While there is a lot of noise about trans athlete performance, I’m curious about a more practical point : Locker-room. I can’t think about many sport facilities having individual locker-rooms, but usually it’s a room for men, a room for women each with communal shower.
How do you practically manage-it ? How do you get invited/welcomed to your post-transition locker room ? What about the feature left from the assigned-at-birth gender ? What happen when you start developing feature of your transition gender but don’t pass well enough to switch locker-room ?
I may be totally wrong but I wonder whether it’s not more a blocking-point for trans athlete than rules in competition (which impact a minority of athlete anyway) but at the same time we never hear about “sport facilites” opening some “gender non conforming locker-room” for more inclusion.
I think many of us just stay away from locker rooms and public bathrooms as much as possible because we want to avoid being stared at or getting into uncomfortable situations with others making a scene. I’m no athlete, but I try to not go to public bathrooms and I plan my life accordingly. I’ve gone a few times and it has been problem free each time, but people do look as they go by because I don’t pass.
How safe we feel going into a locker room is gonna depend on who we go with, where we go and how tolerated we are in that area, how confident we are, and to what degree we pass.
If someone I know invites me anywhere which requires going into a locker room I’m likely gonna tell them no. Maybe I’m overly anxious and it would go just fine, but I’m not interested in rolling the dice with how people are gonna react.