For a number of years, there's been this question about which restrooms transgender students should use--or should be allowed to use. I had been so desperately hopeful that progress would be made quickly. This might sound odd to some, but my mother has not been able to use public restrooms by herself for quite some time now. The Alzheimer's has continued to take its toll. With few exceptions, I have been the person who has taken her out to restaurants, parks, and so forth. And when she has needed or wanted to go to the restroom, I have been the one to help her.
It's been a hell of a challenge. I've had to plan in advance, navigate, improvise, juggle, grin and bearit. Many, many, many restaurant managers would rather not have a grown man and his elderly mother in one of their restrooms at the same time. But my kind and wonderful mother has only gotten more and more confused. If I couldn't have helped her in the restrooms, then she would have sometimes probably sat in a stall for an hour or wandered out of the restroom not dressed appropriately.
No doubt there are people who would judge me for going about these things the wrong way, just like there are people who judge transgender people for being themselves, and people who judge other parents for raising their children the wrong way. And that's a goddamned pain in the ass. I love my mother and I've done it the best way I know how, and the people who have probably been most helpful (for me, anyway) with this particular issue have been the people who have created and used helpful relevant apps.
Yes, I love great apps. And the two that have been most useful have been Refuge Restrooms and Mommy Nearest. The former helps "transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming individuals" find restrooms; the latter helps find "family-friendly" restrooms. In recent years, I have choreographed many outings around accessible restrooms I've found on these apps. They have made all the difference.
I suspect there will not be any more of these outings for my mother. I kid you not, I am unexpectedly crying as I write this. It makes me so sad, of course, but it is just too difficult to get her out anymore. Nevertheless, I probably will keep the apps on my phone for some time. And I will maintain a quite visceral belief that people should be allowed to have access to a restroom, without being humiliated or made to feel unsafe. A person should be allowed to engage in the most basic, necessary functions without being deprived of dignity.
Your demonstration of love for your mother in the face of potential opposition from society is entirely consistent with your profile picture. This is what John Wayne would do.
ReplyDeleteBeaker and Bubba, good to see you.
ReplyDeleteBubba: I'm so sorry to hear about your mother's health.
ReplyDeleteRe: bathrooms: one of my male relatives, who has a four-year-old daughter, has a hell of a time with when they are out together. The girl still needs help: not big enough to climb on the toilet by herself, can't reach the sink, etc. If she really has to go, he takes her in the men's room stall and prays that no one will come in to use the urinal till she's done. Family/gender-neutral restrooms are a must.
Hang in there, Bubba! My Dad also had Alzheimer's. It's not easy.
ReplyDeleteP.S. From now on, anytime anyone tries to order me to say, "Merry Christmas," I am going to say, "Bah, humbug!"
Delete{{{{Bubba}}}}
ReplyDeleteThe systematic dismantling of civil rights that have come so far of late has taken a toll on so many families. You give such a compelling illustration it makes me cry too.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope that the response of the masses will result in solutions like the apps you mention - things that have not yet been thought of - that will push back in a way that allow families like yours (and mine) to continue to have positive public experiences.
Transplanted Anne
What is derided as "special treatment" is so often not only basic, EQUAL treatment for the groups in question, but makes life better and more human for others as well. Curb cuts are the classic example, but this is a great one, and very moving. Love to you and your mother, or better yet, I reflect the love that I see between you.
ReplyDeleteBathrooms seem so...commonplace. But I see dementia, access,disability, and gender discrimination in such different ways now as a result of your powerful and heartfelt post. It's that a rest room is so commonplace, the need for a facility so banal, that makes the obstacles you--and so many others--face touching.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who uses restrooms designated for women (or for anybody), I'm more than a bit puzzled by all of this hullaballoo over privacy (supposedly). Because the restrooms I use have doors (to the room, or the stall) and everything I do that needs privacy takes place behind that door (assuming the latch is working, which it isn't, always, but never mind; they should work, and I should check, and they're going to tear down the building soon anyway). I do often wash my hands in a more "public" area of the restroom, and I occasionally see people who pay more attention to these things than I do brush their hair or their teeth or put on makeup, but none of those things strike me as intensely private activities.
ReplyDeleteIf I encountered Bubba escorting his mom into and out of the handicapped stall in the women's room (which would be large enough for both of them), I'd be mildly surprised, but not fearful or even disturbed. Ditto Uggy's friend and his daughter. When you've got to go you've got to go, and the very young and the very old are especially likely to have urgent need of a bathroom. So one accepts that, in order to have a civilized and kind society, 95% of the time one will find exactly who one expects in the women's bathroom, and 5% of the time there may be a mild surprise, and everybody will wash their hands (and fix their hair if they're into that sort of thing) and life will go on.
I'd also be happy to check the bathroom beforehand, wait 'til it's empty of anyone who would be alarmed, and then serve as a guard/warning person at the door, Bubba. But I realize that might take too much time, and there's the little matter of geographic proximity, or lack thereof.
I do realize that men's bathrooms are set up a bit differently, but the hysteria doesn't really seem to be focused on who enters men's bathrooms. In fact, though I know there are a reasonable number of women getting hysterical about this subject, to some extent this seems to me to be a case where the more complex workings of men's bathrooms are being projected onto women's bathrooms.
also, in case you haven't seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k33n-TmM8Sw
DeleteAnd a bright spot in all this ridiculousness: my university president, with whom I have plenty of other disagreements, continues to handle pronouncements by the new administration well. He stood up for the centrality of immigrants and international visitors to the university's mission soon after the executive order, and he responded quickly to the bathroom guidance (or whatever it's called) by sending out an email saying that everybody on campus would have continued access to the bathroom in which they're most comfortable.
DeleteI wish you and your family all the best, Bubba.
ReplyDeleteOh Bubba, I am so sorry to hear about your Mom's health. Hugs to you!
ReplyDeleteRegarding the bathroom issue generally: your post illustrates yet another way restrictive ideas on bathrooms hurt people. All the silly bathroom restrictions encourage harassment of people who don't look "masculine" or "feminine" enough to please some mainstream standard and actually make things less safe for those at risk like your mom or young children. I read somewhere (just tried to find the article, but couldn't) recently that women who look "too masculine" by nature or by choice have begun experiencing harassment they never guessed might be hurled at them, being barred from the simple act of using the bathroom in public at an alarming rate in some parts of the country by interfering strangers. As someone who went through an awkward stage around 11-13 and was often mistaken for a male back then, I think back to those days and shudder at how much worse it could have been than simply feeling mortified at a clerk or waiter referring to me as "he" or "him." We Americans just keep trying, it seems, to invent new ways to make people's lives miserable.
The idea of moving towards all unisex public bathrooms is already being made reality in many places (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gender-neutral-bathrooms_us_56fd6ccbe4b083f5c607262c). I hope that one day this will become the norm.