This week, a city in Texas became the first to pass a transgender bathroom “bounty” law. The ordinance puts a $10,000 bounty on trans people in public bathrooms. Meaning any proud Texan can turn me in for using the “wrong” public restroom and collect a $10,000 reward.

I’m kind of used to a new “bathroom law” being passed every few weeks in some red-hat state, but I have to say I’m not psyched about a Texas city putting a bounty on my head if I need to pee in an Arby’s restroom.

Texas (and Florida) are only the most extreme examples of this kind of thing; they aren’t even close to being the entire problem. I mean, look at the latest update of trans activist Erin Reed’s “Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Assessment Map.”

She’s labeled Texas and Florida “Do Not Travel,” and I take that advice seriously.

Walking into a women’s bathroom shouldn’t make me nervous (I come in peace!), but in many places, even here in liberal(?) Southern California, it still does. I have to assess the situation and think about how I look that day. Am I putting out enough signifiers to appease the gender binary? In other words, do I look feminine enough?

Even the symbol on the door says I should be wearing a dress.

I’ve written about “passing” before, but tl;dr: “passing,” or the world seeing me as a woman rather than a trans woman, doesn’t mean as much to me as it once may have. I’m not ashamed of being seen as trans for whatever reason that happens to apply on a particular day (or every day). I know I still have flair, damn it. But there are other factors I have to contend with.

For instance, I’m still at least a year from finishing electrolysis, so for two or three days every week, I sport patchy facial hair stubble (electrolysis demands stubble, a cruel irony). Stubble isn’t glamorous, not even a little bit. And if I’m wearing a T-shirt and jeans and need to make a quick trip somewhere, I’m probably going out in a T-shirt and jeans.

Looky here, cowpoke; I came out and started to transition with the full knowledge that it would mean giving up some things. Or many things. Losing the ability to pee when I needed to wasn’t really one of the things I gave much thought to losing, though, but maybe I should have.

You may be wondering what the problem is. If I’m wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and beard stubble, why not just go into the men’s room? That’s a fair question.

The answer is that I don’t feel like I belong in there anymore. I’ve been in a few men’s rooms over the past couple of years out of necessity, and it’s uncomfortable. My estrogen-soaked brain feels a disconnect. If you want an idea of how that feels, walk into the “wrong” restroom next time you’re out in public.

Just don’t do it in Texas.

This is all so absurd, anyway. Separate men’s and women’s restrooms are logically unnecessary, though I understand the appeal of a room where one can escape men for a while (and I understand that logic has no place when it comes to some most societal traditions).

The idea of a trans woman assaulting a cisgender woman in a restroom is only real in some weird people’s twisted heads, an extension of their drooling fascination with us and which body part the pee comes out of. There are zero records of trans women assaulting cis women in public restrooms because…do I even have to explain? I feel like I shouldn’t dignify unhinged lunacy with a serious answer.

It’s worth noting that no woman has ever given me any trouble or side-eye or pepper spray in a women’s room. Women have never given me a reason to feel uncomfortable at all in a public restroom. It’s the relentless news and these laws. They fuck with my head, and I know I’m not alone.

But the reality is none of these “bathroom laws” have anything to do with me going into a bathroom and everything to do with political pandering. Like every other anti-trans law—and there are hundreds (maybe thousands?) of them—they have no reason to exist.

When they poll people in red hat states, most of them say they don’t care about trans “issues” and believe all this legislation is a waste of time. But that’s legislation, you know. How they feel about us as humans sharing the earth with them, well, that’s often a very different bowl of pudding, so it’s still not safe for us out there in the non-blue parts of that map.

No one likes public restrooms (well, almost no one); all we want to do is get in and get out. We elect a new president tomorrow, and I’m confident it will be Kamala Harris. Will she make the country a better place for women of all varieties who just want to pee without fearing that some kind of red-capped bathroom Gestapo will turn us in for a reward?

Stay tuned, but don’t hold your breath.

WRITTEN BY A HUMAN