I must enter the bathroom debate. This is a story that should never be shared, really, except between me and my therapist. But a new movement by male conservatives to occupy womens bathrooms has made me feel I must tell this story.
Male conservatives are ignorant. They are so lucky to have never experienced my life. I was harrassed and assaulted repeatedly throughout the '80s in a bathroom by a straight man. The bathroom was the one in the house I grew up in and the straight man was my father.
Public bathrooms have a lock on the door. Many have floor to ceiling walls. Trans men are not curious about what my genitalia look like. They don't get off on seeing it. Straight men? Yes. Yes, even fathers of daughters.
The first time the bathroom became a zone of fear, I was around 11. I went to the bathroom. Mom was in the kitchen and dad was working on a car in our detached garage. As I stood up from the toilet, I saw a man looking in at me. I screamed and ran. My mother caught me up in her arms and we both looked at the window--where my father stood.
I don't remember the fall out. I don't remember if she talked to him, screamed at him, I don't remember. I do remember that this was just a precursor to the hell I was about to go through from age 11 until I left home for good at age 19.
For eight years, my father rubbed and fondled me if he found me asleep, constantly tried to catch me changing clothes in my room or the bathroom, masturbated in the living room in front of me, in short, never ever gave me a moment's peace.
I had to be aware of when my father would return from work or from anywhere and make sure I went to the bathroom, quickly, while he was out. My mother worked weekends and one night a week. I would try to go before he got home, but weekends I had to wait him out. But as I think of the many, many instances, I have to think he was also trying when my mother was in the house.
Oh, yes, she knew everything. I told her repeatedly what was going on. She would yell and scream at him to stop and he would, for a week. Finally, when I was 16 and found him outside my bedroom door, she told me I was lying and just trying to cause trouble.
Not only did she know everything, but I learned decades later that she knew it was coming before that summer night when he made me scream. He had done these same things to her younger sisters who had visited our house. Her sister who was only three years older than me was forced to spend two summers with us. That poor girl.
He visited her as she tried to bathe, she said. I learned that bathing or showering with him in the house was out of the question. I came up with a clever solution, once. I would just wash my hair under the tub spout, leaving on all my clothes. He came into the bathroom and tried to look down and up my shirt as I was trying to finish up. Of course, I told him to leave me alone. He was just trying to talk to me, he said.
The door of our bathroom was warped because he would lie on the floor pushing the bottom of it to try to see me as I bathed or showered. I always shoved a towel under the crack. Once I came out and he was lying there and when I yelled, he said he was just petting the dog and how could I be so ridiculous.
Then one time as he was working with a saw out in the garage, I thought it was safe to poop. With the noise and his distraction, I thought he wouldn't know I was in there. And I'd been holding it all day. I went in, locked the door, pulled the blinds. Seconds later, he was banging at the door. Let me in, let me in, I got wood in my eye! Please go! I yelled. The door opened, jimmied. I pulled myself into a ball on the toilet but he knelt before me and pried my knees open and inspected my vulva, which was just starting to get pubic hair. I pushed him away, what did that have to do with his eye?
As I recall he left me alone the rest of that day. I told my mother, of course. She talked to him, of course. But, the harassment never stopped and I tried to protect myself. One time, I left in place the towel that I used to lay across the window sill to hold down the windowblind. (I usually cleaned up the evidence of hiding because, as my mother explained, it hurt my father's feelings that I didn't trust him.) I came back into the bathroom, he had stapled to the towel a picture of himself and our dog that I had vandalized. I had tried to scratch him out of the picture because who wouldn't? He had found it and kept it and used it at this opportunity. When he found evidence of me trying to protect myself his reaction was to try to hurt me? And how many days later was he pushing on the bathroom door trying to catch me naked?
So when men talk about men in women's rooms, these memories are dredged up. My memories of
never having peace or privacy. And I know that my peace and privacy were never assailed by a transgender person. It was an obsessed straight man. So, let it go, men obsessed with their daughters bathroom use. It doesn't look good on you.
Male conservatives are ignorant. They are so lucky to have never experienced my life. I was harrassed and assaulted repeatedly throughout the '80s in a bathroom by a straight man. The bathroom was the one in the house I grew up in and the straight man was my father.
Public bathrooms have a lock on the door. Many have floor to ceiling walls. Trans men are not curious about what my genitalia look like. They don't get off on seeing it. Straight men? Yes. Yes, even fathers of daughters.
The first time the bathroom became a zone of fear, I was around 11. I went to the bathroom. Mom was in the kitchen and dad was working on a car in our detached garage. As I stood up from the toilet, I saw a man looking in at me. I screamed and ran. My mother caught me up in her arms and we both looked at the window--where my father stood.
I don't remember the fall out. I don't remember if she talked to him, screamed at him, I don't remember. I do remember that this was just a precursor to the hell I was about to go through from age 11 until I left home for good at age 19.
For eight years, my father rubbed and fondled me if he found me asleep, constantly tried to catch me changing clothes in my room or the bathroom, masturbated in the living room in front of me, in short, never ever gave me a moment's peace.
I had to be aware of when my father would return from work or from anywhere and make sure I went to the bathroom, quickly, while he was out. My mother worked weekends and one night a week. I would try to go before he got home, but weekends I had to wait him out. But as I think of the many, many instances, I have to think he was also trying when my mother was in the house.
Oh, yes, she knew everything. I told her repeatedly what was going on. She would yell and scream at him to stop and he would, for a week. Finally, when I was 16 and found him outside my bedroom door, she told me I was lying and just trying to cause trouble.
Not only did she know everything, but I learned decades later that she knew it was coming before that summer night when he made me scream. He had done these same things to her younger sisters who had visited our house. Her sister who was only three years older than me was forced to spend two summers with us. That poor girl.
He visited her as she tried to bathe, she said. I learned that bathing or showering with him in the house was out of the question. I came up with a clever solution, once. I would just wash my hair under the tub spout, leaving on all my clothes. He came into the bathroom and tried to look down and up my shirt as I was trying to finish up. Of course, I told him to leave me alone. He was just trying to talk to me, he said.
The door of our bathroom was warped because he would lie on the floor pushing the bottom of it to try to see me as I bathed or showered. I always shoved a towel under the crack. Once I came out and he was lying there and when I yelled, he said he was just petting the dog and how could I be so ridiculous.
Then one time as he was working with a saw out in the garage, I thought it was safe to poop. With the noise and his distraction, I thought he wouldn't know I was in there. And I'd been holding it all day. I went in, locked the door, pulled the blinds. Seconds later, he was banging at the door. Let me in, let me in, I got wood in my eye! Please go! I yelled. The door opened, jimmied. I pulled myself into a ball on the toilet but he knelt before me and pried my knees open and inspected my vulva, which was just starting to get pubic hair. I pushed him away, what did that have to do with his eye?
As I recall he left me alone the rest of that day. I told my mother, of course. She talked to him, of course. But, the harassment never stopped and I tried to protect myself. One time, I left in place the towel that I used to lay across the window sill to hold down the windowblind. (I usually cleaned up the evidence of hiding because, as my mother explained, it hurt my father's feelings that I didn't trust him.) I came back into the bathroom, he had stapled to the towel a picture of himself and our dog that I had vandalized. I had tried to scratch him out of the picture because who wouldn't? He had found it and kept it and used it at this opportunity. When he found evidence of me trying to protect myself his reaction was to try to hurt me? And how many days later was he pushing on the bathroom door trying to catch me naked?
So when men talk about men in women's rooms, these memories are dredged up. My memories of
never having peace or privacy. And I know that my peace and privacy were never assailed by a transgender person. It was an obsessed straight man. So, let it go, men obsessed with their daughters bathroom use. It doesn't look good on you.
