Parallel

CHAPTER 1

My friend enters the women's washroom, and after adjusting my uncomfortable uniform pants, I trail along behind her. I still pause by the sign with the 'woman,' the stick figure with the triangle over her crotch. It's supposed to be a dress or skirt or whatever, and it always makes me pause before I enter.

I watch my friend walk backwards out of the washroom again while she still looks at the glow of her phone on her wrist.

"Not feeling the women's washroom today?" she asks me, not looking up.

"I don't know...'' I mumble honestly, but I still decide to enter.

As I wait in line for a stall to open up, someone on the other side of the washroom turns around and looks at me with disgust.

"Why are you entering the women's washroom? You're not supposed to be here," this person says.

I laugh awkwardly along with my friend, Mars before saying: "What do you mean?"

I know exactly what they mean, and I know exactly what they're about to say next.

"Aren't you a guy?" They then turn to Mars, "Isn't he a guy?"

People are quietly laughing from in front of the sinks and behind the stalls. I clench my fists.

"People enter the washrooms that they do for a reason," says Mars in a sing-song voice from behind me. The fact that she does not get vexed very easily is one of her biggest charms. I love that about her, her ability to sing through an argument.

The person who initiated this toxic conversation scoffs and walks past me, bumping their shoulder against mine.

Another win for Mars. And me, since she was arguing for my sake.

"Chin up, Sar. These people are too ignorant for you to be wasting time thinking about their words," advises Mars. I know she means well, but it's hard to take her seriously with her eyes constantly on her wrist.

This isn't the first time that I've been questioned about my presence in a washroom. I don't really blame anyone. I blame myself for making things so complicated, with my hair shorter than short, what some may call 'boy short'. It's longer than a buzz cut but too short to be called a 'pixie cut' or whatever. It's a problematic length, much like myself. My lack of boobs and excessive facial hair (excessive from a colonial point of view - back home in Iran, everyone looks like I do, with fuzz on the upper lip, eyebrows that touch, and sideburns that fade to the jaw) make me look more male than female, and people wonder why I am intruding on the women's washroom.

Well, I am a woman. Well, no not really. It's a little complicated. I was born as what one may say is a 'female' because of my sexual organs, but I don't know if I feel so comfortable being referred to as a woman anymore. I always preferred pants over dresses. That isn't a problem, but when combined with wanting to have my hair short because I find it too annoying to care for long hair, apparently this is a little problematic. Then add my lack of makeup and accessories and I look like what a boy is supposed to look like. Apparently.

So people call me sir, he, him, that boy, lesbian. It shouldn't matter, but it hurts a little. Thoughts cross my mind like 'what do I have to do to be seen as a woman? What do women have that I don't?' I get mad at myself for having leg hair thicker than others, but this is just part of my ethnicity, part of my body.

That's why it's hard for me to see myself as a woman. I often wax my legs to feel the physical pain of the sinful leg hairs being stripped from my skin, even though in this day and age, hair removal and beauty maintenance is so easy. What can I say, even though I don't love my body, I don't really want to change it. Somehow, this is strange to everyone.