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Public Restooms


Purple_Panda

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TW/CW: AFAB body, public restrooms, not knowing where I belong, panic/anxiety, man/women bathroom expectations kind of thoughts due to society 

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So I just had to use the restroom while returning a book to the library, and immediately was nervous that I was in the wrong bathroom. Then when I was in there, I heard someone with what seemed to be a more masculine sounding voice come in and started freaking out, not because of the typical, “There’s a man in the woman’s bathroom” type situation, (although I will admit that was a fleeting thought at first before I realized that whoever it was could be LGBT+) but more because I felt that I was in the wrong bathroom and was trapped until they left.

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everywhere and nowhere
1 hour ago, Galactic Turtle said:

Typically the presence or absence of urinals is a good indicator. :P

So now a real story. ;)

In Poland the typical markings of toilets are either male and female figure (plus a figure on a wheelchair for fully accessible toilets) or - something rather unknown elsewhere, or so I have heard - a circle for the women's toilet and a triangle on the men's one. Once there was some wedding in the family and later a dinner in a restaurant. I was about 7-9 years old at that time. I went to the toilet and either markings were missing. Supposedly if there are none, the ladies' room is on the left and the men's on the right, but how should I have known it? So I chose the door on the right, went to urinate in the stall and later asked my mom what are those weird bowls on the walls in the toilet... :lol: My mom needed a while to process the information and then realised that I simply accidentally went to the men's room and didn't understand it myself...

No, seriously: how should I have known? It was the first time I've been to a men's restroom... Being nudity-averse, I still also feel quite averse to the very idea of a urinal: being expected to urinate while at best just slightly covering your you-know-what with your hands? Ugh... No, really: as a nudity-averse girl I was at most perceived as weird. If I were a nudity-averse boy, judging by what sometimes happens between boys for really stupid and yet innocent reasons, I could even get beaten for refusing to participate in the willy comparison ritual...

 

PS. Once I went to a toilet in Finland and only saw the words "naiset" and "miehet" on the doors. But I didn't let it discourage me. I thought for a while and remembered than a friend had taught me a sentence in Finnish: "Suomalaiset miehet on kaikki minun", which supposedly means "All Finnish men are mine". :lol: There was also this song by a band called Vieraileva Tähti (a very special band because it consisted entirely of competitors in ski jumping and Nordic combined - a band for sport fans :D), "Suomen kevein mies", or supposedly "The lightest man in Finland". And so even without speaking the language or checking what was inside I knew that I have to choose "naiset".

 

Btw, I dislike using public restrooms, though I'm not transgender. You know - sitting in a public restroom is very unhygienic. Supposedly most women just urinate in "skier position", or hovering over the seat. But I can't do it - I'm not fit enough for that! :( So I always need to put a lot of paper on the seat and then carefully sit down.

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i bet that is a pretty scary situation! 

 

this got me thinking about how people usually don't even consider how others  who don't identify as male or female may feel! I just became really aware of this when I went to the restrooms at my starbucks and saw the sign showed both a male and female figure. 

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2 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

quite averse to the very idea of a urinal

Me, too. Not because of being nudity-averse, but more because of the feeling of being exposed and very vulnerable (and having been the victim of physical abuse and "pranks" in my younger days). I use stalls, but even some of them are too exposed (wide gap between door and frame, walls that are too low if you're standing up, etc.).

 

In any event, bathrooms are a minefield. More so for trans people. A fact of life many cis-people don't seem to realize or really understand. I still think the best option is individual little rooms, which I have seen in just a few places. A local restaurant/club that has many LGBT events and clientele has little individual single person rooms for the toilets, without any gender designations or restrictions, and then the main washroom, with sinks and stuff outside of the toilet rooms. Seems to work just fine there. In other places which have a small number of loos, each with a single toilet and sink, I have seen some that don't put a gender label. It's just everyone takes their turn. That also seems to work well. 

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Everything was fine, I was in the right bathroom, but it just felt weird at the time. 

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8 hours ago, daveb said:

In other places which have a small number of loos

Hey, I never knew you Americans even used the word "loo"! I thought it was a Brit / Aussie / Kiwi term only!  

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9 hours ago, Ortac said:

Hey, I never knew you Americans even used the word "loo"! I thought it was a Brit / Aussie / Kiwi term only!  

It is, but sometimes people here use it if they have had contact with those other countries/nationalities. It's a handy term. :) 

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14 hours ago, Ortac said:

Hey, I never knew you Americans even used the word "loo"! I thought it was a Brit / Aussie / Kiwi term only!  

I thought that, too. I've never heard any Americans use that term in real life. I guess, perhaps, Americans in larger metropolitan cities might be using terms like that.

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