Walking the Gauntlet: The Transfeminine Bathroom Experience

When "women's spaces" become battlegrounds of exclusion

Let's cut the bullshit right now—for transfeminine people like me (and many many others), walking into a women's bathroom can feel like volunteering for a public trial. What should be the most mundane part of your day becomes a high-stakes game where random strangers suddenly appoint themselves as gender police, jury, and sometimes executioner.

Every transfeminine person I know has "the bathroom calculation" burned into their brain. It's not just about needing to pee—it's a complex algorithm of safety, passing privilege, crowd density, location politics, and pure fucking desperation. And the consequences of this calculation can be life or death. Not theoretical, not exaggerated—actual goddamn life or death. I don’t go looking for a starbucks when I have to use the bathroom for zero reason. Their gender neutral bathrooms are a boon of kindness.