Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

by Sarah McBride

uncomfortable. “Just being me shouldn’t make other people uncomfortable,” Finn told us. He eventually dropped out of high school entirely instead of facing the constant bullying from peers and humiliation by his school. And now the North Carolina legislature had mandated effectively the same treatment Finn had experienced for the thousands of transgender students statewide. After finishing up with Finn, we traveled to Charlotte and met with a member of the city council, a trailblazing out lesbian woman named LaWana Mayfield who had helped lead the charge for the city’s now-banned LGBTQ nondiscrimination ordinance. After wrapping up our discussion, and just before we left for the airport, I popped into the women’s restroom at the Charlotte government center, where we’d interviewed Councilwoman Mayfield. I had avoided public restrooms while in the state, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I went in and, just like everyone else, peed. After washing my hands, as I stood alone in the bathroom, I took out my phone and snapped a selfie. I posted the photo on Instagram and Facebook with the caption: Here I am using a women’s restroom in North Carolina that I’m technically barred from being in. They say I’m a pervert. They say I’m a man dressed as a woman.