Trans woman plans rebel tour of men’s restrooms in North Carolina

by Sara Ritsch
Staff Writer

One transgender woman has happily taken North Carolina’s anti-transgender law to heart in a statewide journey of men’s restrooms.

As it has been discussed, North Carolina’s HB2 outlaws transgender people from using the public bathrooms that reflects their gender identity and requires them to use that of their biological gender – the gender stated on their birth certificate.

This regime violates federal civil rights laws and North Carolina has until today, Monday, May 9, to abandon this legislation.

This “rebel tour” by actress Shakina Nayfack is a tongue-in-cheek way to follow the rules, because many supporters of HB2 do not understand the extent of their given law.

“They are trying to create a situation where trans people are supposed to be invisible. This is an absurd, panicked reaction from the ignorant, it’s a massive step backwards, so I felt it was my duty to go down there and take selfies in as many men’s bathrooms as possible,” she said to The Guardian.

Her gender reassignment surgery is complete and was funded by a crowdfunding site, driven by her Twitter and Facebook followers.

According to The Guardian, Nayfack said, “It started as a joke, I tweeted about how expensive the surgery was and said I should crowdfund my sex change [laughs], and it happened! Then when I heard about HB2 I posted that I wanted to go down there and piss in all the ‘wrong’ restrooms and someone posted ‘I would totally crowdfund that’, so the next day I launched the new campaign.”

Nayfack is now traveling to urinals across the state of North Carolina, taking selfies and sharing her experiences via social media. She plans to visit Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Asheville, Flat Rock, Charlotte and Fayetteville.

“HB2 is ridiculous, it means trans people either have to go in places where we risk being subject to violence, or at least making people uncomfortable, or we are forced to find secret places to pee,” she said. “Depending on what the legislature does, it will either be a demonstration or a celebration tour.”

Her tall, blonde, feminine stature is ironically meant to make men uncomfortable at the urinals. Jokingly, she said she would need extra Purell to follow-through with the tour.

“If people want to come at me,” she said, “I’ll tell them, well, they could suck my dick, but I cut it off.”

Her tour begins June 9.

The Gayly – 5/9/2016 @ 12:49 p.m. CDT