To swim, a person is often subjected to the horror of a gendered locker room. My girlfriend and I love to swim. We deserve to swim. But despite the signs plastered to the front of the locker room doors at our local public pool, people have the right to use whatever room they want based on how they identify, this is a safe space, we’re intimidated. She’s terrified to go into the women’s locker room, even though it’s where she belongs. And me, where do I belong? I belong next to her. I am her boyfriend in a way that’s soft and sweet like withering flowers—my gender comes apart in the hands of those who try to grasp it too closely.

The walls are pink, the floors are wet, and it’s empty except for one woman sitting on a bench scrolling on her phone. She doesn’t look up at us. My girlfriend goes to the bathroom as I put my shoes, my socks, my phone, and my backpack into a random locker. The locker has metal slats that have to align in order to put the lock through. I slide the top one with more force than I need to, but it won’t slide all the way. I realize how busted it is only now that it’s too late and I can’t slide it back. I haven’t placed a lock on it yet, but it’s locked all the same. My tugs at the metal handle turn from gentle to forceful to frantic. My girlfriend rejoins me and tries tugging too, but nothing happens.

The woman scrolling on her phone has ignored us up until now, hearing the panic rising in our voices. She still doesn’t look up when she tells us in a thick French accent that these bullshit lockers are always breaking down, and leaves the room. She quickly returns with a lady who enters like a one woman fist-fight, shouting that we shouldn’t have used this locker, it’s no good. She sounds mad, but it doesn’t seem to be directed at us. Hers is the yell of a woman encountering the same hungry raccoon knocking down her garbage cans night after night, rotten meat spilling from its snarling lips.

She tugs with all her force but the end result is the same, the locker doesn’t budge. She runs back out of the locker room yelling that she knows what to do, and returns wielding a hammer. As she begins bashing it against our locker, a group of girls who must be about twelve years old fill the locker room, dripping wet and descending upon the hammer swinging woman like a Greek Chorus, or rather, a French one, as they all have thick accents that match the woman who went to get help. Oui, oui! You must try to jiggle the top! Hit the bottom to the left!

My girlfriend and I look at each other, cocking our heads at the absurdity of the situation. We came here terrified at the idea of being made a spectacle, and while we are the root of the spectacle, no one is looking at us. No one scrutinizes our bodies or questions my girlfriend’s right to be there or looks at my little mustache and pink nail polish with contempt. No one tells us we’re a danger to the children. It seems the only threat to these kids might be how far back this lady swings the hammer before each blow, but they move out of the way seamlessly, like a synchronized swim routine.

The hammer hits a sweet spot, the door finally giving way. The woman slides the locker open and grabs one of my shoes, turning to the crowd and dangling  it in front of us like a fisherman holding the catch of the day. Relief floods my body. I am grateful that our first trans locker room experience is nothing more than a zany New York moment with a host of strange but harmless and inordinately French characters, instead of The Incident that marks the end of our swimming pool dreams. This time, we are safe. I imagine the new sign the pool staff will place on the locker room door. All belong here, sure, whatever. Just don’t ever fucking use locker 23 again.

___

Rocky Halpern is a writer, social worker, clown admirer, and tenderhearted Pisces rising. Their essays and poems have appeared in A Public Space, Glassworks Journal, Uncharted, Monologging Magazine, Vagabond City, Nest Poetry, and the anthology Absolute Pleasure: Queer Perspectives on Rocky Horror. Rocky has an MFA from The New School and is the 2019 recipient of the Bette Howland Nonfiction Award.

Artwork by Michael Todd Cohen