Cruising public bathrooms used to be the only life-threatening activity that we had to worry about.
You back your truck into a shaded parking space in the far corner of this well-known cruising spot in a moment of desperation and desire, hoping that someone will park close to you.
However, after we start transitioning, we can hardly go into a bathroom to pee, much less to cruise, without our bodies being scrutinized and our access to a space being contested and debated.
You leave your door open. Not all the way, but enough for the car that just parked two spaces over to see you in your half-reclined seat.
At best, we anticipate slurs and photos of us posted online to be mocked. At worst, well, the risks are far greater than being arrested by a cop in a park bathroom.
You aren’t doing anything yet, just relaxing. Plausible deniability is important, but so is not rushing things along. Those that rush are usually cops or are bound to be caught by them.
Trans women, particularly us Black and brown trans women, know all too well what happens when the police see us as deviants.
So, you wait. Patiently. You wait to see what the guy is doing in his car. What his eyes are doing, what his hands are doing.
Even if we were to cruise a public space, mall, gas station or public bathroom, the cis men who cruise those spaces are rarely looking for a tranny.
You notice his eyes roaming around the parking lot, confirming that it is empty except for his car and yours. Then you make eye contact, and you give the slightest nod of your head. It’s soft but purposeful. It is saying that you understand each other’s intentions, but you are waiting to see who makes the first move.
The gay boys don’t want us there and the “straight” boys don’t really see us at all. Not as men, not as women.
He does. He gets out of his driver seat and moves around to his front passenger seat. You notice he leaves his door open, just as you left yours.
They really don’t know what to make of us.
When he gets out of the car, you get a full view of his body. He’s not your type, you think to yourself. Your type is blonde, thin waist, big tits, and most importantly, a woman. But then again, you see him, your age or a little older, the skin on his face showing his age, with more salt and pepper in his hair than you have, with thick, coarse arm hair lightly covering tattoos that you couldn’t imagine yourself getting and you think, he is so fucking hot.
Our very existence causes him to reconsider, re-contextualize what gender means and what exactly he finds attractive about men and women. We are a threat to his fragile sense of his own sexuality.
This thought causes you to question yourself and your sexuality. Do you find the man hot? Or just the act? A hand is a hand, and a mouth is a mouth, you think to yourself. No different than when you got curious with your childhood friends. It’s just exploring. This one moment doesn’t have to define you.
He finds comfort in cisgender, binary representations of gender. He will look at a cis man or a cis woman and can easily confront what his arousal to either means to him. He is able to debate this, reason with it, pray about it and ultimately act on it because he is comfortable living in a box. But then he sees us, those of us who cannot easily be placed in a box, and he is frightened. Not the fear one has when cruising, but another fear all together.
You shake your mind free of such complicated things and you bring yourself back to the present. To now. To you and your rising bulge in your truck and this man who has made the first entrée in your little, illicit rendezvous.
He fears what it would say about him to be attracted to us. He fears what his guy friends would say if they found out. Would they call him gay? Call him a faggot? There are few things worse to a man than feeling emasculated among his peers. Rather than confront these fears, he instead decides to treat us as less than. As something else. We are turned into a convenient outlet for his misogyny—he can wish violence upon us, harm us, and kill us all while society denies our womanhood.
You think you’re all the way there, that you’ve successfully cruised, but this is just the first part. You still haven’t negotiated what the two of you will do with each other.
But in the midst of his rage, he knows deep down that he is attracted to us. It leads him to wonder if it is worth it. Is it worth questioning his sexuality? His manhood? How will society treat him for being with us?
He might just want to watch you jerk off, or he might just want you to watch him. He might want to go into the park bathroom for more intimate, but still emotionally distanced mutual play. The question you need to answer is: what are you looking for and how far are you willing to go to satisfy your desperate need for a thrill?
And when we get that message from him on The Apps™, it leads us to wonder. How he will treat us after his orgasm has faded? Is he confused about his sexuality and will he turn that confusion into anger? Will he panic and harm us? The legal system says it’s okay if he does. He isn’t burdened by this risk, but we are. Will we become the next agenda-driven headline, the next of the always-increasing homicide statistics? So then we have to ask ourselves, is it worth it?
Oh, you will need to answer this question quickly, because he is expecting you to decide. He made the first move; now it’s your turn to signal your desires.
There is excitement in that risk. There is arousal in that risk. There is an irresistible thrill in that risk.
This is the point where plausible deniability starts to leak out of your slightly ajar door. From this point on, everything you do could place your name on a registry.
So, we give into that risk, just to experience that thrill once again. Cruising is such a singular experience that was part of who we were for so long. An essential part of a gay man’s identity and community. Something that us trans women are no longer a part of. And yet, that desire lingers.
But that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? That’s the thrill you are chasing. Now is the moment to decide. Do you let this game continue? Or do you close the door to your truck and drive back home to a life that your friends and family expect you to feel fulfilled by but one that isn’t nearly as thrilling as these few minutes have been?
It’s difficult and disorienting to be a part of one community for years, decades even, and no longer have access to that community. This disorientation comes from being on the outside looking in and clearly seeing the misogyny that exists in so many of the safe spaces that we helped build. The misogyny that gay men insist they are incapable of acting upon. And yet, we’ve seen how their cis women gal pals are mistreated within these spaces, spaces that we have been kicked out of. They can deny it all the want but the truth is, they’ve turned their backs on us.
No, there’s no turning back, is there? So, you move your hand across your crotch, ever so gently as if you were flicking a crumb you spilled from your lunch. An otherwise innocent movement. But as long as you make eye contact with him, there is no ambiguity in your actions.
We know how the world sees us and how it treats us; it’s something we have to prepare for and help newly transitioned women prepare for. What’s harder is to prepare them for how cis gay men will see us and treat us.
He looks back at you. He looks down at the hand in your crotch. In that moment you realize, he sees you. He moves his hand across his own crotch and now you are beginning to negotiate.
They often have a problem with separating how they see drag queens with how they see us. Which is to say they, particularly the white ones, can’t decide if they want to mock us for what they see as an approximation of femininity or if they want to appropriate the culture and slang that we as Black and brown trans women create.
The two of you continue to run your hands over your respective crotches, nothing too fast, nothing too extreme. All the while keeping an eye out your windows to make sure no one else is coming.
They see us as a novelty. Something which they can consume. Our slang, our fashion, our culture. It’s all very exciting for them.
But to keep this exciting, brand-new experience for you going, one of you is going to have to unzip your pants and pull out your dick. Oh, did you think you could go this far and not show your dick to another man? You had to know this was what you were signing up for.
But that is where their involvement in our lives ends. When we need their financial support or political support, where are they? They didn’t expect this part of the exchange. They thought they could take and take and take from us without having to give back.
But it’s not just showing your pecker to a man that you are dreading, you are dreading being judged. You’ve had a lifetime of women tell you that yours is the biggest cock they’ve taken right before you give them the least satisfying sex they’ve ever had. But every time you hear that you wonder if they are stroking more than just your cock. You remember when you were experimenting with your childhood friends that some of theirs were longer than yours. You feel insecure, inadequate, small. And yet, somehow, all of this adds to the thrill. The thought that another man may see your member and smirk that his is bigger than yours, is a level of excitement you have never considered before.
They must make a decision. You must make a decision.
So, you pull out your wiener first and present it to this man for his assessment.
We may not expect your uncompromising support, but we certainly hope for it.
He doesn’t smirk, he doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t get up and leave. No, he simply glances between it and you. You don’t know if he’s disappointed, if he’s excited, if he doesn’t even care what your dick looks like as long as it’s a dick. Or worse, you don’t know if he’s a cop that’s about to bust you.
Aren’t we the queer community after all? Aren’t we the alphabet mafia? Certainly, you wouldn’t let your fellow mafia members hang out to dry, surely not. So, we ask, are you with us or against us? After all, we were there at Compton’s Cafeteria throwing that coffee. We were there at Stonewall throwing that brick. But none of that matters anymore, does it? You have your marriage equality.
Time stands still as your dick throbs in your hand. Every second that you exist in this intangible space, you grow more and more aroused.
That’s what you really cared about. To be seen as equal to heterosexuals. To show off to the world that you too can have a spouse, two and a half kids, a dog and a white picket fence. That there is nothing about you that could be seen as objectionable. You’re one of the good ones. But we know that no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it is still a pig—and more than that, we know the truth. Deep down inside, you like being a pig.
You sense relief as he pulls out his own penis, the first erect penis other than your own that you’ve seen in years, and starts to slowly stroke it while biting his lower lip. He nods at you to do the same. So, you do. Awkwardly, as if this were the first time you have ever pleasured yourself. And in a way it is. Because the pleasure you are feeling in this moment is unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
We know, because we know all the cruising spots. We helped build them. The mall bathrooms, department store changing rooms, public parking garages. We were there at the beginning of the gay rights movement, back when “gay” was considered an umbrella term, before you started to wrest it from the other letters in the acronym.
You keep eye contact with him as you engage in this sexual copycat exchange. It isn’t enough though. You want more. You want to walk right up to the line of plausible deniability where this act and your tenuous grasp on your sexual identity meet and you want to be pushed right over the edge.
There are some of us that attempt to play the respectability game like you do. But it doesn’t take us long to realize that the straights will never see us as anything other than freaks. And frankly, neither will you.
So, you look up towards the bathroom and gesture with your chin and look back towards the man to see if he understands. He does but he isn’t convinced. Your mind starts to race. You wonder if you aren’t his type, you wonder if he doesn’t want to do anything more than making eye contact while he strokes, you wonder if he doesn’t want to suck your dick. You get anxious, because you can’t let him get away when you are so close to the edge. Then it hits you, the thing that you know all men want.
You think if you distance yourselves from the rest of us, that your rights will be protected while ours are being trampled on. That if you turn on trans folks, turn on drag queens, that you will be saved from the culling of sexual deviants. That your cruising spaces will be saved.
You point to yourself, wrap your hand in a loose fist, bring it up to your mouth and move your head up and down while making eye contact with him. He smirks, shoves his dick back into his pants and walks off toward the bathroom.
Take one good look in the mirror, in that public bathroom mirror, and ask yourself if you really believe that. If you do, then go ahead. Go off and cruise while you pretend to claim a false sense of respectability.
Your body is frozen. You just offered to suck another man’s dick. You start to realize that walking to that bathroom is the same as walking right up to the line of straight and gay. So you look at yourself in your rearview mirror and you see the life that is available to you on this side of the line, safely tucked away in your car. But you are so, so very curious to see what life is like on the other side. To know what it feels like. What it tastes like.
While you’re doing that, we are doing what you won’t do. We do what you should have done years ago. We walk in the opposite direction of respectability. We walk in the direction of self-discovery, of self-exploration, of real community building.
You do what you were always going to do. You cross that line and walk into the bathroom. Now the two of you are alone again and all that separates you are the handful of dirty sinks and the cracked concrete floor.
Where you put distance between us, we bridge that gap for our transgender siblings. We form mutual aid funds and pass around the same $10 between us. We provide space for each other that lasts longer than those five minutes in a cruisey bathroom with someone who doesn’t even know your name. We greet each other in the light of day and our beauty shines brighter than the morning sun.
You see him more clearly now, under the orange park bathroom light. You notice the gold ring on his left ring finger, awfully similar to your own. You notice the laugh wrinkles on his face and the mole on his nose. You look down and you notice the beer belly wrapped in a maroon polo, a beer belly just like the one you spend so much time in the gym to keep at bay. You look further and you see the dirty work boots and you wonder if this man is manlier than you are. Your thoughts of inadequacy return as he points towards his denim-covered crotch and realization sets in. You will have to get down on your knees.
We give space for each other, to learn who we are all over again. How our new bodies move and feel. How to present ourselves in the fullest sense of self. We share closets with each other, knowing that what may define us in the first months of transitioning may not yet be our final form.
You don’t have experience being on your knees, certainly not for your wife. But as you place your knees on the dirty floor in front of him, you find that you don’t mind it. Your hands, far from steady, reach up to unbuckle his belt and unzip his zipper. You fumble awkwardly as you look up at him. He doesn’t acknowledge your nervousness. You take that as a sign to continue. So, you do, pulling his pants halfway down his thighs. You notice you wear the same brand of boxers as he does. You peer through the open slit and you see a nest of black hair. The front of the boxers is tented, offering a comfortable view of what lies beneath. You look up at him. He nods. You understand. You pull down his boxers and move your head slightly back as his cock flings up towards you.
Don’t get us wrong, we may still enjoy the pleasure of anonymous sex. But we also find new pleasures. We have discovered the euphoria of being with another trans person, another trans woman. We share an intimacy that you could only dream of. We share a knowledge of each other’s bodies on a transcendent level that only exists when one experiences life the way we do. When one experiences risk the way that we do.
You consider its mushroom head that is significantly wider than the shaft. You wonder how you will fit it in your mouth, and you consider how you’ve never before had to determine if your mouth could fit a dick. You admire the hair at the base of his crotch that neatly frames his smooth dick and balls. You worry that perhaps you should have manscaped before you came here as a courtesy. Then you remember that you are the one on his knees. So, you focus. You focus on the task at hand. The same way you do when you need to tackle a challenging spreadsheet at work, or when you are doing some home improvement project on your honey-do list.
We know each other’s bodies; we know which areas give us euphoria and which ones to avoid where dysphoria might creep in. We have an understanding of each other that goes deeper than genitals and skin.
You wrap your hand around his shaft, open your mouth, stick out your tongue, as you close your eyes and tilt your head forwards.
We taste different, we smell different. But our bodies intertwined feel and fit so perfectly together.
You notice a certain salty taste move around your mouth. You inhale a warm, full, musky scent through your nostril and you feel a rush of endorphins spread through every inch of your body as you feel your entire being relax around this man’s dick.
Ours is an act of mutual exploration, of developing a deep understanding for the new ways our bodies react to things and the way our minds process them. Ours is an act of patience, of anticipation, but also passion. Even in the darkest of rooms at t4t play parties, we shine bright as our bodies melt into each other.
You’re clumsy of course, this being your first time. You are well intentioned, but you still scrape your teeth across his shaft. You are absolutely lost as to what to do with your tongue, so you whip it around like a water hose with too much pressure.
We communicate with each other, to make sure that we are meeting each other’s needs.
But you continue with your inexperienced, oral gesticulations as your ears are filled with deep, stifled grunts and moans. These sounds are all the motivation you need to keep going with your movements. To keep sucking, licking, rubbing. All these new actions and sensations you find come so naturally to you. He thrusts his hips towards you. You place one hand on his thigh, and you feel it flexing and tensing. He moves one hand to the top of your head and the other to the side of your face. You smell fast food on his fingers and feel calluses on his palms.
Not just sexual needs of course, but true and deep intimacy. The kind of intimacy and trust that we never were able to experience before transitioning. It’s the moments we share when we go out to the bars and clubs together in groups. Not just for safety but to experience a singular moment together with our sisters who came before and have walked the same path as we have.
You sense that he is close, and you find it odd to feel so connected with another man that you can anticipate his arrival. You suck, lick, rub, harder and harder to get him to come faster, even though you hope this experience could last for hours. But you know it can’t. You know that the two of you won’t be alone in this bathroom forever. You know that every part of this experience is flirting with danger. Flirting with the possibility of arrest, flirting with life and death itself. And that is when you realize that your own dick is throbbing and on the verge of arriving without even placing your hand on it. You are on the verge of coming, hands free just from sucking another man’s cock. You moan around his dick, as this thought is making you even more aroused and is bringing you even closer to the edge.
Wearing our gender affirming black fishnets, pink and purple miniskirts and white chunky heels for the first time and our unpracticed, but heavily stylized makeup in trans pride colors. We go out onto the packed dance floor, surrounded by our trans family. We press our tiny, not yet developed chests together as we move and gyrate to the music of our trans sisters Shea Diamond and Honey Dijon.
Your thoughts are interrupted as you hear those words you’ve said hundreds of times, “I’m coming.” You only have a second to decide if you are going to swallow or not. You decide you aren’t ready for that yet and you pull your mouth off his dick and quickly stand up. Without letting your grip on his shaft go, you continue to pump away at him. He grunts and sends his seed flying to where you were just kneeling. His abs contract, his face tenses up as he grits his teeth, and you feel the front of your pants grow wet. You just came alongside another man, and you weren’t even touching your dick.
And on the dance floor, we look up at each other through the club lights and the smoke and we smile. For this is a moment of pure ecstasy. A moment where we are finally free to be ourselves. We walked up to the edge of safety and risk, and we took that step forward into the unknown and we fell down a hole. And when we fell, we fell into each other’s arms. And we are held like we have never been held before.
He looks up at you, grins briefly and strained and then grabs a handful of tissue from a stall to clean up. He looks at you for a moment. A moment to acknowledge this experience that you shared and then he walks out of the bathroom and out to his car.
We go with each other to the bathroom and we’re reminded of who we once were. We’re reminded of those times that we weren’t so brave to be ourselves in the full light of day. We look at each other in the mirror that is half covered in queer liberation stickers, engraved protest graffiti and flirty messages scrawled out with lipstick, and we see our complete, full selves. We see who we have been before transitioning, who we are as we have taken the first steps in our transition and who we will be in the future as we set off to build that future for ourselves.
You find some tissue and wipe down your underwear, but you know it is futile as too much seed has been spilled. Your flagpole is still upright, and you wonder if you can return to your truck in this state. But you hear a car pull into the parking lot and you find your feet rooted to the cement floor as you consider what to do next. Walk back to the car and risk being seen? Or stow yourself away in a stall and wait for whoever pulled up to leave?
We leave the loud, packed club and we kiss under the streetlamp, a simple, uncomplicated but knowing intimate kiss among us girls. And we see someone looking at the club door, debating if they want to enter or not.
You decide to stay, hoping that it will give your erection time to decrease in size. You walk into a stall, pull down your pants and sit down on the toilet. You hear footsteps. A man strides into the bathroom and opens the stall door next to yours. You see his pants fall to his ankles as he sits down on the toilet. But you don’t hear anything. No piss, no shit. Silence.
They are wearing their very gender hoodie, the same hoodie we wore, the hoodie that creates distance between their true self and what the world around them sees. They shove their hands in their pockets and pace awkwardly in place, their skirt flowing in the light breeze.
You wonder, is he just delayed? Do his bowels need to take some time to get going? Or maybe, maybe he is looking for something. Maybe, he is looking for you. You look down at the ground, just under the partition and you see a pair of black combat boots. You watch carefully for movement, for a signal. You wonder if he will make the first move or if again that responsibility will fall to you.
We recognize this person of course. Not the individual but who they represent. We saw them in those public bathrooms. We saw them pacing the women’s section at Macy’s, pretending they were just looking at dresses for their “girlfriend.” We saw their blank profiles on Grindr, looking to be seen for who they are. They are what we were before we came out. We see who they are now and who they could be in the future.
Your first encounter was safe. He wasn’t a cop, you didn’t get arrested, you didn’t get in trouble. You don’t know who this man is. You didn’t see what car he pulled up in, you didn’t see him walk into the bathroom. It is completely anonymous. If you make a move, it may lead to another mind-blowing orgasm, or it may lead to a very uncomfortable conversation with your wife to have her come pick you up at the police station.
We glance at each other and nod in silent, knowing agreement as we walk over to this person.
What is your move? What will you do? Every part of your body is frozen. Every part, except for that one part that drove you to this park in the first place.
We wait for them to look at us, so we don’t startle them as we remember we used to startle easily.
You feel sweat start to collect on your brow. You feel goosebumps rise up on your arms. You feel pressure in your groin.
There is anticipation in recognizing a baby trans femme who hasn’t fully come out yet. There is anticipation in what could be for her. A whole world awaits her, if she is ready for it that is. If she is ready for us.
You look down on the ground. He hasn’t moved his shoe, he hasn’t tapped it, nor has he made a single sound. This is all up to you. You debate, you reason, you pray. But for all the internal wrangling you do, you always knew the choice you would make.
She looks over at us and we wonder if she sees us for who we are. If she sees us and is frightened of us like all those cis men often are. If she is trying to figure out her place in this world. We wonder if she will run. We wonder, but also we hope. We hope that she will see us and see that we are just like her. We hope that she will see us and see that we are the connection she is seeking, the community she so desperately desires.
You tap your shoe and wait. Anxiously and unbelievably aroused.
We make eye contact, and we perform the same gesture we used to do in those old, familiar cruising spots. We nod and we wait, in full unguarded anticipation for her to make her move.
Jo Telle (she/they) is a Black, queer, trans femme writer based in Brooklyn, originally from California. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Rutgers University – Newark and is a 2024 Lambda Literary Fellow. Her writing can be found in FIYAH and Tales & Feathers. Their Instagram is @jo.telle.
