Why some transgender Georgians are anxious visiting public bathrooms

Assigned male at birth, she said that as an adult she knew she was a transgender woman. She had started taking hormone replacement therapy. She had on eyeliner. Her hair was long, not the buzz-cut she said she had in ROTC. When some people viewed her from behind, they were already referring to her has “ma’am.”

Still, Vincent feared being considered a man in the women’s bathroom and being beaten up and “tossed out of Kroger or worse.” She also feared feeling hopeless if she instead went into the men’s bathroom and wasn’t recognized as a woman.

“I loaded myself up with confidence, opened the door to the women’s restroom and walked in like I owned the place, like I had been doing it my entire life,” Vincent recalled.

She performed one of the most basic of human functions, then washed her hands and “got the hell out of there.”

For Georgians who are transgender, navigating how to use public bathrooms while out living their lives can often be a scary, angst-filled undertaking, particularly early in their transitions, according to interviews with nine people who have gone through it.

Such worries can linger for years, even for those who feel they aren’t likely to be “clocked,” or identified as transgender. And some say they face risks no matter which single-gender bathroom they choose, because strangers may not accept them as either male or female, nor as nonbinary people.

Which bathroom people use — and whether that decision should be made a crime — has again found its way into national and Georgia politics.

In November of last year, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives announced a new ban on transgender individuals using Capitol and House office building restrooms not matching their sex assigned at birth. A South Carolina congresswoman has sponsored a bill with the same ban for anyone on federal property, from national parks to courthouses and Veterans Affairs hospitals.

In Georgia, Republican lawmakers have vowed to pass legislation requiring public schools to limit participation in girls’ and women’s sports to student-athletes listed as female on their birth certificate. Some LGBTQ+ rights advocates worry efforts to regulate transgender people could go further, such as limiting restroom access across the state or further limiting minors’ access to gender-affirming care.

Georgians who are transgender say that for years they already have had to take steps to safeguard themselves in a world that sometimes views them with hostility.

‘It feels like a threat all the time’

Truck Martinez, a 27-year-old transgender man who works at a metro Atlanta coffee shop, said he first used a men’s bathroom while at an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performance. He got the feeling people were staring at him, and it unnerved him so much that for the next year and a half he would cut short social engagements rather than use a public restroom.

He’d think in advance about where the nearest safe bathroom might be. He’d seek out single-stall, gender-neutral restrooms. Or he’d hold out as long as he could — sometimes hours, something he said he believes has led to bladder infections. On drives home he sometimes pulled over to relieve himself in a remote area. He wanted to avoid confrontations and worried about being attacked. “It feels like a threat all the time.”

Three years into his physical transition through hormone replacement therapy, he has a five o’clock shadow and unconquered fears every time he uses a men’s bathroom. If he uses one, he asks a friend to walk with him there. “Very, very seldom do I go just by my lonesome.”

He’s short for an adult male. “It feels like it is screaming that I’m trans .... I feel like people are looking at me closely. I feel like, how long is it going to be before they notice that I have boobs or that I stand a different way or that my feet are a different way when I’m in a stall?”

He recalled once when the only other person in a bathroom at a concert venue was staring at him, squinting like he was trying to make things out more clearly. Martinez said he was sure there was going to be trouble. Then another group came in, and he slipped away.

What worries him most is when children are in the bathroom, because he knows some people have become convinced that people who are transgender are a danger to kids. “I’m the one being seen as a threat, which is bonkers,” he said.

‘I really don’t want to go to jail’

Jack Irwin, who said he used to be a police officer, was assigned female at birth. But as he became an adult, even strangers sometimes didn’t see him as a woman.

For a while, he said he tried to act more feminine. He attempted to make his voice higher. Still, people would call him “sir.” Once, while in a government motor vehicle office, he started walking down a hall that led to the women’s restroom. A woman called out to him. “Sir! Sir! ... You can’t go in there.”

So he turned and went into the men’s room, the very room that some politicians would think he shouldn’t be in.

“I’ve been in an interesting position my whole life,” the 45-year-old said.

In his 40s, he started his transition as a transgender man.

At the forefront of his mind in restrooms: Be careful. “Anybody who is perceived as different can become a target to people who don’t understand that it is OK to be different.”

But he said he doesn’t get second looks when he uses a men’s room. And he said now that he lives in the city of Atlanta his concerns have eased a bit compared to when he was living in the northern suburbs. Still, when he goes into a restroom he thinks about his exit plan, how he’d get out if there was trouble.

On his driver’s license his sex is listed as “M.” Other documents have been changed. He’s had top surgery. He’s taken hormone replacement therapy. He wonders, do politicians really want to force him back into using the women’s restroom? And what’s the punishment if he doesn’t? “I really don’t want to go to jail, and certainly not for a function of nature that I have to take care of.”

‘Women stare all the time’

Gabrielle Claiborne is 6′2″ — 6′6″ if she’s in her 4-inch heels. “I am easily read by women in the bathroom,” she said.

When she lived life by outward appearances as a man, she was married to a woman, had three children and built a 30-plus-year career in the construction industry. She’s now 64, a transgender woman who leads an inclusion training and consulting firm “with a trans and gender expansive focus.”

She was in her 50s — before she had medically and legally transitioned — when she first entered a women’s bathroom at a local restaurant. She thinks she asked a friend to check on her if she wasn’t out within five minutes.

“It was an exhilarating moment on one hand and an apprehensive moment on the other,” she said. “It lasted all of two or three minutes.”

Since then, she’s used bathrooms for women thousands of times. She’s never experienced violence or a big ruckus as part of those visits.

But “women stare all the time. I have made it a practice when I go into a bathroom now I don’t engage with other women. I don’t look them in the eye. I don’t want to give any person any inkling that I’m in there for any other reason. Not only for my own safety, but for the reputation and safety of my community.”

A couple times, she said, she’s noticed women come in with small children, spot her and then suddenly clutch the kids closer.

But sometimes, if she’s freshening up her lipstick at the mirror, standing at a sink, elbow to elbow with another adult, brief conversations do arise. “I lean into those moments. It is small talk. Other women sharing recommendations. Sharing how their evening is going.”

Some other situations she tries to limit. She thinks about whether she is in an area where people are likely to have ever knowingly seen a person who is transgender. On trips to the beach through rural areas. At airports or truck stops or sports venues where people may come in from elsewhere, she’s extra careful. “I don’t want to create a scene,” she said.

Signs of acceptance

Sometimes, worries melt.

Amore Sierra Cano, 24, was apprehensive when she went into the bathroom of a popular club in Norcross. It was the first time she ever entered a women’s restroom, and she said she knew they must have known she was transgender.

It went well.

“The women in there were very welcoming. They weren’t judgmental. They weren’t uncomfortable.”

Meanwhile, Vincent, who once stood outside Kroger restrooms trying to decide which door to open, said she doesn’t think strangers in bathrooms recognize her as being transgender these days.

She recalls how sometimes she used to strategically flush the toilet, hoping to mask the sound made by her urine. Did it sound like the sound made by a man?

Even now, though, before she enters restrooms, she gives herself a gentle reminder: “Present yourself like you have been using the women’s room your entire life. This is just a routine bathroom visit.”