LOG THREE: LADIES ROOM
In the third Notes From Anywhere: thoughts on "ladies rooms" and "breasting boobily".
I thought I was alright to pretend my womanhood further.
The thing is, wherever you end up, you will be separated by genitalia. I have a vagina, so I go into the room with a skirt on it. You have a penis, so you go into the Pants Room. It’s a system that has failed thousands of us middling weirdos for an exceptionally long time.
I am in Oslo, Norway. It’s not cold enough for me to not hop into a sauna, and as an enthusiast of the Finnish art of sitting still in a very warm room, how could I say no to one that overlooks a minute Oslo fjord? I’d be mad.
The booking site is in Norwegian. I spend around 280 NOK on an hour’s slot, and get to walking. I buy a bottle of water and some peanuts at a 7/11 and that sets me back around £7.
My first stop is the changing room. I make my way to the Room for People Who Wear Skirts, and hang up my tote bag. There are a gaggle of German girls around me. I keep trying to catch their eyes in the spirit of convincing them I'm a worthy sauna partner.
I’m not made for the ladies room. I’m an imposter amongst tans and friendship bracelets and balayages. I am hidden in a jungle of feminine energy and I don’t really stop to consider that maybe not all of these people are women. I’m selfish in my solitude, and I am more nervous than ever. I remove my shirt and keep moving.
I realise upon entry into the sauna reception that I am the only loner in the establishment. Do people not sauna alone? I’m standing in the reception with my tits out, and I am alone. It’s not liberating or freeing. I ponder such a nugget of self awareness as receive my locker key and pull a towel from my Air BNB out of my bag. I get a pint of something thick and ale-y for around $10 and it is not refreshing.
The art of having a beer in the sauna is lost on me the second that I enter the first room. It’s a pyramid-like structure with wooden seats, and I immediately trip the second I begin to scale it.
Because it’s hot, I chug my beer. Because it’s beer, I’m instantly fucked. It’s a big horrible doughy beverage. I have made my experience ten times harder because I wanted to seem like a hardened local who could do a boozy beverage with 90 degree temp.
It’s a lonely experience, hot boxing yourself with strangers. A queer looking trio sit near me, but they are not interested in chatting. I pour my plastic cup of water over my legs for some relief and wonder why this is considered fun. I can’t quite work out what led me here, as I decidedly duck out for a much needed blast of AC in the lobby.
The hotter cabin is a two minute waddle away, so I fill up my plastic cup and wander away from the lonely pyramid. This room is more of a traditional Finnish style sauna, and it sure bloody feels like it. I recognise a guy from a bar I’ve been frequenting, but we don’t say hi to each other. I simply let myself fizzle and roast up. It’s nice, really. Putting your body at an extreme is a weird thing to do, but it’s pretty human to find a curious joy in inconveniencing yourself as much as possible. I feel sweat bead down my face and past my tits and under my thighs and it’s a wonderful time to go and stick myself in a barrel of freezing cold water for as long as I can stand. It’s not very long. I mostly just gaze out at the water we’re atop of and lust for the chilly current to come and take me away.
I didn't make it to the end of the two hour period, didn’t even make it to the essential oil session they’re holding in the pyramid structure. I’m grateful to find that the women’s changing rooms are empty when I make it back to the other side of the facility because I can’t seem to avoid slinking around boobily in a titillating display of breasts and borrowed towel. I’d rather do such a thing in semi-private, where I can keep up the illusion that if no one sees my areolas, my perceived identity of Woman will not be revealed.
I wonder if anyone else in the pyramid was as fucking exhausted as me.
Confronting gender is kind of unavoidable when you’re solo travelling. For your own supposed safety, it’s best to book a women’s only dormitory room if you’re staying in a hostel. I have to throw away the intricate noodlings of my identity when I’m on the road. We’re all girls here, it doesn’t matter.
I booked one of those women’s only rooms when I last went to stay in Helsinki. I would be staying at this hostel for a week, and I’d stayed there three separate times. The room is booked under my chosen name, rather than the feminine name on my passport. Newt Albiston, the booking reads. I book the trip a month before I’m meant to leave, and hear no word from the hostel until a week before my trip.
It’s then that I spot a message from the hostel on my Booking.com account. They’re getting in touch to check if I truly am a woman.
“We cannot allow you to stay in the women’s rooms if you are not a woman, Newt. Please send us a HD picture of your pussy folds, and then we will allow you to claim the shelter that you booked for 300 Euros.”
The note did not say that. The note was very plain. They wanted to check if I’d booked the correct accommodation, as Newt seemed like a pretty masculine name to them.
It was easy to be upset. I tried to giggle at the audacity, but lost the humour somewhere in the confusion.
The dichotomy of a non-binary body seems to be perplexing to so many people. As a community, we’ve managed a competent grasp around how to guide others on how to use the correct language for our bodies and beings, but we’ve not come up with very good explanations. Maybe it’s because we’re supposed to be expressing such freedom with no regard for those who do not share our experiences, or maybe it’s because we’re not meant to let cisgender folk into our hard to understand but very easy to refer to club.
They definitely did not teach me how to express my identity and freedom to a random Finnish hostel worker in non-binary school. I had to come up with that on my own. I am non-binary, but have a vagina. Please don’t kick me out of the room I’ve already paid for. Please. My genitalia is suddenly very important to my existence and how those on the outside see such a thing.
I am not good at begging, but I don’t want to risk losing the accommodation, so I amp up the desperation. When she emails back, she explains that the name ‘Newt’ is not a name that is used in Finland, and therefore she could not determine my gender via vetting my name. They let me stay in the female dormitory based on my vagina. I wonder if I should have just booked a mixed room.
A facade is a horrible thing to have. My existence feels like a consistent argument with the world.
“When I go on testosterone…” I say to a friend.
“If I go on testosterone?” I say to a friend.
“Maybe I should go on testosterone.” I say to a friend.
Why should I force more masculinity inside of my body to register ‘correctly’ to some? HRT is in my future, but my past has been marred with the clear idea that I belong with a category that my heart is not in partnership with. I was given a body with curves and a chest large enough to strain my back. I am a non-binary person, with or without hormones or the recognition of cisgender strangers. With or without my breasts or a feminine one piece.
Back in London, I peel my swimsuit away from my body in the locker section of the Hackney Community Saunas. It’s their monthly Trans Sauna evening, and every beautiful trans body that passes by grants me a silent safety, even if I absently wonder whether the other trans people will register me as such. My tits hang from my chest and I push my hair back with a floral bandana. I don’t know if I can look in the mirror and understand myself quite yet, but I sure am living and confronting and learning and none of it really matters.
I know who I am. I am trying to know who I am.