There are so many things you don't know.

There are so many things you don’t know.

You don’t know that when I pulled up to the rest stop and there were only two cars there, I grew nervous. You see, I was born with female genitalia, therefore I have been conditioned from birth to be afraid. Afraid of men. Afraid of empty public spaces. Afraid of the risks that all women on this planet take every day.

Despite my gender representation, I have the same fears as women in dresses, women in heels, women on the subway, women walking by empty alleyways, women who hear noises outside of their homes in the middle of the night.

I also carry a different fear. Fear of men who think I am a threat. A threat to their wives and daughters. A threat to their masculinity. A threat to every way they believe the world should look.

You have no way to know this. I understand that.

So when I pulled into the almost empty rest stop and got out of my car, I was already on alert.

But I needed to pee.

As I approached the glass doors, I saw you standing there against the narrow wall in between the doors to the men’s room and the women’s room.

It wasn’t your shaggy hair. It wasn’t your dirty t-shirt. It wasn’t your ZZ Top beard. It was the fact that you were a man and you were standing less than a foot from the door that I needed to walk through.

And I needed to pee.

I knew that you were waiting for someone. I could tell. You were finished and you were waiting for someone who was behind that door. Perhaps you watched me walk the whole way up the sidewalk. Perhaps you did not see me until I took a deep breath, reached down, and pulled open the door.

One of the things that you do not know, is that you looked like a member of the Gestapo, standing guard against the “perverts” and “queers” that might try to sneak in and abscond with your woman.

But I have also been conditioned to fear these things. To fear them from you.

Likely that was not even on your radar. Likely you were just waiting. Likely you were just enjoying being vertical, stretching your legs, ready to get back into your car and get back on the road and get back to wherever you were heading.

That’s all I wanted, too.  

You looked at me and I looked at you as I walked in. I tried to maintain my tallest, most casual, not a care in the world stance. I was just breezing in the door.

Because I had to pee.

When my trajectory took me a little towards the left, towards the door that your brain told you I was not permitted to walk through, your eyes got a little wider. In retrospect, I think you felt a moment’s fear as well. What you were witnessing was against your natural order of things. A man was walking into the women’s restroom.

Except I am not a man. I use the restroom consistent with the gender of my birth, not because it is illegal in some states for me to do otherwise, but because I feel safer there.

But you did not know this.

It was not the words. It is not the first time I have heard the words. It will not be the last. It was the motion.

When you stepped forward and to your right and put your body in between me and the door that I needed to go through, you moved beyond the realm of what is acceptable, beyond the limits of what I can accept, beyond the barriers that society has set for us. We do not bodily interfere with other people.

But I had to pee.

Your face hardened and the words came out of you like a growl “this is the GIRL’S room!”

I do not know how I did it. I do not know how it happened. I am grateful for the grace with which I sometimes stroll through life with because nothing in me would suggest I would have responded the way that I did.

I simply said “yup” and I kept moving and skirted around you and through the door I went.

I saw her at the sink, washing her hands. She had to have been your wife. You LOOKED LIKE husband and wife. If she spared me more than a moment’s glance (like most women I encounter in a multi-stall women’s restroom) I did not notice. I was too busy trying to find what felt like the safety of a stall. With a door. And a lock.

There are some other things that you do not know. For all of the straight backed confidence that I maintained as I breezed past you, I was afraid.

I was afraid you would move further to side and block the door entirely.

I was afraid you would raise your arms and grab or strike me.

I was afraid that you would follow me in and confront me.

I was afraid as I locked the stall door and heard the restroom door open that you had decided to follow me in afterall.

And finally, I was afraid to leave. I stayed in the stall. I waited.

And that’s the part that pisses me off. I sat in that stall and waited and I was afraid and I was ashamed. Ashamed of my fear. Ashamed of hiding. Ashamed of wanting to make sure the coast was clear before I made my way back to my car.

But you have no way of knowing that.

Likely you were embarrassed of your mistake.

I took a long time washing my hands and I exited the restroom, trying to look everywhere at once. Trying to ensure that the risk had passed. I did not see you anywhere and I am grateful for that. One of the two cars was gone. I was so relieved to climb back behind the wheel and lock my doors. Sanctuary.

I stopped at another rest stop several hours later. The lot was full. Cars, people, dogs everywhere.

I was relieved. I might still have had someone stare open mouthed. I might still have had someone try to bar me from entering the restroom. But there were people everywhere and I felt safe. Safer.

There are so many things you don’t know.