AUTHOR'S NOTE: Folks, I have to relay to you now a most harrowing tale. It's a tale, I believe, that should qualify for me for at the very least a Congressional Medal of Honor, and at most so much more (like a Starbucks gift card), really.
But be forewarned!
This tale is full of adventure, intrigue, mystery, and bold darings do, but it is not for the faint of heart! For you see, it is the tale of "The Time I, a Brave Cisgender Male, Took a Shit in a Target Bathroom." And I know some just may not have the stomach for such twists and turns as this plot shall produce!
I can remember it like it was just yesterday, because it was less than twenty-four hours ago that I was shopping at my local Target, or "Tar-Gét" if you're still making corporate retailer name jokes from the late 20th century, and I felt the call of nature.
I had to poop, for those of you who don't like enormous run-on sentences.
I knew though, being in a Target store, there was a chance I could wind-up shitting right next to someone who didn't have the same genitals as me at birth. Still, the call of doodie must be responded to, and respond I did.
I entered the bathroom and looked around. No one else was in there, so I took the center stall. Dropping trous, after placing down one of those giant doobie rolling paper rings over the seat, I was further relieved when no one had yet to come in. As I sat there playing Tetris on my iPhone, moving my bowels, I really thought I was going to luck-out and not have to come face to face with the horrifying thought of potentially, maybe, possibly pooing next to someone whose genitals I would never need or get to see being different than my own.
But alas...
The door flung open, and I could see a pair of feet shuffling toward the row of stalls. Oh Dear God, I thought, should I just ask them if they have a bingo-bango or a shmishmi? I couldn't remember if I was supposed to just continue shitting because stall neighbor genitals literally had never been important before, or if I was supposed to really freak out and lose my shit -- literally and figuratively in this case -- over it...
Decisions, decisions...
As the anonymous feet shuffled toward the stall next to mine, I could feel my heart racing. Soon, my palms were sweating as I heard and saw them -- what little I could from underneath the partition doors -- place down their own sanitary protection paper over the toilet adjacent mine, unhitch their pants, and sit down. Within moments, I heard farting, but was this biologically male farting, or some other kind of farting?
The moment of truth had arrived.
I reached deep down inside myself. I found all my strength from deep, deep within that I could muster, and I pushed. Oh, I pushed as hard as I could. Bravely, I decided that, yes, I would just keep right on pooping like it didn't matter who was next to me, because all they were there to do was their own, horrid, wretched, foul smelling business that brings us all into the bathroom.
Even if that wasn't true, and all those nice Republicans out there were right about me needing to worry that the whole world was going to fall apart if I dropped a massive, stinky, ass muffin next to someone who was baking their own ass muffins and not knowing their biological birth gender... I couldn't just pinch off mid-shit.
That's just asking for skid marks. Which are un-American.
So I shat. I shat the way every American shits when he's face to ass with such terrifying prospects. I shat with grit. I shat with determination. I shat like the existence of freedom and liberty itself was at stake and only my sheer will power to finish the shit would deliver us to a new era.
An era of peace...of prosperity. An era where we rise up as a people and just stop giving a fuck about stupid things like, "which no-no parts someone has," at all, because unless you're going to be the one invited to play with them, you'll never see them in your miserable, paranoid lives.
What a glorious dream to live in that era!
Some might say the truly brave ones are those who every day go out into a world that they just hope to be accepted in, only to find that even in the most personal, intimate, and yet universal settings they're still faced with prejudice. Some might say having to worry about being genital-checked every time you go Number One in public, let alone being assaulted and harassed just for being transgender in other, non-bathroom settings makes one brave for just trying. And there are even still some who would suggest that all the codified paranoia and discrimination lately will only further marginalize transgender people, weakening their position in society, and therefore anyone who is transgender and has the nerve to venture out into the world and use whichever bathroom they see fit are truly brave.
Sure, okay, that's all very true and all, but aren't I at least, like, kinda brave for carrying on as if everything in society is already tilted in my advantage anyway... because it is? Like, even just a little tiny smidge brave?
Yeah... I think so too.