It doesn’t happen all the time, but there are enough occurrences of my daughter being mistaken for a boy that neither of us are really surprised when it happens. She keeps her hair short, wears baggy pants and hoodies almost every day and has a face that’s pretty much been a duplicate of my own since the day she was born. When waiters call her buddy or hostesses ask us “fellas” to follow her it usually goes ignored. If it doesn’t bother her then there is no reason for it to bother me.
Recently, however, a situation came up that bothered me a lot more than it did her. I didn’t hear about it until a passing comment a week or so later but apparently an older women, believing her to be a young male, gave her a really hard time about being in the women’s restroom.
Setting aside for a moment the particular battle in today’s culture wars about who should be entitled to use which restroom, I have a hard time understanding what exactly this old lady was afraid was going to happen. Did she really think that a horny young boy had intentionally snuck in there to try and get a look? As somebody who was once a horny young boy and feels that he can adequately speak for the majority, just about any twelve year old that finds themselves in the wrong sex bathroom is going to be instantly mortified and run for the door as soon as possible. This remains true as a horny old man. There’s nothing in there that does anything for anybody.
It’s something that has always baffled me about this particular battle. I’m often asked how I would feel about a trans person using the same bathroom as my daughter and I have a hard time understanding why that should make me upset. Somebody I’m going to assume has had a really hard time for most of their life because of how they feel is sitting down on a toilet within a few feet of a toilet that my kid is sitting on. One thing they don’t tell you about being a parent is how terrifying most of it is but I’m not going to lie, this one isn’t keeping me away at night.
Maybe it happens more than I’m aware but I don’t think perverts dressing as women to sneak into the ladies room and molest kids is a common thing. On my list of times to worry about my child being molested this is low. Much higher? Down the road when she is old enough to get into bars and entitled douchebags follow her and their asshole buddies block the door. Maybe this isn’t something that elderly woman has on her radar but maybe there just really isn’t all that much for her to worry about besides making sure she doesn’t slip on a recently mopped floor and break her hip. Maybe she should just keep her mouth shut and watch her step?
Don’t misunderstand me guys, I agree that it’s important that we keep bathrooms segregated, particularly in the workplace. There really should be specific places that everyone agrees are for pooping, leaving other bathrooms stench free. Other than that I really don’t care all that much about who else is in there.
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Previously Published on Thirsty Daddy
internal image courtesy of author