CREATIVE NON-FICTION
My Grandparent Was Arrested for Using the Women’s Bathroom
I overheard the secret from our family gossip’s whispers
It was a “hush, hush” family secret, a scandal the children weren’t supposed to know about. I only learned about it because I heard the family gossip whispering the story over the phone when I was a child. The incident happened long before I was born. My grandparent was wearing women’s clothes and was arrested in the women’s restroom. No one questioned the behavior of the police in this incident, not even our family.
Being in a women’s bathroom while not successfully passing as a woman was considered so obviously illegal at the time.
Years later, another family member said she thought a brain tumor caused my grandparent to want to wear dresses, a tumor that didn’t appear until 20 years after the bathroom incident.
People told all kinds of short, terse stories about my grandparent. My mother even suggested my grandparent was dangerous. I don’t remember hearing my grandparent ever speak to me directly. All communication between us happened through smiles and quiet observation in the crowded background of a restaurant or a family event. I was never alone with my grandparent, who died when I was 12 years old. We never exchanged words, to my memory.
I was kept at a careful distance.
I remember going to the funeral and thinking that the bright orange tiger lilies were beautiful. It was the only thought I could muster about a stranger. I didn’t cry. Why would I? I didn’t know this person. I wonder if the children in my family will think the same thing if they come to my funeral someday.
I wonder what stories are told about me. What family scandals are whispered in my name? Do they assume I’m trans because I’m mentally ill? Do they think that makes me dangerous? Will they attribute my transness to a brain tumor diagnosis coming 15 years into my future?
Several family members speculated that this grandparent, often described as “eccentric” and “troubled,” possibly had some kind of undiagnosed schizophrenia. They told stories of this strange person who always wanted to be alone, who would have violent temper tantrums. They told me my grandparent wasn’t a good person. It’s hard to disagree from the stories I was told, but I wonder if aging in the closet contributed to this. “Bad” people are often failing to adequately cope with a lot of pain. Would I have become an angry closeted man had I grown old without having any outlet for my own secret? What would I have been like? What would 70 years of that kind of pain have done to me?
Rumor has it that my grandmother kicked the “deadbeat” grandparent out of their house, after many years of never managing to hold down a job. After a period of homelessness, she took pity and allowed her spouse to return and sleep on the couch. They came to some kind of uneasy peace in exchange for a large silver cross my belligerently atheist grandparent wore daily to please a deeply religious wife.
I’ve written a lot about how hard it has been to be a trans man from the U.S. Bible Belt. I’ve tried to write a lot about love and hope, too. The truth is that my life has been very easy compared to the lives of so many in my community who came before me. I’ve never been arrested for going to the most appropriate bathroom for me, though I’ve had some uncomfortable and scary experiences. Had I come out of the closet even 4 years earlier than I did, I may well have continued my grandparent’s legacy by getting handcuffed for being in the “wrong” bathroom. Depending on how well I passed as a man, I might well have been booked for being in either bathroom.
The attitude was quite a bit different six years ago from what it was like six years before I was born, though. Six years ago, people were arguing passionately about whether the police had the right to arrest someone for going to the bathroom that felt most correct for them. Lots of people who weren’t trans were laughing at or angry with North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory for suggesting that police should check the birth certificates of people before letting them go into the bathroom to do their business.
If you are unfamiliar with the Bathroom Law, Equality NC offers a good summary of what happened here. Frustrated with nationwide boycotts of North Carolina that happened in response to local government transphobia, more and more people stood up for transgender rights over time.
This more modern fight was very different from the earlier acceptance of seemingly everyone outside of the LGBTQ+ community that our existence shouldn’t be legal. That was the ugly reality for generations that came before me.
I write here to prevent us from sliding backwards in time. I write in hopes that my words may contribute in some tiny way to the next generation having it easier than the generations that came before. Changing one heart would be an accomplishment in that direction. Every drop of support for our community makes a difference. Every person who chooses to question the status quo instead of gossiping about the scandal of our existence can change lives and futures. I hope there are more happy old people and fewer angry old people in the next generation.
I wonder a lot about the future for trans people. I worry. Before I was blocked from seeing pictures on my sister’s social media account, I saw a photo that broke my heart. It was a photo of little children with sad eyes wearing dresses that didn’t match anything I knew about them from years of babysitting. Were they being hyper-feminized out of fear that they would turn out like me? Was it possible that one or both of them already was like me? If they aren’t like me, maybe they’re still feeling the effects of the gender policing on display in the picture. Not all girls like to wear ribbons and lace and not all boys like to wear suits and ties.
Does my sister, like my mother, think that keeping the children distant from the “troubled” trans relative will prevent them from becoming trans?
That strategy didn’t work on me. It left me with no one to answer my questions. It left me without words to describe myself, other than maybe “crazy”. It took me until my mid-thirties to discover this part of who I was. That didn’t change that I was always transgender and non-binary. It just meant I was in the closet longer and always felt like I was a little less than I really was. It took me longer to come into myself and find my confidence.
I want more for the children of the future than what I’ve had, and I want so much more than what my grandparent had. It is my hope that the next generation won’t feel like queer orphans, living without role models to answer questions and offer guidance and encouragement. Even if I can’t be there for the sad children wearing feminine dresses in my own family, I can be there for you: strangers on the internet who are reading this and others of our transgender stories because you’re searching for something you can’t quite put your finger on. I can share my stories and listen to yours. Together, we can hope for as many of us as possible to have happy eyes in photos, happy stories. We can hope to feel safe, to never be arrested for being ourselves. We can build a better future by remembering our history.
Seeing trans people popping up in shows like Sense8 and Umbrella Academy helps me to see how much things are changing. Together, we can build our dreams and move forward to better times. We can offer more for the next generations than what we had, while being grateful for the advances we’ve made since my grandparent was arrested for dressing in feminine clothes and going into a women’s restroom.
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This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, Being Queer Filled My Life With Joy! Do You Have LGBTQ Change Stories?