New York City Transgender Woman Has Public Bathroom Arrest Charges Dropped. 3-5-2006
It goes without saying that the most shocking part of this news item is the fact that there’s actually a public bathroom still available in midtown Manhattan. The least shocking part is the public harrassment from that portion of society to whom tact and graciousness appears to be foreign terms. A transit police officer who feels it serves the public in some way to address someone as “A freak, a weirdo, and the ugliest woman in the world” comes as no surprise, as I have witnessed bystanders of mainstream identities suffer the same abuse from those who need to announce personal opinions to the general public at all times. Don’t they know we have personal websites to fulfill those nagging itches?
News, as some documentarians have theorized, is a form of crowd control. If one were to recreate the world according to the newsfeed, only blond white girls would be missing. All brown people would be violent extremist fundamentalists. And people who have that look of excruciating urgency with flushed complexions, perspiring, running in a stilted manner in half Kegels posture towards a bathroom is in search of licentious relief. Barring movie nominations, news- when it involves trans* people – have mostly consisted of either public policy changes, celebrities getting a cheap laugh by transforming into garish caricatures of themselves in the opposite gender, or violent cases of abuse and nonacceptance. The future looks bright with media broadcasts of transgendered stories and profiles slowly seeping into public consciousness. What we are witnessing is the well-trodden path towards integration, traveled by fringe groups for many decades.
So don’t get intimidated. Be wary, expect unpleasant surprises, keep an eye out. But never, ever, let it scare you into staying locked up for being who you are.
Once in a while, a story so truly bizare comes along, that it leaves us speechless. This is it! What transgendered people are doing every day without incident in the rural South, they get arrested for in New York City!
So mind-boggling, I had to take 24 hours to think of some appropriate comeback lines. Such as…
The crime rate in NYC has fallen so low, the police have time to bust trannies for using the bathroom?
They’re busting phone installers for going to the bathroom? No wonder the pay phones don’t work!
Gives new meaning to the nickname, “the Naked City!”
I’ve used those same bathrooms at Grand Central Station, dressed, without incident. No one called me ugly, either. I could feel flattered, of course. Or just chagrined that there’s a beauty contest to use the bathroom. But then we knew New Yorkers could be snobs!
And so on, and so on. Cheap shots, all, I admit.
Oh well…