Once, I went to a binary gendered bathroom overseas (the one that said ‘women’), and I thought I’d walked into the ‘wrong’ bathroom. It was filled with folk from the masculine part of the gender spectrum/sphere/universe. I looked again, and I realised it was a full gender rainbow, all sorts of amazing tomboys and bois and femmes and andros and powerfemmes and otherly gendered beings. It was confusing and perplexing (I didn’t speak the country’s language and I wasn’t in a queer part of town). And then, I felt such a huge sense of relief. And took a piss with a gigantic grin on my face.
Somewhere, in the world, there are places where I can pee and be smiled at and feel a sense of shared space and be treated with warmth and comradery and even get thrown the occasional flirtatious glance. When I have had enough with having to peeing in spaces where I am met with hostility and curiosity and stares and helpful comments and snide remarks, when the thought of having to take a wizz fills me with apprehension, remembering this makes the sun shine in my chest.