I’m feeling a lot of feelings and need to vent, so my apologies if this ends up being a little scatterbrained.

I’m a security guard in a purple city/red state, and I’m working an event tonight at a church. 3 hours into my shift, I’ve accepted that I’ll have to go to the bathroom at some point.

I’m tall (over 6ft/180cm), over weight, bad hairline, and the only obviously feminine shape I have is boobs (which are squished into a sports bra and not very visible).

Package all this in a polo shirt and black cargo pants… I’ve gotten “maam’d” -twice- in the 1.5 years I’ve been working this job.

So, after 3 hours of deliberating, I decided to trade some of my dignity for safety and just use the mens room. I’d already been misgendered, so I felt it was the best option…

I go into the mens room, take care of business (in a stall), and as I’m washing my hands, this guy comes in, sees me and says “am I in the wrong place??” as he walks back out to check the sign on the door. I told him no, I don’t think so and just got the fuck out as fast as possible.

There was no confrontation and I didn’t feel unsafe, though now I’m worried about a complaint (which I was also trying to avoid), and now I’m too nervous to use either one next time I have to pee… I can’t win. And I feel like my spent dignity got me nothing but frustration and a possible complaint.

I won’t lie, there was some validation in the whole thing, but it was tainted by the frustration of feeling like there’s no place in the world for me and the desire to just hide myself away from it all…