Perhaps I overestimate the impact of a decent thought experiment and just paying attention to the labels on the bathroom. I don't believe risking a UTI or severe discomfort is going to change anything except how I think....and I don't think it would actually change how I think either. I believe more in efforts that have a lower bar to entry, with a high realisation payoff. If the bar to entry is too high, only people that already get it will do it.

Full disclosure: have not read article.

That said - if offices and public spaces are set up in a way that leaves a trans person generally unable to meet basic needs, and I've no doubt that is still more common than is comfortable, then that is wrong for a host of reasons. If "and horrors, they could get a UTI!" is where you clue into that, ur doing it wrong.

I've heard good things about Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, but then again, I can't even draw a decent stick-figure.

Our office has unlabeled single-user restrooms, but there's one that's customarily used as the women's and one that's mainly mine with some use by co-workers' visiting kids and the occasional tradesman. We're a small enough operation that there's no big deal if someone needs to use the "other" bathroom due to occupancy - they're more like water closets in a private home than public restrooms anyway.

Speaking of gender and bathrooms, there was a letter in an advice column this morning from a lesbian who was wicked offended when people in "exotic locales" questioned her in the bathroom, because she's not even that butch! This is the problem with individuals: I agree the actual issue is a problem, but the person presenting the problem made me roll my eyes.

Oh, here it is -- my local paper didn't have the inflammatory headline: [link]

I think there's a difference between being emphatic and knowing intellectually that this is an issue and then actually being faced with the realities every day for a month.

When I go to the restroom at work I don't think "well some of my customers wouldn't be able to use this restroom." But if I'm doing this challenge and can't use the restroom and I think the closest one I could use is at the mall (I think they have a family restroom) then I'll be more conscious of the situation.

Or if I buy clothes and I can't try them on because all the changing rooms are male and female.

When I go to the movies I usually pee right before and then sometimes have to sneak out during the movie and then go after the movie.

So if I do this challenge the movie theater is probably out.

And even though people aren't holding signs or making a public display of why they aren't using public restrooms their friends or family will probably notice and ask and then people can share about the challenge that way.

askye said what I was trying to say.

I still pretty much expect not to go to the bathroom in public.I can't by myself, for one thing, and for another, a lot of places kind of stick the Wheelie Guy up and call things accessible when they are not(Yes, there are supposed to be uniform standards and they are not supposed to be able to, but... it still happens) The end result being that I probably have a more trained bladder than those soldiers Eliot was stuck with on that one Leverage.

From my little sister:

My friend named her hard drive "That Ass" so that every month, her computer will ask her if she wants to back "That Ass" up.

If "and horrors, they could get a UTI!" is where you clue into that, ur doing it wrong.

By "you" do you mean me? I'm confused. And possibly offended, but I don't know who you're talking about.

their friends or family will probably notice and ask and then people can share about the challenge that way.

It's not my statement, and I can do anything I want, but that's what I'd prioritise. However, if I did it, a month would go by, and unless I started talking to people about my bathroom habits, no one would be any the wiser, and profile wouldn't have been raised one whit.

Is that the point? That I should be talking to people about when I need to use the restroom? That I'm privileged because I don't? That this is a taste of what it means to be trans, to have to have it be something that's discussed in public?

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just me being smug because I thought about it already, but in my head, I angle for accessible, shareable statements, not internal ones that ask for a commitment that mean I'm already on board.

So it could be that simple, that I think of my aunt sniping in the women's restroom "Well, you look like a monkey and they let you use it!" when someone expressed discomfort at my butch cousin (now FTM) using it too.

I already know which public venues I frequent don't have gender-neutral change and rest rooms. I'm already disturbed by it. I'd just have to be way more disturbed to consider not using them for a month. And the month wouldn't make me more disturbed, or more, well, anything.

However, it's being discussed here now, so even if no one takes it on, that's one more discussion than before they suggested it.

Completely unrelatedly, I am in the office, and there's a note saying "I figured you may need this one day, so I printed it out for you. Happy Hunting--P" attached to a picture of this. Which is so damned nice.

every month, her computer will ask her if she wants to back "That Ass" up.

If that's as rarely as she's backing that thang up, she's doing it way wrong.