Wednesday, June 29: Pee and politics in North Carolina

Wednesday, June 29, 2016:

Brandon at his office.

I woke up about 6:30 in my tent after a chilly, peaceful night. Getting dressed is a challenge in my little tent, but I managed to put on all clean clothes. Brandon showed up just after 7, and we walked up to the Inn and had a nice breakfast with a spectacular view. There was a thick layer of fog in the valleys, making them look like lakes. After breakfast we took a walk around the campground, and then sat at my picnic table and meditated together. I gave Brandon a ride back up to the inn on the back of my motorcycle.

Then I did a load of laundry at the camp store. While it was washing, I tried to use the free wifi connection at the inn, but for some reason it wouldn’t work. I tried again on a different hotspot at the camp store, but I still couldn’t connect my laptop. The reasons for the problems weren’t even consistent, so I couldn’t diagnose the problem. Finally, I figured this is a fine time and place to just forget about the internet. I had hoped to post a blog on my travels, but I guess that wasn’t meant to be. I can still write, as I am doing here.

And here I am in North Carolina, the state whose legislature and governor passed HB2, the infamous “bathroom bill.” I feel a little guilty even visiting the state after people like Bruce Springsteen announced a boycott of the state to protest this hate bill. Of course I don’t think my presence or absence will have the same impact as “The Boss.”

It seems like America is divided. On one hand are people who want to love and accept other people knowing that the things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us. On the other hand are people who are afraid of people who are different. To say “America has never been so divided” is nonsense. Both the 1860s and the 1960s prove otherwise.

But this “bathroom bill” is certainly a highpoint in absurdity. Apparently it decrees that people must use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender they were assigned at birth. Damn, I came to North Carolina and plum forgot to bring my birth certificate! Will there be state troopers are every men’s room door asking to check my gender assigned at birth? Perhaps I could just show them my wiener? (I’ve never typed that word. before; I wasn’t sure if it was w-e-i… or w-i-e…)

I suppose what the Republican legislators were attempting to do is protect the delicate women of North Carolina from the perceived dangers associated with having to share a bathroom with someone who was assigned a male gender at birth and transitioned to life as a female. I am not sure, but I believe some of these people have their penises surgically removed. Surely they can’t be the problem. I’m really not sure what the problem is.

I was once a teenage boy who was looking for every advantage I could find in “picking up chicks.” Somehow changing my identity to live my life as a female never occurred to me as a path to sexual conquests.

The only bathroom law I ever heard about when I was young was the unstated rule that guys don’t talk to each other in men’s rooms. Apparently women chat it up all the time while tinkling, but men stare straight ahead, never glancing from side to side, and certainly not talking to each other. I suppose that policy probably grew out of the homophobic culture of the 1950 and ‘60s in which I grew up.

The men’s room I use at work is near the English Department at a community college, and several of my colleagues are gay men. They aren’t afraid to talk in the men’s room. Maybe I need to brush up on my urinal conversation skills. But the truth is that I have been peeing with gay and straight, and transgender men all my life—I just never knew, nor did I care. Urination and fornication are so widely separated in my mind that it’s hard to believe that they may involve some of the same body parts.

If the esteemed legislators of the Tar Heel State (I had to work that in) are so worried about bathroom sex, they have a serious problem. They would need to make sure that nobody entering a men’s room is interested in having sex with a man, and nobody entering a women’s room is interested in having sex with a woman. So we could have a straight-men-and-lesbians’ room, and a straight-women-and gay-men’s room. Uh oh, what about bisexuals? I think they’d have to pee in the woods.

Of course there is nothing funny about rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Those crimes should be strictly enforced and severely punished wherever the violations occur. But, please, North Carolina, if a guy realizes he is really a gal, and he changes his whole life to dress, act, and present as a woman, please let her go into whatever stall she chooses, close the door, and do her business in private.