Stepping Out on Lexington's Shoulders

My given name has never fit me. No variation of it has ever made much sense. I have often searched for a nickname but rarely ever got one (and never a good one). I even tried to shorten my given name by a letter in the second grade and was told by my teacher that to do so would be “illegal". Jerk. Not clicking with my given name is reasonable to me considering that it came from a list of baby names floating around in my parents' house during the 1980s. And so, because my parents found some appreciation in this name (number seven on the list), that is what I was christened. Now, over two decades later I am reflecting on this decision made without my consultation and feel just fine about wanting to choose my name.

So I picked “Eli”. It's Hebrew and I am (eventually) converting, after all. It is also a popular feminine name in Norway from where some of my ancestors conveniently hail. The question now, and the relevance to this blog, is how this change will go over here in the fine city of Lexington.

I have lived here for just over a year now and have managed to spend a lot of time and energy in the pursuit of social change. That given name has been attached to an impassioned public speech and a full-color photo in a newspaper. The prospect of requesting to be called by my chosen name is also terrifying to me. The wonderful queer community in Lexington has shown me that such an act has successfully been done before and that I won't be going this alone. This post is the first leap of confidence that will lead to the first time I will introduce myself as Eli, nice to meet you.

Eli stands for all of the times I sped through introductions and the roll calls to which I hardly responded. It stands for all the cat calls and the “hey man, got a light(s)?" It remembers all the times over the years when my friends told me that I didn't look like my name. It hopes for a sense of solidarity in queer identity within myself and for that first confident handshake yet to come.

Mostly, it means to say “Hello, Lexington. I am the same crusader for equal rights that I was yesterday. I am here and genderqueer. I was afraid to be me but within your city limits I have found the confidence to speak up. You can call me Eli, nice to meet you."

New Venue in Town = I Peed on the Ground

Did the title grab your attention? Good. Let me propose something to you and please take the time to really think about this. As a cisgendered person, would you feel uncomfortable with gender neutral bathrooms in your favorite bar, or grocery store, or any other place you may frequent? And to those of you who identify differently, how would you feel if you came into your favorite bar and saw that the bathrooms were uniquely marked for the two types of humans who go out on a Friday night? I believe the response to the latter will be pretty uniform. Let me give you the story of my experience with the public restrooms in this town.

First of all, I am a pre-op, pre-hormone, androgynous, binding, FTM, gender-queer, and I go out A LOT. I used to work at the Good Foods co-op and before the expansion, they had gender neutral bathrooms. Sure, when I would walk out of the bathroom sometimes, a child would tug their mom's clothing and say "mommy, is that a boy or a girl?" but it's a Hell of alot better than a child screaming "Mommy, that boy was in the girl's room!" Or vice-versa.

I'm happy to say that I am no longer employed at this co-op, one reason being that with thier current expansion, they are providing larger bathrooms, which means they feel they need to throw a cut-out drawing of a "man" on one and a "woman" on the other. Some may be surprised at this step back in progress for this particular store, however it is coming from a place where the store manager said (to a cashier who shaved her head) "this is Kentucky, not San Francisco", then made her wear a hat.

I understand that with single stall bathrooms it is much easier to provide gender neutrality in a public space, which only pisses me off more when I see single stall bathrooms STILL LABELLED. To those spaces with large bathrooms providing multiple stalls I propose a third option. A safe option for people like me. I cringe at "Family" bathrooms, but God what a life-saver they are sometimes. Also, I have noticed some department stores provide a third option stictly for wheelchaired persons. In the event that I walk out of one of these and a handicapped person is waiting for me to come out, I will apologize profusely, however, I would rather someone assume I am an insensitive prick then stare me down on the way into the restroom because they feel I need to know just how disgusted they are.

To new owners who are just developing around Lexington (we are seeing a boom here) PLEASE include us in the drawing plans!!!! Buster's just re-opened bigger and better and on opening night I couldn't decide on a restroom (the old buster's was single stall and it didn't matter which one you used) and I had a male friend scope out the men's room and apparently even the toilet stalls have no doors. I ended up pissing in a corner of the parking lot all night.

Now back to my original question: To those of you who are cisgendered, would it really rock the boat too much to see a third space being provided for others? I mean, hey, if you're hateful toward non-gender conforming people, don't you want us to stop coming into your bathrooms?

This could go on forever and I want to see your comments!! Also lets take a moment to thank Third Street Stuff for being the ONLY public space who provide gender neutral restrooms. Thanks.

-Jackson