I recently joined a gym for the first
time. Before this, I had access to a mini-gym at
my workplace. I used to love going in there
around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, after the
lunch crowd had been herded back to their
cubicles and before the after-workers started
milling in. I had delightful solitude, light
jazz playing, and never had to think about who
was staring at my breasts.
Now I belong to a large, cushy club. In
addition to weights, machines, aerobics classes,
and on-site massage therapists, there's also a
hot tub, full bar, and internet access. However,
the only question I remember asking during the
sales pitch (which wasn't much of a hard-sell...
I knew what I wanted, and I bought it) was, "Are
the showers private?"
No.
Damn.
I joined anyway, but it's a big pain in the
ass not being able to shower immediately after
working out. If the place had so much as private
shower stalls with curtains, I would shower
there. According to the salesman, and I didn't
check this out for myself because I can't figure
out how to do this without looking like I'm
peeping, it's "prison style" (my words, not
his): that is, one big open showering area.
Think I'm taking my phallically-challenged self
in there? Not on a bet, buddy.
As I said, I got into this on my own
volition. The shower question was important, but
the other factors: convenience to work and home,
hours of operation, classes, etc. outweighed the
problem of having to change into dry clothes to
avoid chafing on the 20-minute drive home where
I can finally shower.
Do you remember having to change for physical
education classes in school? If you were
anything like me, this was a traumatic
experience. It was a matter of getting into and
out of clothing as quickly as possible, offering
as little as possible opportunity for anyone to
see me even partially undressed, and while
avoiding even the appearance of looking at
anyone else's nakedness. In my high school, even
though we were all firmly instructed to shower
after P.E., no girl in my class ever did. We'd
generally avoid sweating too much in P.E., then
change back into our school clothes, Aqua-Net
our mall claws (a genre of late Eighties/early
Nineties girl's hairstyle, contemporary with the
mullet's heyday, which challenged gravity and
common sense), and go to our next class. I don't
know if the boys showered; I never asked. I
couldn't even tell you why we didn't shower. If
we'd all just done what we were supposed to, no
one could have laughed, but for us, nakedness
was just too shameful or embarrassing. No one
risked being the first to go into the shower,
another prison-style affair, so no one showered.
As far as I can tell, no girl in the history of
that high school ever showered after P.E.
class.
Dressing out in my new gym is a similar
experience. Not wanting to attract attention to
the scars on my chest or the secrets in my Fruit
of the Looms, I change in the same posture I did
in high school... hunched over a bit, facing the
lockers, avoiding looking at anyone else or into
the large mirrors on every available wall.
Men's locker rooms are a whole other species
of locker room from girl's locker rooms in high
school. The men seem to glory in their
nakedness. It doesn't even matter what a man's
body looks like-- he still takes a seemingly
exhibitionist pleasure in walking about in the
nude. Old, fat, grizzled, pasty-complexioned,
emaciated, sagging, or young, muscular, and
tanned, they all wander about for what seems to
me way longer than necessary. A friend of mine
who uses the same gym reports seeing one man
blow drying his pubic hair with the
complimentary hair dryers. Every day, I see men
standing around talking to their friends, fixing
their hair, brushing their teeth, and ambling
from the hot tub and back, completely naked. If
I seem to be boggled by the sheer amount of
nakedness going on in the locker room, it's
because I am. Contrast this with my description
of the girl's locker room in high school, and
perhaps you can understand why. Further contrast
this with my own desire not to be discovered as
a transsexual in this very heterosexual
men's-only space, and you'll pat me on the back
and silently marvel that I even change clothes
in there.
As a transperson, gaining access to a men's
or women's space previously denied me has been a
thrilling, terrifying experience. The very fact
that I'm in there says I've arrived, I now pass,
I am accepted by others as a member of the
gender with which I identify. Once there,
however, there is always the danger of being
discovered, known as a transgressor. I don't
think I have to elaborate too much on what the
potential consequences are. In perverse moments
I wonder what would happen if I were to saunter
into the shower myself and begin lathering up.
Would they stare? Say anything? Yell? Shove me
out? Sexually harass me? Go to the management? I
go to nude beaches, have been in bath houses,
attended small nudist gatherings. It's more than
the revelation of my transsexual body, it's the
infiltration of a men's space by someone with an
arguably female body, however modified. We
transfolk can talk all we want about whether a
pussy on a transman is a "girl's part" or not;
I'm betting the guys in the shower haven't had
much consciousness-raising and that their
thoughts will be somewhere not far from "Hey!
There's a girl in here!"
So things change, things stay the same. I'm
still not looking, only instead of not looking
at breasts, I'm not looking at dicks. In another
ironic twist, I am terribly proud of my body. I
worked hard, paid a lot of money, and have
endured a lot of pain to get it. Even being in
the gym is part of how I'm working for my body,
working up the sweat I avoided as a girl in high
school. By other people's standards, I was
probably a lot nicer to look at when I was 14
and ashamed of chicken pox scars on my stomach.
As I get more confident, I'm not huddling so
much anymore. Sometimes I get a real fuck-it
attitude about the scars on my chest. I adopt
the same sauntering, no-hurry walk as the other
men in the locker room. And, when I'm pretty
sure no one's looking, I face the mirror, flex,
suck in my gut, and admire myself. The scars
ripple over my chest, and I actually like what I
see.
—by Justin Cascio, USA
Used with permission.
