I changed a thing!

Manitou Springs, Colorado is five miles west of Colorado Springs. It's where Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak are, so it gets a lot of tourists, especially in the summer. It embraces its hippie local identity, of which my husband and I are a part (not apart). One of our locals is a cute little taphouse called Kinfolks, where we've been hanging out long enough to witness a change of ownership.

Since we were already regulars, we became friends with the new owners right away. One evening when my husband and I were the last two at the bar near closing time, I suggested that he make the restrooms gender-neutral.

Kinfolks had two single-use restrooms. I quit obeying gender-restrictive signs on single-use restrooms a long time ago, so I was familiar with the innards of both restrooms. I reject the gender binary. I understand that my vision of  a gender-neutral public restroom with multiple stalls plus a urinal trough is a bit much for many people. But I've yet to hear a persuasive defense of keeping single-use public restrooms segregated by gender. "Men are messy" or "women take too long" depend on outdated stereotypes that are easily debunked by the fact that your bathroom at home is probably gender-neutral.

The owner's first reaction was to laugh at my funny joke, until he realized that I was dead serious and waiting for him to respond.

The Gender Binary Is Stupid: Early Childhood

It all starts with the idea that you must be either male or female. The inability to allow for an "other" option (indeed, even the need to ask at all) already alienates people who don't fit into the easy either/or boxes we shove infants into before we even wash the slime off them. It's not common, but it's a lot of people.

Then, society keeps attaching assumptions to those categorizations based on genitalia. If you stray too far from those assumptions, you'll probably be a target for bullying, which is often a way for the gender police to "keep you in line."

Snips and snails and puppy dog's tails. Cooties. Boys don't cry. Girls shouldn't be too tough. Girls get in that line, boys get in the other line. No, no, not defined by how you identify, but by what's between your legs. Let's make it clearer: Vaginas in this line, penises in the other line. That is your primary classification.

It's insane. Actually, it's fucking insane, but I'm trying to curse less these days.

#LaughCryMad

Lately, on the Facebook, I've been using the phrase "laugh cry mad," perhaps better expressed 😆😭😠. It's a sentiment common among people who use humor to cope.

Today, this was the cartoon that evoked that triple-emoji:

It's funny - hilarious, actually - because it's true. And the fact that it's true makes me sad. And the fact that we're still fighting this battle and making these jokes to cope in two thousand muthafuckin' eighteen makes me really, really mad.

You'll know when the right time to use it is. You'll hover over the "laugh" emoji for a second, but you won't really want to laugh at it, and maybe you should use the "cry" emjoji but then you get pissed off so you click "like" and put "laugh cry mad" in the comments.

I'm going to try to make it a thing. #LaughCryMad. Hashtags are for searchability, after all, and it might be handy to catalog all examples of the phenomenon. I could turn that into an inspirational speech or some shit. 

Remember: #LaughCryMad. Use it.

#IAmComplicit

"A product of its time" is not an excuse, but it is a reason. I am embarrassed about some ways I've contributed to the culture. I can only apologize.

The Facts of Life, my very, very favorite show, a show that I believe was hugely ahead of its time regarding its commentary on many social issues of the time, a show that can do just about no wrong in my eyes, is guilty of minimizing sexual assault and contributing to rape culture.

In Part 1 of the 2-Part fourth season finale "Graduation" (1983), Roy the delivery man makes an appearance. His unrequited crush on Jo is a running joke for a couple of seasons (the entire storyline is problematic and will be discussed elsewhere). In this episode, Roy arrives announcing that he has a graduation present for Jo. What is it?

Following Jo's assault, the other girls proceed to make jokes about and to make fun of Jo for "kissing" Roy! Jo tells them that it's not a laughing matter, but no one makes the connection to the last time Jo was sexually assaulted or to the time Natalie was the victim of an attempted rape.

The phrase "a product of its time" is meaningful. It is certainly not an excuse for sexual assault. It is hard to explain what I am trying to say without sounding like a rape apologist.

Survivor outed a trans man tonight. Here's what one queer has to say about it

One of my favorite television shows ever is Survivor, and I accept that. I accept that Mark Burnett, the big creator guy or whatever, is a creepy fundy who hates a lot of what I stand for. I accept that Survivor is a "reality" show, in which stuff really happens but is often manufactured. I really don't give a shit; I love the show, and in fact I recently applied to be on it.

Tonight, a big thing happened on Survivor. During the Tribal Council, Jeff Varner turned to Zeke Smith and said, "Why haven't you told anyone you're transgender?"

I gasped. The people at tribal council gasped. Doves flew in terror.

Not because Zeke is trans, but because Jeff outed him like that.

And I'm happy to say that the outrage of the tribe and of most of what I've read online so far is that Jeff outed Zeke, not that Zeke is transgender.

I really believe however, that CBS would not have aired this part of the tribal council if Zeke had not agreed to it. Jeff Probst, Executive producer, really isn't a monster, I don't think. If that's true, Jeff outed Zeke only to Jeff Probst and their other tribe members. Which doesn't make it right, but at least gives Varner some vindication in his choice to GO THERE.

Then again, this is TV. You're on camera; anything can be used. If you say it on camera, it exists in the wild.

Zeke, to his credit, was very quiet and classy throughout the whole ordeal. It may have indeed been the case that media savvy Zeke recognized Jeff's comment as his national outing no matter what he wanted. And he was OK with that. In that case, I just respect him for respecting the inevitable.

Or it could have been that he was just fucking outed by someone he trusted and he thought his best bet was to take the temperature of the room and go from there.

Thankfully, when Zeke was outed, the immediate outrage from the rest of the tribe was directed at Varner for outing him. Not one person was outraged that Zeke hadn't told them he was trans. Special support was provided by Sarah, who admitted that she probably thought trans people were weird from her upbringing, but seeing that oh, THIS is what a trans person looks like takes all of that away.

I think this was good. Zeke may have gotten thrust into a position that he didn't exactly ask for, but on the other hand, he ended up an outstanding ambassador.

So the next thing Survivor should do is cast me, right?

I liked restroom equality before it was cool

In a law school class in the spring of 2013, I mentioned in passing that I thought that there shouldn't be gender-segregated restrooms. There was an understated gasp, and one classmate confronted me after class, suggesting that the notion was absurd. "Tell that to a sexual assault victim!" he declared. Ignoring his presumption that I was not one, I tried to respond by explaining that the specter of the sexual assault in the bathroom is a myth and the assumption that a gender-neutral mixed restroom will automatically lead to sexual assaults is grossly insulting to men. He brushed me off as though I'd suggested that Earth is flat, coming just short of actively mocking me, and I lost a little respect for him.

Conservative states continue to use dubious justification try to introduce legislation to keep penises and vaginas in separate restrooms, despite the fact that the number of assaults by trans women in women's restrooms remains at zero and the sky has not fallen in places like Colorado, which prohibits discrimination against trans people in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation.

I stand by my trans sisters and brothers in their continued effort to be able to pee in whichever segregated restroom matches their gender identity. Even more than that, though, I desperately want to get away from the notion that restrooms must be segregated into penis/male/masculine and vagina/female/feminine in the first place. Most discussions start with taking that notion for granted, and I refuse to accept it.

Many religions have strict mandates about behavior of men and women and whether and under what circumstances they can even be in the same space. It is not uncommon for progressives to criticize such rigid mandates regarding gender, while expecting tolerance of those who choose to practice such religious mandates and also being aware that "choice" is itself a loaded word that is meaningless in certain environments.

What does this have to do with piss and shit? I'm here to tell you that the thing that makes you cringe when thinking about a mixed-gender restroom is the same thing that drives religions and cultures of varying extremism to impose gender-based requirements and expectations on their members.

Heh. Members.

Look, it shouldn't even be controversial for a single-use restroom to be non-gender designated. Most of us have gender neutral restrooms in our homes. I bet more than half of randomly-selected responders would admit to having used an other-gender-designated single-use restroom because of a long line or an 'out of order' sign, or because they really really had to go.

I would very much like to understand what it is that opponents are really afraid of when I suggest that the default for a large restroom should be gender-neutral mixed use. Picture a restroom at a baseball stadium with fifteen or so stalls and a wall of urinals or a piss-trough. And I would also advocate a proportional number of single-use rooms to accommodate those with religious objections, PTSD, or people who just can't bring themselves to accept a mixed-use room.

Think of the porta-potty setup at your average music festival, where there is either one line or several, non-gender designated, and men and women use the same stalls. It would be exactly like that except in a room and with plumbing. When porta-potties are gross, it's usually not about the fact that there were men/women/other all using the same ones, but that you're not flushing and you have limited access to sinks.

The bathroom debate is only one symptom of the real problem, which is the fact that we are so OK with early and insistent grouping of "boys" and "girls" based on their genitalia and with a whole giant host of assumptions attached. Sure, if procreation is a consideration for a particular relationship, then the individuals in that relationship should talk about what is biologically possible, but that's really no different from what every relationship should do. It is my opinion that failure to communicate regarding a future with children is a huge reason that relationships end, but that's another blog.

I'm glad the dialogue is happening. The gender binary has frustrated me for a long time and I'm glad that my voice is finally in the discussion. I don't have much expectation of my vision occurring any time soon, but still, I feel vindicated.

August 31, 2016: The day I fully came on board with singular "they"

For several months, I have fully embraced singular "they" when others requested it. I also used it in certain writings where I specifically wished to avoid a gender-specific pronoun. You can see it in action in my article in Colorado Lawyer about transgender discrimination law.

I have long been aware that my queer/progressive/woke/anti-racist identity conflicts with my grammar nerd. I was always good with language, and my excellent grammar became a way for me to distinguish myself. As important to my identity as my social justice activist is my mastery of the white man's English.

Even now, while I recognize that a rigid, prescriptivist take on grammar is oppressive as fuck, I'm also not OK with language anarchy. I love language and I think it deserves respect - I've analogized the regular use of textspeak, for example, to using a designer dress as an apron. Or if “designer dress” has no meaning for you, just substitute a garment that you consider important and valuable. Perhaps a religious garment. Now imagine it being used solely to keep polenta spooge off someone's clothing. 

Developments in Federal Bathroom Law

Introduction and Disclaimer

Restrooms are only one part of the discussion. I believe the root of many of society’s problems is our obsession with genitalia; that is, in using genitalia to assign “male” and “female” and then assuming that those assignments are relevant and useful ways to socially classify people. This has been something that courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have assumed since their inception. The only change since then is to what extent we classify and regulate. We no longer tolerate “but she’s female” as a reason to deny women law licenses or prohibit them from working as bartenders; indeed, it seems ridiculous to do so in 2016. Yet it remains the case that it is typically taken for granted that a gender-inclusive educational facility requires separate living accommodations for men and women.

Against the binary: Athletics and Chris Mosier

The Olympics are on right now, and I am enjoying the hell out of them. Women’s rugby is in the Olympics for the first time ever; men’s for the first time since 1924. The athletes are so talented and their bodies are works of art. And gender has a spot in the phenomenon, in ways both celebrating how far we’ve come and exposing how much there is still left to do.

On the celebration side, we have Chris Mosier, the first openly trans athlete to make TeamUSA. 

Prince is dead! Long live gender ambiguity!

I believe I was among the first to find out that Prince died. A friend posted as the news about a death in Paisley Park broke (and let's take a moment to raise a glass to the awesome name of the estate), and I watched coverage live as it was confirmed that it was indeed His Purpleness. That sucks; he was so very talented and way too young to die.

It's not like when David Bowie died and I received personal condolences from many; I wasn't that much of a Prince fan. But boy did I enjoy the hell out of his music, and I appreciated his eccentricity and his experimentation and his general vibe. And although I was aware that the symbol he used as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince was a combination of the traditional male and female symbols, it never seems to have entered my consciousness that like David Bowie, like the character Jo Polniaczek on The Facts of Life, Prince influenced my understanding of what I would now call gender fluidity. but among the coverage, I heard a reporter refer to Prince's gender-bending ways and compare him to David Bowie, and OF COURSE.

Miss Piggy: life coach

Last month when one member of my life coaching team passed away, I wrote about it on my blog about the 80s television show The Facts of Life. David Bowie and Jo Polniaczek from Facts are two of three famous/fictional influences that significantly shaped who I am today. Their influence on my acceptance of my own gender nonconformity was crucial. I don’t want the third member of my life coaching team to be overlooked, though, so I want to dedicate a few words to her today.

Here’s to you, Miss Piggy.

Jo and Bowie have the whole gender-nonconformity thing going for them, and that speaks to me for obvious reasons. Piggy, of course, is the femmest of the femme. She’s obsessed with clothes and hair and makeup and has a large number of “way to not be a stereotype” moments. She is also a pig. Who dated a frog. Talk about nontraditional expressions and preferences.