In one of my earliest childhood memories I’m walking into my kindergarten’s bathroom. I’m alone. I don’t know why I was allowed to go on my own- I couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. My kindergarten (technically a Montessori preschool) rented part of a public building, and the toilets were down the hall from our classroom. I found a strange man there.

I don’t know what happened next- memories are hazy at that age, and all I even remember of the man was a huge, looming presence. I remember that I was scared. I think I must have run away. I don’t think that I ever went to that bathroom alone again- not that anyone should have let me go there in the first place. I’m not even sure that I went there at all, if I could avoid it. I think I might have avoided using school bathrooms at all for years. Not easy, when you’re a small kid.

I get being scared of strange men in bathrooms.

That fear does not make transphobia acceptable. It’s not okay to conflate strange men in bathrooms with trans women needing a wee. Which is why I was shocked to read  this post by Ale Soares on Cork Feminista earlier this week: Continue reading “Trans Women Are Not The Enemy, They Just Gotta Pee: responding to Cork Feminista’s Ale Soares.” →