As a trans masculine person, at some point I decided to transition hormonally, and with that I had to take another decision. People on the streets were reading now my gender as male, and that meant that I also couldn’t go in the female changing rooms (or WC) anymore, but then another question arose, when to start going to the other one? An architectonical place, that was thought as a place for a natural necessity is being converted into a place of “gender vigilance” (Preciado). They are a public inspection system that evaluates the adequacy of each body to the current masculinity and femininity codes, as if we were going to the bathroom to re-make our gender instead of getting rid of the urine and shit (Preciado). For me, the turning point was the mastectomy. I remember when going to the women’s changing room, I was already taking my T-shirt off while I was still crossing the door, as shouting – Look, I have tits! I’m not in the “wrong place”. – I knew all the women in there were ready to check if my body passed their gender verification test. I considered my tits as my “gender proof” to be properly gendered, which means be intelligible as either a man or a woman. Halberstam refers to this as the “cardinal rule of gender: one must be readable at a glance.” “Thus, a docile body will not only be identified as either man or woman but also be easily read as such by others.” (Bender-Baird)
And then there’s the day when you start going to the other changing room, and you notice that you have to re-learn the codes. The one that you knew, are not valid anymore. I did the same, I took my T-shirt off as soon as possible in a way to shout – Look, I have no tits! – But they weren’t looking at me. The way you move here is different, the way you look, what you look at, is important. Because, above all, you feel that fear of not wanting to be perceived as the queer in the changing room, they do not only perform masculinity, but a straight masculinity. They talk loud, about football, about their jobs, but they don’t look at each other bodies, or dicks. And there I am, I need to shower, but I don’t want them to notice that I’m trans, I don’t feel it as a safe place to be out. But, will they look at my body, scrutinize it as in the women’s changing room? As feminist scholars have been saying, “public space is not a neutral space, rather it is where power is enacted” (Bender-Baird), and changing rooms and public WCs are not an exception. To survive in that place, a public place that, as Halberstam says, “is a representation, or a parody, of the domestic order outside of the house, in the exterior world” (cited in Preciado), I also start performing, not to be too “hiddy”, but also not too noticeable. All these are actions of performativity, which Butler defines as a process which “consists in a reiteration of norms which precede, constrain, and exceed the performer and in that sense cannot be taken as the fabrication of the performer’s ‘will’ or ‘choice’” (p. 234). I think where to put my bag, how I hold my towel in my way to the shower, where to put my underwear in order to be able to pick it afterwards without nobody noticing, how to put my body in the shower, everything is thought through, carefully. Now, after over 4 years doing this a few times a week, without never having any trouble, I still think through it each time. Will it be different today? Will they notice that there’s no bulk under my underwear? Will they see my chest scars?
As an autoethnographer, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m an observant participant, or rather a participant who’s being observed. I can recall the day in which a guy was staring at my chest, after I had showered and was putting on my clothes on. I noticed him, and I was afraid, what is he looking at? I didn’t feel safe. – Can I ask you a question? – I could feel my heart beating, but I answered: Yes. – Which are those mountains? (I have a tattoo on one side of the chest) – Relief. He wasn’t scrutinizing my gender, nor my gendered body.
Outside each changing room, as the only sign, there is a gendered image: male or female, lady or gentleman, mustache or flower (Preciado); sometimes it’s so hard to know what the image is supposed to refer to. Are changing rooms about your sex or your gender? If as Butler says, sex as a category is gendered itself , there’s really no difference, and changing rooms are just about your gender presentation. Meanwhile, here I am again today, holding my towel in front of my hips on my way to the shower.
Bart Bloem Herraiz
Literature
Butler, Judith. (1993). Bodies that Matter. NY and London: Routledge.
Bender-Baird, Kyla. (2015). “Peeing under surveillance: bathrooms, gender policing, and hate violence”. Gender, Place & Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography.
Halberstam, Jack/Judith. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Preciado, Paul/Beatriz (2006). “Basura y género. Mear/cagar. Masculino/femenino.” 2 Dec. 2017. http://www.hartza.com/basura.htm
*Note: In the literature, the author Preciado was called Beatriz when they wrote the article, but now they go by Paul. I’m not sure how the rules for citing are in these cases, so I put both names, and the current one in first position. Idem with Halberstam.
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