The same old binary
I have to wonder why the SMH saw fit to publish this childish drivel.
Before the movie begins, I duck off to the bathrooms. Down a dim corridor I find the signs: F and M. The same old binary. There’s no other choice. For the umpteenth time, I sigh. Which of two bad options to choose today? I’m neither man nor woman, but I must pretend to be one or the other if I’m to empty my bursting bladder. Outside the entrance, I hesitate, weighing up the dilemma.
But of course he is either man or woman. His name is Yves Reese so apparently a man but who knows, maybe he gave himself a go on, guess name. But either way he’s one or the other.
And of course it’s “the same old binary.” Also the doors are tall enough but not too tall, and the seats are designed for human bodies not snakes or ostriches or ants. No, sunshine, the movie theater hasn’t been redesigned to accommodate precious you and your gem-encrusted idenniny.
Since I cropped my hair and started binding my breasts, I’ve been attracting hostile stares from women perturbed by my presence in this feminine space.
Ah there it is, ok now we know.
What to do? I just want to pee and then watch a movie, not have my identity scrutinised by strangers. And no matter which option I choose, I’ll be misgendering myself.
But yourself also wants to pee so yourself will forgive yourself if you just shut up and go in the women’s and empty your bladder without all this self-involved blather.
Out in the world, non-binary people are erased, wiped off the domain of the possible. We know ourselves to be neither men nor women, but the world refuses to acknowledge that people like us can even exist. Our self-knowledge is dismissed. Through the architecture of everyday life, we are made inconceivable. There’s literally no space for us.
You don’t know yourselves to be neither men nor women. You may think you do, but you’re wrong. You’re a gender non-conforming woman, now go get on with your life by thinking about something not yourself.
H/t GW
The epistemic arrogance is astounding, honestly. It’s like any other religious person saying, “I know myself to be blessed by Zerthenblerglethagkh, but the world refuses to acknowledge that Zerthenblerglethagkh even exists. My self-knowledge is dismissed. Through the architecture of everyday life, I am made inconceivable. There’s literally no space for me.”
My eyes literally can’t roll enough degrees.
My unsolicited advice? Go take your piss and get over yourself. I have on a desperate occasion or three used the women’s bathroom because the men’s was occupied. Not a multiple stall one mind you, but a ‘one seater’ with a locking door. It’s better than pissing in the parking lot bushes. Of course coming out of the thing I have had a dirty look or two, but as they say, “when you gotta go, you gotta go”. Having an existential crisis about it is pretty silly. Writing more than a paragraph about the existential crisis of it isn’t very interesting either, unless you’re David Sedaris.
It is the pathetic infantility of it, isn’t it? People are starving, refugees are escaping from war-torn areas and areas that are being destroyed by climate change, Priti Patel is advocating the drowning of refugees, or at least the letting them drown, democracy is under threat in both the USA & UK, certain one-time democracies are well on the road to becoming undemocratic, etc, etc, and all this person is concerned with is where she or he can have a pee and complains about the ‘binary’ arrangements as if their supposed deficiencies were some world-historical injustice. This all too common narcissism does not bode well for our political futures.
I’m calling bullshit on this. There are lots of women out there with short hair. There are lots of women with flat chests. There are lots of women with both. If women are staring at you with hostility, you are doing something to cause that…because you need to feel like you are persecuted in order to feel that you are that special thing you call “non-binary”. Because you need to believe you are a member of the most marginalized group ever.
While the disparate physical needs of these species would certainly represent challenges to the designers of toilet seats, they are as nothing to meeting the spiritual toilet seat needs of the Gendered Soul.
And the Non-Binary Soul.
Which is Valid.
>Our self-knowledge is dismissed
The navel-gazing is so intense I fear they may implode
This is so nuts. If it’s really that heart-wrenchingly traumatic to align your special self with the M or the F on the door for the duration of a bathroom break, just use the unisex accessible toilet and do it quickly so the next person who needs it can also have a pee. I cannot imagine how this was worth the time to write, or anyone else’s time to read.
Oh FFS, enough with the stupid “just want to pee” bullshit, which has become so laughably tiresome and stupid (and wrong) that I now formally submit that 2021 be the year that we just universally laugh that crap away.
If you Just Want To Pee than just go pee; you know as well as we all do that nothing is stopping you, and nobody wants to see your extended bladderly lamentations on social media, you damned lazy, boring snowflakes.
Also, too, what iknklast@4 said. Absolutely nobody is judging you in a public restroom for anything other than your style choices and the fact that you just walked out without washing your hands.
Not an option. The only possible route to redemption is self-cancellation.
I dread to think what will happen if she deadnames herself.
“I just want to pee” so pee you goddamn spanner. This hesitations really only highlights how insecure with themselves the enbies are, with all this worry over which specific word is on the door and whether people will stare. Sillier still is the fact that the doors in this instance are clearly marked for the sexes, m(ale) and f(emale). Sexes. Bodies, and not idenninies.
People like this should rename themselves Narcissus and be done with it.
Holms,
I wouldn’t want to be stuck at the back of the queue for the narcissists toilets, I’d be there all day.
@ iknklast #4
Agreed. I’ve got really short hair and I’ve been semi-challenged in the women’s room before, but first impressions don’t hide my actual sex. None of the other women’s initial startled or questioning reactions have been hostile.
@12 yeah it’s really not a big deal. I have short hair etc. and on occasion, for theatrical/cosplay things, actually wear men’s costume–so I’m not surprised if women sometimes need to look twice. But I laugh, and they laugh, and it’s all fine. (I actually don’t know now, though, what situations like this are like now that the gender identity religion has become more mainstream–I do hesitate to find out, and honestly it’s put me off dressing in male costumes for public events now that these events are starting to happen again.)
So, there was a video where an Enby went on forever about salons not sure how to charge Zir for a haircut – Men’s Price or Women’s Price? “I just want a haircut.”
But, it never occurred to Zim to just get a man’s cut and save the money? No, it had to be settled as an enby cut, and charge a special price specifically for Oom. I don’t know if there will ever be a special price menu for alloromantic asexual enbies, and I plan to march in support for their right to be recognized.
And, Cobber, if your bladder is bursting and this is what you’re thinking, then you are thinking too much.
Simple — pee in the space in between, and draw even more attention to your plight.
“Being neither man nor woman” is right up there with “ these lower mortals do not understand me.” It reflects the idea that one’s fundamental essence is so unique that it’s outside all attempts to categorize it. And, like God, it’s indescribable.
There seem to be hopeless contradictions here.
“I just want to pee. But not so badly that I won’t obsess over the implications of which bathroom I pee in.”
“I take elaborate and possible painful and even harmful steps to change my appearance. But if anyone glances at me because of it, that is stigmatizing. But if nobody takes note of my specialness, that is erasure.”
With all the usual caveats about slippery slope arguments, does anyone doubt that if suddenly it became standard for every public facility to have men’s, women’s, and nonbinary bathrooms, that we would hear from people who complain about the “gender trinary”? “I’m agender, and don’t appreciate being lumped in with the genderqueer. We are distinct in our distinctness!”