Thanks to Miss Herbert in her Flowered House Dress

My daughter sent me a text before we came to stay in parent’s graduation accommodations:  “and btw, the bathrooms in this dorm are gender neutral.”  I thought, no big deal—until I thought more about this bathroom being more than what I still call a potty.   Showers plus toilets is what they are. 

I pressed down an adverse reaction (like I usually do), thinking, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  I don’t know how anybody gets to be a particular age without the benefit of gaining a gender-fluid friend.  Without learning to run headlong into what at first makes them uncomfortable.  I ain’t never had a problem with what others fear or can’t quite adjust to—scared somehow their god will punish them for being kind-hearted or scared they might have to open their hearts again and again if they do it just this once (what a calamity that would be). 

I’ve been bound to different all my life.  Been taught to cry over other folk’s pain—to the extent of ignoring my own.  At six, Mama sat me and my brother in front of I Shall Fight No More Forever.  We boo hoo hooed, the sympathies of Janis Ian and Ritchie Havens compositions planted deep in the in our stereophonic memories.    

I can roll with just about anything.  Gender-neutral bathroom—ptsshh—ahhhh.  No biggie. We’ve been trans friendly! 

My first gender-non-conforming friend lived with my cousins and her name was Miss Herbert.  A family member.  Herbert talked with an intractable stutter and wore thin flowered housedresses and lived with my Aunt Mary’s whole family—(special close friend to my cousin Tanda).  Herbert’s parents threw her in the street.  There was my sweet-hearted Aunt Mary there to take her in.  Hallelujah.  The brave keep opening their hearts and their doors.  Cowards stand in their righteousness, trying to keep the world easy to understand.  Black and white.  This or that.  Most sensible folks realize everybody has to grow up eventually and accept what actually is.  Adjust.  The world is much bigger and more interesting than those Hollywood films wanted us to believe.  Most of us come to realize (when we imagine the billions of people and experiences in the world) that what we once thought was true can’t be true for everybody, neither for all time.  We get over ourselves.  We decide to be happy.  Let others be happy too. 

That was how I decided to handle my experience with gender-neutral bathrooms.  But, when physically confronted with my decision, my gut response went straight back to Mrs. Hoffmeister’s kindergarten class, in 1973, where I was taught if a boy came in the girls’ restroom—something was terribly wrong.  My eyes bucked when I saw that dark haired, middle-aged, smiling man stumble out of the bathroom stall.  “Oh, snap.”  Then I remembered.  We are here together by re-design.  Relax.  He’s not here to attack you or sneak a peak. 

“Hi!’  My hand flew up.  Awkward. 

He said hi, looked at the floor, and scurried out. 

This man and I bumped into each other in the bathroom three separate times over the weekend.  We never got over our awkwardness.  Once, I saw his leg ease out of a shower stall as I exited the restroom stall.  I turned my head and shot out of that bathroom.  My mother refused the gender-neutral shower experience altogether.  “I’ll shower in Menen’s suite.”  Mama and Miss Herbert had been good friends; but she wasn’t ready to give up her bathroom space to a man.  Gender-fluid, gender-neutral, gender-non-conforming.  Didn’t matter to Mama.  I rolled with it—doesn’t make a difference to me.  But her actions said, “That’s fine for y’all.  I’m not ready yet.” 

We all let each other decide.  We all made our own decisions.  I have to think of and thank Miss Herbert for that.  Wasn't any confusion about everyone's autonomy, nor our acceptance.  

Now, I must add:  I warned my daughter’s father (a black man) to be completely aware of the situation he was walking into.  Society is changing; many aspects of it however, remain reflexively familiar.