Gender, Place & Culture

A Journal of Feminist Geography

ISSN: 0966-369X (Print) 1360-0524 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgpc20

Genderism and the Bathroom Problem:

(re)materialising sexed sites, (re)creating sexed
bodies

KATH BROWNE

To cite this article: KATH BROWNE (2004) Genderism and the Bathroom Problem:
(re)materialising sexed sites, (re)creating sexed bodies, Gender, Place & Culture, 11:3,
331-346, DOI: 10.1080/0966369042000258668

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369042000258668

Published online: 22 Jan 2007.

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Gender, Place and Culture
Vol. 11, No. 3, September 2004

Genderism and the Bathroom Problem: (re)materialising

sexed sites, (re)creating sexed bodies
KATH BROWNE
University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

ABSTRACT This article introduces the possibilities of a new term, `genderism', to

describe the hostile readings of, and reactions to, gender ambiguous bodies. Genderism is
used here to articulate instances of discrimination that are based on the discontinuities
between the sex with which an individual identi®es and how others, in a variety of
spaces, read their sex. The article suggests that intersections between queer theories,
that destabilise the dichotomy of man/woman, and performative geographies, that
recognise the (re)formation of space, could facilitate, and indeed necessitate, a
consideration of how the illusion of dichotomous sexes is (re)formed at the site of
the body (re)constituting men and women in context. Nine women, who participated
in a wider research project about non-heterosexual women's lives, spoke of being
mistaken for men yet understanding themselves and living as women. Using
these narratives the `bathroom problem', where women are read as men in toilets
and as a result subjected to abusive and even violent reactions, is examined. These
policing behaviours demonstrate the instability of sexed norms as well as how sites
can be (re)made `woman only' and simultaneously `women's' bodies (re)produced.
The article then examines how women negotiate the policing of sexed spaces such
that bodies, sexed sites (toilets) and the location of these sites (nightclubs, service
stations) are mutually constituted within sexed regimes of power. In this way the
article aims to explore how sexed power relations (re)form the mundane `stuff' of
everyday life by examining moments where boundaries of gender difference are overtly
(en)forced.

Introduction

Janet: I know that I'm out tomorrow night and I am in the toilets and I
am getting verbal abuse off of some ugly girl that has come in and said I
pinched her bum or something ¼ Then I forget about, I forget about
trying to be strong and not pretending that it bothers me ¼When it
comes to it in the situation where you're getting, where they are not
letting you use switch cards1 ¼to pay for something, or you're in the
Correspondence: Dr Kath Browne, School of the Environment, University of Brighton,
Cockcroft Building, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4GJ, UK. E-mail: K.A.Browne@brighton.
ac.uk

ISSN 0966±369X print/ISSN 1360±0524 online/04/030331-16 ã 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0966369042000258668
332 K. Browne

toilets2 and someone is shouting abuse at you and you see the bouncers3
coming in to have a look, to see what's going on. You know, it bothers me
then. And there's not much I can do about it. (Janet, individual interview)

Geographers exploring processes of social exclusion have recognised the

importance of cultural understandings that situate people outside taken-for-
granted norms (Sibley, 1995; Cresswell, 1996, 1997; Aitchison, 2000). When
disturbing the presumed naturalness of the man±masculinity/woman±femininity
binary individuals may ®nd themselves subject to abusive comments, exclusions
and physical violence (Butler, 1990; Namaste, 1996; Halberstam, 1998; Munt,
2001). This article introduces the possibilities of a new term, `genderism', to
describe the hostile readings of gender ambiguous bodies. Genderism is used here
to articulate often unnamed instances of discrimination based on the discontinu-
ities between the sex/gender with which an individual identi®es, and how others,
in a variety of spaces, read their sex/gender. This article centralises `women' who
are read as men and those who do not identify with either sexed category both of
whom confront the necessity of de®ning oneself in relation to dichotomously
sexed sites such as toilets (in this case women's toilets).
Geographies of gender for the most part have assumed male/female and man/
woman binaries, and address a diverse plethora of issues pertaining to the
spatialised sex roles of men and women (exceptions include Cream, 1995;
Namaste, 1996). Genderism, however, cannot be understood within the binaries of
male/female, man/woman as women are read in ways dissonant to these
categories. Although queer theorisations of gender transgressions have recog-
nised the movements between man/woman, the formation of sexed space has yet
to be fully addressed in these discussions (see also Nelson, 1999; Brown, 2000).
This article argues that a dialogue between recent gender theorisations and
performative geographies could offer an opportunity to understand more
completely the mutual reformation of sexed bodies and spaces and address the
dearth of literature regarding gender disidenti®cation within geographies of
gender.
The mundane `stuff' of women's lives (Moss & Dyck, 1999) discussed here is
drawn from empirical research which was undertaken in 2000/2001 with 28 non-
heterosexual women who live in the South of England to examine their everyday
lives. They were recruited using snowball sampling (see Browne, 2003; 2005) and
participated in six focus groups, three coupled interviews, 23 individual
interviews, 22 diaries and six sets of auto-photographs. This article focuses on
nine women who either mentioned or spoke in detail of their experiences of being
mistaken for men (see Table 1)4, and uses the term genderism to give a name to
their experiences, for example those outlined by Janet in the opening quote.
The next section will outline the ¯uid conceptions of gender and sex and
performative geographies that understand space as continually (re)created. This
facilitates an exploration of the processes through which sexed bodies and spaces
are (re)®xed, disempowering those who do not conform to the binary categories of
man/woman, male/female. Drawing on these debates the use of the term
genderism will then be justi®ed and explained prior to examining the materialities
of living between man/woman and particularly the `bathroom problem'. Toilets,
as sites that are separated by the presumed biological distinction between men
and women and their different excretionary functions, can be sites where
individuals' bodies are continually policed and (re)placed within sexed categor-
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 333

Table 1. Participants who described experiences of genderism

Name Age (years) Occupation (at the time Methods

of the interview)

Andie 20±25 Factory (unskilled manual) AP, D, FG, I (August 2000)

Julie 20±25 Carer (unskilled manual) D, FG, I (August 2000;
individual interview
November 2000)
Stevi 25±30 Volunteer work D, CI, I (August 2000)
Nat 20±25 Retail (unskilled manual) AP, CI, I (September 2000;
individual interview
February 2001)
Pat 18±20 University student AP, I (October 2000)
Janet 20±25 University student D, FG, I (November 2000)
Nina 18±20 University student AP, D, FG (December 2000)
Angela 20±25 PT university student/ AP, FG, I (January 2001)
PT employment agency
(manual)
Jenny 25±30 Education (second level, AP, FG, I (January 2001)
teaching assistant)

AP: auto photography; D: diary; FG: focus group; CI: coupled interview; I: interview.

ies. Finally the article will investigate how genderism is negotiated, in multiple
ways, by those who are continually subjected to it. In this way the article seeks to
explore how sexed power regimes are materialised through examining the
processes that (re)create `women' and `women's spaces'.

Destabilising Sexes and Sites

Diverse movements between categories of sex (man/woman) and gender
(masculinity/femininity) have been identi®ed in gender and queer theory.
Intersexed individuals challenge the biological dichotomisation of sex (Cream,
1995; Hird, 2000), while transgender and transsexual individuals contest the
`natural' connections between sexed embodiments and sexed lives. This is
because they live between the categories of male/female, man/woman or as
members of the opposite sex to which they were born or. Intersexed individuals
may exhibit genitals associated with both sexes while transsexual individuals, by
altering their genitals, illustrate the ¯uidity of sexed embodiments where the sex
of a body is not necessarily permanent (Mackie, 2001). Obviously, biological sex
does not necessarily map onto gender roles, as has most cogently been argued in
relation to drag and the performance of masculinities and femininities (Butler,
1990). Other discussions of non-normative femininities have explored the life
stories of women who are mistaken for men (Devor, 1987, 1996) and compared
`butch' lesbians to female to male transsexuals (Lee, 2001). These, and many other
similar, discussions destabilise dichotomous sexes and their presumed links to
speci®c genders and sexualities (see Butler, 1990; Armadiume, 1987).
`Male roles' played by women have, however, been associated primarily with
`butch' lesbian identities (Feinburg, 1993; Morgan, 1993; Ainley, 1995; Halberstam,
334 K. Browne

1998). These lesbian identities have rendered invisible a myriad of gender

identities and expressions (Halberstam, 1998). For example, because there are two
vaginas present, when reclaiming lesbian herstories what could be termed
transgenderism is often considered lesbianism (Boyd, 1999; however, see
Feinburg, 1993). This recourse to biology is apparent when `butch' identities are
easily equated with lesbian sexualities retaining the man/woman binary. Munt
(1998, 2001) contends that women's experiences of being mistaken for men can be
understood as homophobia:
From my own experience of homophobia in toilets I am painfully aware
that being challenged about one's sex is not usually the issue; my body is
read `correctly' as female but my gender causes the problem, hence the
question `Are you a man or a woman?' is a displacement of the
unutterable `Are you a lesbian?' (Munt, 1998, p. 205, original emphasis)
Munt (1998) asserts that gender disidenti®cation, where women are not readable
as female, is related to butch lesbian identities. While there may be occasions where
`are you a man?' may equate to `are you a lesbian?' for the purposes of this
discussion I wish to partially disentangle sex/gender and sexuality, recognising
that these are mutually (re)formed.
I now ®nd myself in complex semiotic paradoxes. Like Butler (1990, p. 9) it may
be that by employing terms such as gender, sex, man and woman I am reinforcing
and essentialising that which I seek to destabilise. As Butler (1992) suggests
resistances may reinforce hegemonic power relations through establishing the
very thing we seek to resist (see also Rose, 2002). While I wish to contest the
boundaries of gender and sex, I also seek to be intelligible and engage with
participants' narratives regarding the experiences of transgressing gender
dichotomies. Consequently, a tension exists between challenging the borders of
gender and sex and using these terms to enable a discussion of embodied
experiences. This is exempli®ed in my use of the term `women' to describe the
participants in my study. I use this because it is how the participants understood
themselves. This is similar to Devor (1987, pp. 1±2) who contends that certain
`people of the female sex' can be `socially interpreted as suf®ciently masculine to
earn them the social status and some of the privileges of men' but nonetheless they
identify as female. In this article I am arguing that these individuals move across
and between man/woman, masculine/feminine. They are outside the discursive
possibilities of sex/gender but they live in contexts where sex/gender is crucial to
their everyday lives. Thus, in order to make sense of their narratives and to stress
the problems associated with not ®tting dichotomous sexes, it is necessary to use
these sexed terms. However, I hope that in using them in this context I also render
them unstable and ¯uid, and through their disruptive (mis)use, illustrate the
impossibility of these puri®ed categories (see also Butler, 1990).
Women who are mistaken for men contest the supposed `natural' links between
sex and how one's body is read. They seldom intend to transgress gender borders
and boundaries, in that they understand themselves as `women' (Devor, 1987).
Thus, they (often accidentally) render ¯uid what is contested by transsexed,
transgendered and intersexed individuals and in different places and at different
times they will be read differently (see also Valentine, 1993). The processes which
produce the binary categories of sex and gender thus occur in context.
Considerations of spatialities can further problematise the stability of gender,
sex and sexuality because gender, sex and sexuality are not only performed they
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 335

are contextually enacted (Brown, 2000; Longhurst, 2001; Bondi, 1992; Bell et al.,
1994; Monk, 1999; Moss and Dyck, 1999; Nelson, 1999; Rose, 1999).
In accounting for context it is important to outline brie¯y how concepts of space
and place are to be used in this article. The congealing of power geometries that
materialises bodies and sites is read here as unstable (Massey, 1994). It is
contended that sites, locales, regions and nations come into being through socio-
spatial relations and enactments. Thus, socio-spatial relations do not simply differ
between places (sites, locales and locations); performances, spatial relations and
interactions (re)produce places (Massey, 1994; Hubbard et al., 2002). Moreover,
socio-spatial power relations (re)form sexed sites and, in turn, the (re)constitution
of places sexes bodies (Bell et al., 1994; Massey, 1994; Rose, 1999). Therefore, it can
be argued that just as place is (re)making (and sexing) us, it is being (re)made (and
sexed) (Brown, 2000). Performative geographies have begun to explore the
materialisation of bodies and spaces (see for example Longhurst, 1995, 1997, 2001;
Moss and Dyck, 1999; Valentine, 1999). Setting itself alongside these studies, this
article seeks to examine the policing processes that sex bodies and sites
(re)forming `women'.

Genderism: `playing' power

Everyday life can problematise the `playful' image of gender transgressions that is
often presented within queer theory (see for example Queen & Schmeil, 1997).
Despite theorisations of power as continually (re)made our lives are lived as
though entities such as sex exist (Nast & Pile, 1998; Allen, 2003). The constitutive
processes and relations that form sexed sites and bodies within the ®ctions of man
and woman are maintained within powerful regimes (Butler, 1990, 1993, 1997).
Despite the instability of sexed bodies and sites `men' and `women' are often
presumed to be `natural', ®xed and distinct identities and embodiments.
Normative sexed regimes must be regulated in order to maintain this illusion
(Butler, 1990, 1997). Those who move between man and woman contest
naturalised conceptualisations of man and woman (Butler, 1990, 1993) as well
as the normalisation of space within gendered norms that distinguish men and
women. Genderism articulates how those who transgress the accepted dichotomy
of sex are policed recognising the potential pain associated with `playing' with
gender norms.
Violence associated with policing gender norms has been named `gender
bashing' `to articulate the ways in which violence affects men, women and
transgenders differently, depending on the public (or private) space occupied'
(Namaste, 1996 p. 38, original emphasis). Importantly, Namaste (1996) concep-
tualises this violent policing of space as constitutive of public and private spaces
and also the identities and bodies of those doing the policing and those being
policed. However, genderist5 processes are not always violent, even when
threatening, and consequently the term `genderism', rather than `gender bashing',
is used here. Genderism offers a related consideration of the (re)making of bodies
and spaces through the policing of gender transgressions.
In using the term `genderism' it may appear that I am agreeing with the sex/
gender distinction where gender is the social construction of a biological sex.
Instead, I wish to proceed from the premise that through reiterated performances
bodies are materialised and naturalised as either man or woman and gendered
cultural codes and norms are reproducedÐa process Butler terms performativity
336 K. Browne

(Butler, 1990; Gregson & Rose, 2000). Butler (1993) uses the term `sex' to illustrate
the materialisation of sex through enactments and discourses, but I could not
employ the term sexism, as this is already associated with discrimination between
men and women. However, I do wish to employ the rhetoric of the `isms'. This is
partially to validate the claim to prejudice, and also to use the implicit
assumptions commonly associated with racism, sexism and classism.
Speci®cally, these connote hierarchies of power, which are prejudiced, negative,
draw on stereotypes and are spatialised as well as producing particular spaces
and spatial con®gurations (see Sibley, 1995). Genderism, however, differs from
these prejudices as it requires a contextual understanding of the spaces between
male and female (see Rose, 1999 for a discussion of spaces of betweenness).
The women I spoke to did not have a name for their experiences of being
mistaken for a man. However, in the opening quote I highlighted Janet's use of the
word `it', the italicised ` ``it''s' could be substituted with the term genderism
illustrating that this discrimination exists as an often unnamed experience. The
naming of these experiences even using a `boring' term such as genderism (see
Bornstein, 1995, p. 74), highlights that there is hatred and pain associated with
maintaining gender norms. Throughout the women's narratives it was often
possible to distinguish between discussions of discriminations based on sexuality
and those based on gender:
Janet: With me anyway it's not about who I am with. It's a lot about me as
well just because of the amount of shit I get. So you know going out for a
meal and stuff if I need to use the toilets and you know stuff like that I
worry about ¼ I know I get shit. (Janet and Lorraine, focus group)
For Janet some forms of abuse were related to her and particularly her `masculine'
appearance rather than her relationship with another woman6. Moving on from
the partial disentanglement of sex and sexuality, I wish to contend that genderism
and homophobia/heterosexism are different yet related and interlocking forms of
discrimination. Having examined the theoretical understanding of the ¯uidity of
sexes and spaces; it is the verbal abuse and violence Janet and other women `get'
in toilet spaces that is the subject of the remainder of the article.

Sexing Toilets: (re)making (embodied) sites and sights of embodiment

The site of the bathroom has been given limited attention in discussions of gender
transgressions (Halberstam, 1998; Munt, 1998, 2001), although recent geograph-
ical studies have illustrated the importance of toilets to citizenship and access to
public spaces (Cooper et al., 2000; Kitchin & Law, 2001). Greed (2003) contends
that the site of the toilet is not `biologically' or socially designed for women. In this
way, she begins from the premise that public toilets are segregated dichotomously
by sex and looks at the provision of these places for women. While this practice of
separating public toilets into male/female may not be universal, where they are
these sites can be problematic for those who move between apparently distinct
sexed categories. The moments where boundaries of gender difference are overtly
(en)forced can illustrate how sites and bodies are mutually constituted within
sexed power regimes.
Participants spoke of a diversity of sites, such as restaurants, supermarkets and
at work, where they are mistaken for men; however, the sites of toilets were
constantly and consistently problematic. The `bathroom problem' is where
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 337

individuals are challenged in toilet spaces and their gender questioned or they are
simply assumed to be `men' in `women's toilets (see Halberstam, 1998; Munt,
1998, 2001). Munt (1998; 2001) terms the policing of sexed sites such as toilets
`abuse'. This, along with the term `bathroom problem' may be controversial.
However, transgressing `natural' boundaries through entering strictly de®ned
sexed spaces can be traumatic:
KB: do you get mistaken for a bloke often?
Janet: Like I said to you, every single day. Every single day I get, I can't
use public toilets I have been thrown out of (name of straight club), which
is now (name of straight club). [KB: okay] It was in my ®rst year it was
toga night so I was wearing my bed sheet and a sports bra. And one of my
mates was being sick and so I was in the toilets with her and someone
screamed there was a man in the toilets. And three bouncers came in a
chucked me out of the club and I was wearing a sports bra. Yeah I haven't
got much up top, but you know I was wearing a sports bra. And by that
time I was just like wearing a sheet around my waist and that was it and
they still chucked me out.
KB: Oh my god.
Janet: I can't use, I can't use service station toilets. I have had old
women batter me out of toilets before.
KB: Really?
Janet: Yeah not being serious, I mean I am being serious. I am usually in
there with my Mum and they used to have a go at me and my Mum just
used to walk up to them and go `you lot are so just, you are so fucking
rude'. D'you know? `That's a girl'. And you know they don't look at my
face or anything they just look at my build and look at my height and look
at my haircut and they just instantly assume that I am some dirty man in
the women's toilets so.
KB: Oh my god.
Janet: I know I can't use the women's toilets. (Janet, Lorraine: focus
group)
Janet, in the toilets of the nightclub and motorway service stations7, transgresses
feminine boundaries. Munt (2001, p. 103) contends that by `butch consensus' in
the United Kingdom motorway service stations are the `worst places for this kind
of abuse'. In these spaces people are travelling through space and therefore may
want to `stabilise some boundaries (gender) as they traverse others' (in this case
regional) (Halberstam, 1998, p. 20). However, boundaries can also be stabilised in
spaces where there are heightened (hetero)sexual tensions. Toilet spaces in
heterosexual nightclubs are often perceived as `sacred spaces' where women can
be alone to discuss men, reapply make-up and generally stylise their bodies for
their `frontstage' performance on the dance ¯oor (Goffman, 1959). Despite
wearing a signi®er of femaleness, a sports bra, Janet is seen as invading `women's
space' and is therefore removed from female toilets. Because of her presence in
what is de®ned as female-only spaces, Janet is seen as `dirty', a perverted man in
women's toilets (Douglas, 1970; Sibley, 1995; Cresswell, 1996, 1997).
338 K. Browne

Longhurst (2001, p. 66) suggests that bodily boundaries which are transgressed
through urinating and defecating need to be resealed for public scrutiny. Crossing
boundaries of sex therefore may be even less acceptable in toilet spaces in part
because the leakiness of bodies cannot be associated with ¯uid possibilities of
sexed bodies. In other words, where bodies are revealed as unstable and porous,
¯owing between sexes may be more threatening; where one border (bodily) is
contravened others (man/woman) may be more intensely protected. However,
rather than focusing on the boundaries of bodies in terms of defecation, urine or
sexual intercourse (see Leap, 1999; Longhurst, 2001) or examining the motivations
which cause people to react to certain women in abusive ways, in this analysis
participant's experiences of, and reactions to, the bathroom problem are
centralised.
Munt (2001, p. 102) labels bathrooms `discomfort stations' because women's
bodies can be made as `out of place' in the `ladies' bathroom:
Stevi: At the end of the meal I went down to go to the loo and this lady
said, as I actually I was helping her out of the toilet door because she got
locked in, and instead of saying `thank you' she sort of just looked at me
horri®ed and said erm `are you in the right toilets?' You know and I was
just astonished (pause). And afterwards you always think of the things
you could say. I just didn't. I was just like `yeah' really pathetic and I just
died d'you know what I mean? So erm all in one night! (Stevi, individual
interview)
Munt (1998) argues that toilets can serve as sites where gender is tested and
proved. Stevi because she was asked if she was in the `right' toilets `failed' the
female gender test. The term `right' implies that Stevi is in the `wrong'. She is seen
as transgressing the male/female divide by being within a female space yet read
as male. In attempting to (re)make the toilets female-only, the woman challenges
Stevi, who does not ®t into her conception of feminine norms. Skeggs (2001, p. 302)
argues that within toilet spaces those `who appear feminine are authorized and
granted the power (in this small space) to evaluate others'. In this situation the
woman, con®dent of her taken for granted reading of female, (con)tests Stevi's
gender. The reiterated and naturalised sexualisation of toilet spaces is thus
revealed.
Geographies of gender have contended that landscapes can re¯ect gendered
power and meanings (Bondi, 1992; Monk, 1999). In societies that separate male
and female toilets, in this case the United Kingdom, only two possible sexes are
built into these environments. When you `fail' the gender test and are not
understood as a woman, it is assumed you are a man. The physical sexed
segregation of bathrooms reproduces the illusion of a natural, biological binary
separation of sex and physically (re)places bodies within dichotomous sexes
ordering these sites. This arrangement can be heavily policed:
KB: Have you ever been mistaken for a bloke?
Nina: Yeah ¼ it has happened to me twice.
KB: What happened?
Nina: The ®rst time it was my friends 19th birthday and we went to erm
wine bary type place. And I was wearing black trousers and a shirt cos
you had to be quite smart to get in there. ¼ It was [the] bouncers in this
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 339

wine bar, in this really posh wine bar and amm I went to the toilet and he
followed me up the stairs and I went to the women's toilet. And he kicked
the door down and said, `get out, get out, get out, you're a bloke, you
shouldn't be in here.'

KB: Oh my god.

Nina: I went to complain to the management and got like four free
drinks so that was but that was the ®rst time. (Nina, Di, Michelle and
Mary: focus group)

Nina describes how she was harassed by a bouncer who read her body and how
she dressed as male. Nina depicts being followed up the stairs and physically
removed from toilets by a male bouncer, who is also `out of place' in women's
toilets. However, the irony goes unrecognised. In the `breach-zone between public
and private, between gender and the body' (Munt, 2001, p. 103), the contestation
of gender dichotomies exists as an immediate and dangerous threat to the
`sanctity' of female spaces and embodiments. As these women move across the
boundaries and borders of man/woman, male/female their existence in woman
only sites can result in genderist behaviour and violence (gender bashing) in order
to `protect' `real' women. These `real' women are being (re)created as `naturally'
existing in these locations through the regulation of `unnatural' bodies. Those who
police toilet spaces (in this case the bouncer) demonstrate the necessity of
maintaining this common-sense order through enactments which (re)create sexed
bodies (see Cresswell, 1997). Through the reiterated and assumed use of female
toilets, these sites (re)make `women' as such and thus a woman is `occupying
space as it occupies her' (Munt, 1995, p. 125). Consequently, female only spatial
relations and interactions are continually materialising and toilets as sexed sites
(re)place bodies within the opposition of man/woman.
Everyday spaces can be `disabling environments' for those who do not
correspond to presumed gender norms. Similar to disabling environments, it is
the normative constructions of sex that are both built into and enacted in everyday
spaces that (re)produce the `abnormal' (Imrie, 1996). These deviations from the
presumed `natural' order can question the presumed ®xity of sex:

Obviously, in these bathroom confrontations, the gender-ambiguous

person ®rst appears as not-woman (`You are in the wrong bathroom!'),
but then the person appears as something actually even more scary, not-
man (`No, I am not,' spoken in a voice recognised as not-male). Not-man
and not-woman, the gender-ambiguous bathroom user is also not
androgynous or in-between; this person is gender deviant.
(Halberstam, 1998, p. 21)

Not only is the person not-man or not-woman, when bodies `fail' to be (re)placed
within the category `woman' the site of toilets as female is rendered unstable. This
instability is threatening and consequently intensely but ordinarily policed. It is
the gender ambiguous woman who is at fault because she is not `readable at a
glance', her body is not `ordinary' in this place, her presence does not pass
unnoticed (see Sibley, 1995; Cresswell, 1997). The deviation from the norm can
reveal the commonplace as produced (Bell et al., 1994); in this case sexed bodies
and sites as constantly becoming female rather than existing as such. However,
340 K. Browne

because this `violation' is untenable within man/woman opposition, women who

do not pass the gender test face discriminatory practices.

Public Conveniences? Embodying betweenness, living with women's toilets

The bathroom problem¼severely limits their ability to circulate in public

spaces and actually brings them into contact with physical violence as a
result of having violated a cardinal rule of gender: one must be readable at a
glance. (Halberstam, 1998, p. 23, my emphasis)
Halberstam suggests that `gender deviants' limit their spatialities particularly in
terms of public places. However, Bondi (1992) contends that people are not simply
passive victims of their environment. Here I wish to contend that genderist
processes are not simply accepted. The women to whom I spoke addressed the
policing they experienced, often on a daily basis, in different ways eluding and
confronting genderism and in some cases appropriating male privileges (Devor,
1987; see also Bell et al. 1994):
KB: how do you feel about that?
Angela: I just think its funny now. It was great at one time though, cos
when I was little we went to a theme park with my Mum and Dad there
was a massive queue for the ladies, like out of the door and god knows
how long. [Mum/ Dad said] `Angela just go in the men's' and I did I went
straight in and into the toilet no questions asked I'm like `hey.' (Jenny and
Angela, focus group)
Angela, recognising that there is always a longer queue for the women's toilets
than for the men's, employed the perceptions of her body to use the men's toilets
(see Greed, 2003). Similar to Devor's (1987) study, the positive aspects of being
mistaken for men relied upon the individuals not contesting the male assump-
tions and `passing' as men. In this way assumptions of normative genders remain
uncontested yet the women are able to avoid negative experiences.
Some of the participants evade genderism by not using public toilets. Stevi
drove for over two hours on the motorway needing to use the bathroom but
refusing to go through the ordeal of service stations. Similarly, Emma8 discusses
avoiding toilet spaces as one of the diverse strategies she uses to deal with the
`bathroom problem':
Emma: I can generally comfortably go to the loo in the two straight
pubs9 that I go to, but other than that I ®nd myself adapting in order to
avoid or survive the problem. I have been to parties in sports clubs where
the hassle of going to the loo and dealing with the abuse is too much and
I'll spend the evening pissing in the car park. Sometimes I'll remove my
top so that my breasts will be more obvious in my t-shirt. (Emma,
personal e-mail; see also Bidwell, 2003).
Emma speaks of `surviving' the toilet problem. She moved between using
social spaces where she knows she can go to the toilet comfortably to spaces
where her gender identity was overtly (and rudely) challenged. Rather
than `dealing with the abuse' she uses alternative toilet facilities (the car
park). Despite the availability of toilets the relations that form these spaces
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 341

may be too much `hassle' particularly in social arenas, such as parties.

Consequently, while access to toilets is important, (Kitchin & Law, 2001; Greed
& Daniels, 2002; Greed, 2003) cultural constraints may prevent the use of these
sites (see Aitchison, 2000).
Women who are mistaken for men are not simply passive victims of genderism.
It may be a dreaded experience but the necessity of circulating in public space
means that women who encounter this form of prejudice can use confrontational
strategies challenging those who `misread' them. One of Emma's `favourite'
experiences of the bathroom problem was:
Emma: ¼ getting into the women's loo, going into the cubicle only to
hear from a gang of girls doing their make-up `Show us your dick'. When
I came out and said I couldn't because I wasn't wearing it just then, they
apologised by saying `Oh we're sorry we thought you were a bloke cos
you walked with such con®dence.' So I need to be meek and pale and
then I might be able to pee in comfort! (Emma, personal e-mail; see also
Bidwell, 2003)
Those who challenge Emma refer to her con®dence as the trait which marked her
as outside the category `woman'. This could be due to the perception that while
someone can change to be `meek and pale', one's embodiment as man or woman is
®xed, permanent and unstable. Women who challenge normative assumptions of
`woman' and are read as men can look to their bodies in order to (re)place
themselves within the category `woman' and thus be intelligible. Bodily parts are
seen as `proof' of one's position as a man or a woman. Emma's lack of a `dick'
marked her as female. Space can thus be seen as multi-faceted, diverse, potentially
contradictory and formed through the interactions of different spatial formations.
Here the physical site of the toilet is (re)produced as female through Emma
`proving' herself to be female (or at least not male, at this particular time) at the
site of her body.
The way women address the constant abuse they face can be related to where
bathrooms are located:
Janet: In (name of gay club) I have been told by other women to get out
of the toilets. And you know they were kind of new people in (name of
gay club) and they both looked really straight so I instantly went `aah you
fucking straight girls get out of this fucking club. This is my club' you
know [KB: yeah]. ¼ She was like, `get out of the toilets' and I was like, `oh
you fucking straight girl'. She was like, `I'm not straight.' I went, `yeah
you're fucking straight look at you'. ¼ She was getting really pissed off
cos I wasn't accepting that she was a lesbian. And I was like `aah you
fucking straight girl'. I think I might just start using the men's toilets in
places I think.
Lorraine: Yeah.
Janet: But then I'd have to see willies and that might disturb me quite a
lot.
Lorraine: Yeah (laughter).
Janet: Stand around the urinals like that (makes a gagging noise). (Janet
and Lorraine, focus group)
342 K. Browne

Where there are only two sexed possibilities in using public conveniences and one
is constantly read as male, using men's facilities may appear to be a logical
solution. However, Janet exists between the categories of male and female in that
while she may be read as a man she lives as an embodied woman. The physicality
of body spaces, and the repulsion in the face of the possibilities of seeing men's
bodies due to the design of male toilets (particularly the presence and use of
urinals) (re)places Janet within female toilets. Munt (2001), on the other hand, uses
the individualised site of disabled toilets to survey her `butch' body in the full-
length mirrors, free of the scrutiny of other women. She argues that these sites
exist between male and female and are strangely `ungendered' (2001, p. 102) and,
following the argument of this article, ungendering. However, Munt (2001, p. 103)
feels that her body is looked upon as undeserving of occupying this space and
thus she exists on the boundary between `not ``worthily'' disabled, but certainly
af¯icted'. The paradoxical position of disabled toilets as both free from scrutiny
and uncomfortable in terms of entering and exiting, illustrates that women are not
passive in their negotiations of gender binaries but neither are they beyond or
outside gender regimes.
Negotiating genderism is contextually based; in the space of gay clubs Janet
(above) feels she can challenge the readings of her body. Whereas Emma talks of
using the car park rather than toilets in `straight' bars, Janet clearly feels that gay
clubs should be tolerant of gender diversity, which here she links to sexuality
(`straight girls' are feminine). Throughout this discussion the toilets discussed
have been heterosexualised spaces such as service stations, nightclubs and pubs.
Here as a non-heterosexual Janet is in `her space' in the women's toilets of gay
clubs and `straight' women are out of place. Janet moves between the spatialities
of her body, the sites of toilets and broader readings of space as `gay' or `straight'
to illustrate the diverse negotiations of multiple spatialities. When one does not
neatly `®t' the dichotomy of man/woman, the nexus of bodies, sites and locations
is revealed as unstable and requiring reiteration. Thus, the moments of
disjuncture, the policing within dichotomous gender categories and the negoti-
ation of discriminatory processes are not only spatialised, they (re)produce, at a
variety of scales, sexed sites and spaces. They therefore provide insight into how
sexed bodies and spaces are maintained by sexed regimes of power.

(Re)Writing Spaces and Bodies: the possibilities of genderism

This article sought to bring together recent geographical and gender theories that
have theorised the ¯uidity of spaces and illusion of dichotomous sexes (Butler,
1990, 1993; Gregson & Rose, 1999; Rose, 1999). While Munt (1998, 2001) and
Halberstam (1998) recognised the importance of the site of the bathroom as a
space where gender transgressions are often (violently) policed, this article used
performative geographies to extend the spatiality of this argument. In particular it
was contended that bodies, sexed sites (toilets) and the location of these sites
(nightclubs, service stations), are mutually (re)constituted through sexed regimes
of power.
The power relations that stabilise the dichotomy of man/woman were
termed genderism to name the processes of reinforcing gender norms and
the pain associated with existing between woman/man. Genderism can be
de®ned as the discriminatory encounters individuals experience when they are
read as the opposite sex than the one they identify with or they are `read' as out of
 Genderism and the Bathroom Problem 343

place in sites that are single sexed. This explanation recognises, and relies on, the
mutual constitution of bodies and spaces within sexed categories. The article has
focused on women who are mistaken for men and has placed spatialised
narratives of `accidental' and painful gender transgressions alongside the more
deliberate accounts of `playing' with gender (Queen & Schmeil, 1997; Halberstam,
1998). In this way the article brought together a feminist understanding of sexed
power relations with spatialised conceptualisations of ¯uid queer gender
identities.
By understanding sexed dichotomies as ®ctions (Butler, 1990), it is possible to
examine how sexed spaces come to exist through the continual maintenance and
enforcement of gendered norms. When individuals are challenged in women's
toilets these often embarrassing and potentially abusive confrontations, along
with the taken for granted presence of `normal' women's bodies, makes these
spaces female. Genderist processes then (re)constitute the sites of toilets within
cultural conceptions of sex as a ®xed dichotomy of man and woman.
Simultaneously, as toilets take on the markers of femininity these markers
feminise or de-femininise bodies. Through marking the `abnormal' the `normal' is
reinstated and (re)produces bodies within the category `woman'. Thus relations of
power, while performative, are not arbitrary or without form (Nast & Pile, 1998, p.
409). Instead, the article con®rms that the form of power relations based on
dichotomous sexes writes (sexes) bodies and spaces.
These power relations are also written by bodies. Women are not passive
victims of the built environment and the policing of sexed spaces. A number of
diverse strategies can be used to contest the discrimination faced in female toilets.
These include avoiding particular toilets and/or replacing oneself within the
category `woman' (for example, by emphasising the absence of a penis). These
processes not only reveal the performative formation of `women', they also
illustrate that this can be conscious and re¯exive. Here it has been illustrated that
for some, `becoming' a woman, so often taken for granted, can be an agonising
struggle to `®t' within particular dichotomies that (re)create everyday spaces and
body sites.
Butler (1990, 1993) recognises that gender transgressions are regularly punished
and the power relations which write bodies and spaces can be painful for those
who do not conform. This article has shown that policing moments of gender
transgression (re)constitutes not only sexed bodies, but also sexed sites within
dichotomous norms. There are many more stories of genderism which have yet to
be told. Having introduced the term genderism, it could be used to articulate other
(often unnamed) discriminations that are based on not conforming to the rigid
categorisation of man/woman, male/female.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the women who were involved in this research
and particularly the nine women who shared their experiences of
`genderism'. Thanks go to Cara Aitchison for all her advice, encouragement and
support. I wish to thank Andrew Church, Darren Smith, Emma Bidwell, Rob
Kitchin and the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier versions of this
article.
344 K. Browne

Notes
1. A switch card is similar to a credit card. Here Janet is referring to when she is not allowed to use
this card because it says `Miss', and because she is being read as a man the implication is that this
is not her card.
2. Toilets are akin to bathrooms, washrooms. Here the term toilet and bathroom will be used
interchangeably to refer to toilet cubicles as well as the communal areas of sinks (wash basins),
hand-drying facilities and queues that may not remain with the designated toilet area.
Participants use the term `loo' to refer to toilet spaces and particularly toilet cubicles.
3. Bouncers are the security people who work in nightclubs and bars; ordinarily their role is to
prevent undesirable individuals and behaviours in the places they work.
4. Their emotive stories are centralised despite their deviation from the original purpose of the
doctoral research, which was to investigate non-heterosexual women's foodscapes. For nine
participants in this study their experiences of genderism are central to their everyday lives and
more signi®cant to them than their food practices. This article re¯ects these priorities.
5. Terms such as `genderist' are derivatives of genderism, similar to the relationship between sexism
and sexist.
6. The separation of heterosexism/homophobia and genderism also allows for the possibility of
`straight' women experiencing discrimination on the basis of their gender in spite of their
sexuality. This, however, is not the focus of the article.
7. The spaces discussed here re¯ect the geographical speci®city of the sample which was solely
taken from three towns and two cities in the South of England. I believe, however, that these
women's experiences will resonate beyond these geographical boundaries. Motorway service
stations that are referred to here are those located about every twenty to thirty miles on
motorways throughout the United Kingdom. They usually consist of a shop, a restaurant, on
occasion a fast-food outlet (such as Burger King or McDonald's) and toilets that are clearly
demarcated into male, female and disabled. People use motorway service stations usually on long
car or coach journeys for breaks, food or to use the restrooms.
8. Emma, who lives in Ireland, responded to a paper I presented in the Women's Studies Network
Conference in Belfast 2003. Her quotes are from e-mail correspondence and also from a paper she
presented in the Lesbian Lives Conference in Dublin 2003 (Bidwell, 2003). They are used with
permission.
9. `A pub' is a colloquial abbreviation of `public house', where alcohol is sold and consumed on site.
These can also be termed bars.

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