Separation

So, I've been swimming and gymming for a few weeks now. Feeling pleasantly more butch, although no more indefinite (this will take time, I know), and certainly nowhere near enough of either to see IQ: indeed, by the time I'm properly sculpted, I sense the moment will have gone, but at least I'll have/be the sculpture...but that's all another story. In the meantime, the act of entering the changing rooms has been on my mind.

The germ of these thoughts developed several weeks ago, when I attended a service at an Orthodox Synagogue. It was a truly beautiful building, and an extremely interesting experience, the length of the service (3 hours) and my lack of Biblical Hebrew notwithstanding. What most got me thinking was the segregation. The rabbi was a very helpful and welcoming man who invited me to attend when I asked about another, Liberal, synagogue. So I did - why not? Then of course the the small print came. I'd be expected to wear a skirt if I came regularly. There were no fire escapes in the Ladies' Gallery upstairs, so women were to sit on one side downstairs. And so there I sat, in my one-time-only trousers, but dutifully on the women's side, and met some people who were visiting from London...I was then promptly mistaken for 'a gentleman' by one of the regulars.

I suppose the true germ of my confusion stems from a visit to Germany as a teenager. On a trip to Köln catherdral with an all-girls school... I was wearing a black trilby (having recently seen an Indiana Jones movie)... and the priest approached me. Started going on in German - didn't understand anything, my German comprehension being rather poor, and my teacher stepped into help. The conversation apparently went something like this:
- Priest [gesturing towards me]: He needs to take off his hat: this is a church
- Teacher: Oh, you're mistaken...we're an all-girls group!
- Priest: In that case, she should definitely keep her hat on
In a few seconds the imperative changed from uncovering my head to keeping it covered, and all on the basis of the M or F on my birth-certificate.

Meanwhile, back to the changing rooms. This is one place that's not for passing. It is much more a statement of difference than the public toilet: if you're confident and indefinite enough (and that's not much, especially if you're quick...) you can quite easily swap toilets. But the changing rooms...! The act of undressing of course reveals all. And even if I could avoid that, my choice of swimwear would give me away. More intriguingly, perhaps, is the very queer space I feel myself entering every time I go. It is a very bizarre sensation, realising that you have been put in this room instead of the other in no small part because of the threat of desire, only to be thinking desiring thoughts about the people in the room with you.

It's all very well separating people on the basis of sex, but it leaves no room for anything other than the standard two options of sex, and presumes completely that those two options map exactly and always on to two standard options of sexual desire. Mine is, in a sense, quite a privileged position: how many naked women do most straight men get to see on a daily basis? But oh, the guilt! The fear of being known! And the shame - what if there's someone else like me in there, judging me on the same basis? And at any rate, what are the other options? All-cubicled communal changing areas I guess, although they're always cramped and impractical for actually getting changed without getting bruised in the process. In fact, what about non-cubicled communal areas? What really would be the worst that could happen?