in there, but I’ll be damned if I’m walking out of that room holding just a sports bra. I get myself together as quickly as I can; I don’t want him coming back. I walk out of the room quickly, eyes on the ground, quiet, subdued, humiliated.

Next to my my friend is seething and already on the phone to KM*rt corporate offices. I send a quick text to V letting her know what happened. I tweet it. I stand in the lingerie section while my friend tries on her stuff. She’s telling me she’ll cause a scene, that I should speak to a manager, that she can’t believe they treated me like that and that I should be angry… but all I want to do is leave. I have no more fight in me.

This experience of discrimination has been really difficult and totally different than what I’m used to. I remember the first time a woman told me I was going to hell for being gay. I’d JUST come out of the closet. I was floored. Speechless. And felt betrayed even more so because I HAVE a faith and I value my relationship with God. How could that woman just SAY that to me? How could the faith and principles I believe and love become twisted into such hatred, anger, and fear? It hurt my heart and stunned me.

This was nothing like that. I felt hollow and ashamed. I even felt a little that I deserved it, as a person with no clear gender defined for myself trying to enter a clearly defined space.I didn’t want to fight back because I wasn’t sure I had that right. It seemed like it so clearly demanded a decision of me, and in the face of that choice, I crumbled. I failed.

I’ve always believed that if you’re going to stand up and make a scene, you better be DAMN sure about what you have to say. And suddenly, there I was, with this opportunity to say something, and I was just afraid I wasn’t the right person to do it. How could I possibly stand up for my right to my gender expression when I don’t even know what I am all the time? I felt like if I were a person who had chosen to transition, who could look at myself full-time and say “MALE,” at least I would have had the confidence in who I was to tell that employee to fuck off and that I had a right to be there.

I don’t have a good ending to this post. I don’t really know completely how to feel. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to post it. But I read Audacia Ray’s piece about how Sex Positivity Includes Negative Experiences and felt compelled to put this out in the space as a truth about things that happen and the ways in which we live and cope day to day.

-Natt