Leave it to a deodorant company to get what so many elected officials in this country can’t quite wrap their heads around — that there is no “one way” to express gender.
And while right wing politicians and talking heads spend no shortage of time obsessing over how they, and most importantly their pure and innocent daughters, will feel should they ever cross paths with — gasp! — a transwoman washing her hands at the bathroom sink, they give little to no thought to what it can be like from the trans person’s perspective.
Related: Selfie Campaign Shows How Absurd It Is To Force Trans People To Use The Wrong Bathroom
Many businesses are adopting gender neutral bathrooms — and why not? It’s not like there are separate men’s/women’s bathrooms when you go over to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving, and somehow the turkey gets carved just the same.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
But until that becomes the norm (and perhaps it never will), there will be moments like the shockingly intimate one portrayed in the below ad, for Secret Deodorant of all things.
Related: Children’s Musician Has A Message For The Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill Folks
In the ad, the ever-lovely Karis Wilde (check out her Instagram if you’re in the mood for a good gag or twenty) plays Dana, a trans or genderqueer person debating her exit from a busy bathroom. Though she says nothing, we know exactly what’s going through her head — anxiety, some fear, perhaps shame.
Finally she takes a deep breath and with head held high, braves a world that is all too often cruel and callused. Text is superimposed that reads: “Stress test #8260 — Dana finds the courage to show there’s no wrong way to be a woman.”
“I always have moments of insecurity but I have conditioned myself to act unbothered,” Karis shared with Queerty when asked if the scene bears any resemblance to her daily life. “While shooting, I allowed myself to feel vulnerable. It terrified me how much I’ve stored all those emotions; I almost cried in the middle of taping.”
Watch below:
https://youtu.be/Tjg-ZSk31rw
RIGay
Wow! Exceptional!
Alistair Wiseman
“…that there is no “one way” to express gender.”
And yet 99.7% of us find that one way to express it.
“…gasp! – a transwoman washing her hands at the sink….”
“It’s not like there are separate men’s/women’s bathrooms when you go over to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving….”
Queerty, could you be anymore dishonest and condescending?
Brian
I’m sorry but I would rather have segregated public toilets. This is not due to prejudice but Nature.
Women do all sorts of icky things in public toilets, like disposing of their tampons in the trash can. I’ve seen it with my own eyes while cleaning toilets during my vacation work. It’s disgusting.
Men don’t menstruate.
The other thing is that men generally don’t scrub the toilet bowl after they’ve been to the toilet. Women are cleaner in this regard.
VampDC
disagree. bathrooms are based on biology not feelings.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
There’s so much dishonesty about this issue on both sides. Personally I don’t get the problem with bathrooms…but locker rooms I’m less sure of, to put it mildly. And how about, say, a cis woman who for whatever reason, maybe religio-cultural, or because she is rape survivor, refuses a transwoman gynaecologist? Does a cis woman morally have that right?
annette_thompson
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: what cross dressers are you talking about. I don’t know anyone that cross dresses using the bathroom incongruent with their gender
annette_thompson
@Alistair Wiseman: you have a delusional attitude. You have never heard of a manly man or a masculine woman that is the fact. No one does gender one way.
Alistair Wiseman
@annette_thompson:
There are 7,500,000,000 people in the world and according to you, “no one does gender one way”.
Yet, I am the “delusional” one. Profound, Annette.
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Jack Meoff
I sure as hell don’t want gender neutral bathrooms but I do want all trans people to be free to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. Same goes for locker rooms. I always think that it is a thousand times worse for the trans person than it is for anyone else.
Louis
Beautiful video and im so sick and tired of the lack of respect and tolerance coming from this community.
Grow the hell up already you act more like right wingers with your uneducated prejudices and irrational fears,paranoias,and hate its disgusting to witness constantly.
Smh its always one step forward two steps back so tiring.
Brian-E
@Louis Thank you! Very well said.
Those who have hangups about sharing public bathrooms and locker rooms with transgender and genderqueer people really are going to have to get over them sooner or later. It is unacceptable to deny other people their basic rights of taking part in society simply because of your own irrational insecurities. And they are irrational.
Brian
Those who run public amenities should have the right to segregate toilets on the basis of gender. It ensures a degree of safety as the public environment is an un-vetted one. At home, you can at least vet who enters but, in public, you can’t.
I get so annoyed with transgenders and their supporters who insist that everybody has to follow their ideas. I mean, you can’t even get the idea correct regarding which sex you are….
Brian-E
@Brian
Being out and about in public amongst strangers is, and always has been, a risk. Nothing is being added to that risk by accepting that trans and non-binary people have a right to use public facilities like anyone else.
And no-one is asking you to follow anyone else’s ideas. Merely to accept other people’s right to do what no-one questions your right to do.
ChrisGMN
The estimates are that only 0.6 percent of the population are transgender. The chances of the average person actually running into a transgender person in a bathroom is ridiculously low. So why all the fucking panic? If you are that uptight about it, take an enema.
Gates
I think this is much ado about nothing. There are stalls with doors in bathrooms so what does it matter which one you use? As far as locker rooms, you should use the one that fits your physical sex, because people are really uptight about nakedness.
notcisjustmale
Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman is now strong as a man but feels like a woman. “Private” spaces are segregated by sex, not gender. So rather than forcing females to interact with intact males in sex-segregated spaces, why not start expecting men to leave effeminate males alone in the restroom, locker room, etc.
1EqualityUSA
It’s the pits…ahhhhhhh!
My comment wondered into the wrong bathroom and woke up on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, near a newly-formed black hole in the shape of a star.
Danny279
lol. The funny thing is that the ad’s tagline is that “there is no one way to be a woman” but the ad is actually sending the opposite message. Because all the women in the ad – both the “transwoman” and the real women – are wearing makeup and dresses and jewelry. If the company really wanted to be pro-trans, and if it truly wanted to showcase the trans activist message that there is “no one way to be a woman,” it should have depicted the “transwoman” as a big and tall biological male with a beard in a t-shirt and jeans. Because to trans activists, a big bearded biological male in jeans is a woman just so long as he says the magic words “I identify as a woman.”
Louis
@Brian-E: Ty kindly glad to see another empathetic member of this community for a change.
Louis
@Brian: Your ignorant transphobic comments speak for themselves you have no grasp of what tolerance actually means nor empathy just the usual insensitivity and callousness men like you always project onto and towards others.
Ksb1978
@Brian: Umm some men do menstrate.
Isa
@Brian: Are… are you kidding me? Is this a joke of some kind? “Icky things” like putting tampons (trash) in the TRASH CAN? I’m not entirely sure what difference this would make unless you are literally in the habit of digging through garbage. Or you are so appalled by the mere concept of menstruation that you are horrified beyond measure by the simple idea of people disposing of menstrual products in the trash. Either way, something is deeply, bizarrely, and almost hilariously fucked up about your argument. “It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.”