Rekha Basu

For the Poughkeepsie Journal

To see and hear Casey Gradischnig, you would never guess the 54-year-old senior art director for a Meredith company was born female. He has a bald head, a full mustache and a beard. He lacks breasts. He is 6 feet tall, weighs 218 pounds and has a deep, male voice. His clothes were bought in the men’s section.

He has never never had a problem using public men’s rooms since transitioning close to 20 years ago. Before that, hardly a day went by when he didn’t get odd looks or harassment using the women’s rooms.

But under North Carolina’s law, and in legislation being considered in various states, Casey would be required to use women’s bathrooms. And if a budget amendment proposed by Rep. Steve King of Iowa passes, Casey also would have to use women’s rooms on visits to his U.S. senator or representative in Washington, D.C.

This is a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of such requirements.

Casey has been considering them. He encouraged me to join him in visiting public women’s rooms around the metro last weekend to see how his presence there went over. We began at Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines. Casey stood at a sink washing his hands while I stood to the side. A bathroom attendant was in there and seemed unsure of what to do, as women entered. Several showed confusion, smirked or rolled their eyes, and the attendant let them know it was OK to come in. Finally she told Casey, “Sir, this is the women’s restroom.”

“I know,” responded Casey, and continued washing his hands. The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has said transgender people are free to use whichever bathroom they prefer. A second attendant arrived and repeated what the first had said, and Casey answered as before. Casey engaged a customer, an Asian woman with an accent, in conversation, asking if his presence surprised her. She replied that at first she feared she was in the wrong bathroom. She showed interest when Casey explained the situation, and said it was fine.

The second housekeeper asked Casey to step outside, where a male security guard asked, “You know you’re in a women’s restroom?”

“Yeah,” replied Casey. “I’m a transgender person.”

“Oh,” replied the guard.

“I was born female,” Casey explained, showing the officer his birth certificate.

“Ohhhh,” replied the guard. A second guard went off to check with a supervisor what to do.

After I had identified myself to the first guard, he told me the housekeeper had called and they thought maybe Casey didn’t realize he was in the wrong place. “Clearly he looks like a guy to us,” he explained, adding, “We do not have a bathroom to accommodate transgender people, but this situation has never come up before.”

As he chatted with Casey, the guard loosened up and admitted to having been “blown away” to learn Casey was born female.

“Remember when you told me that? I was like, ‘Ohh!’ ” he said, laughing.

“Whatever you do is awesome,” he ultimately told Casey, observing, “It’s completely changing around the country.” The second guard returned and said Casey was free to use the bathroom. Everyone handled the situation coolly and graciously, given what they didn’t know.

Our next stop did not go as harmoniously. It was the Cracker Barrel restaurant and retail store in Clive. Casey was washing his hands when a tall blond-haired woman came in, used the bathroom and left. Soon a store employee was telling Casey gruffly he had to leave. He was unmoved by Casey’s explanation about being transgender, calling in a female manager.

The manager said the other employee had said guests were upset. Casey asked what he should do.

The manager struggled for an answer. “I suppose if you were dressed like a girl and, you know, went in there.”

“Even if he had a beard? I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never had to deal with this before. Corporate never came out with any policy on it.”

The manager said guests sometimes get upset when others bring in dogs, and the restaurant has to decide whether to accept them without service-dog papers. Casey pointed out the restaurant had to accept him.

The male employee told Casey he had removed him from the bathroom because “That’s what the guest asked me to do.”

“Well, I’m a guest too,” noted Casey.

He asked which bathroom someone like him should use. “I don’t know. You’ll have to call corporate,” the man said.

When I did later, Janela Escobar, Cracker Barrel’s corporate spokeswoman, apologized for Casey being asked to leave the bathroom. “What you experienced is not acceptable, not the norm and not how our employees are trained,” she told me. She said a policy was introduced three or four weeks ago, allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice and the company has yet to finish training all 72,000 employees on it.

Escobar said she had received a call from a manager in Clive about a guest who may have been mistreated. But from the sounds of it, that was the blond woman. I had tried to talk to her in the parking lot, where she was with her family. “Stay back from me,” she warned, as I approached. I told her who I was and that I wanted to discuss the bathroom situation. “Don’t come near me,” she instructed again. A young man said a man had tried to “scam” his mother in the bathroom. An adult man said: “A man was in the women’s room. It’s against the law.”

I explained that Casey was transgender so it was permitted, but they weren’t interested. “You’re not even from Iowa, are you?” scoffed the woman, adopting an accent. “Where you from — New Joy-sey?”

The next day, she called police. After I explained the circumstances to Chief Michael Venema, he said since no laws had been broken, no charges would be filed. But he worried about his officers getting drawn into such a situation, and warned me that someone could get hurt.

Exactly.

Casey and I hadn’t set out to create a volatile situation. We wanted to show what a tough position a law like North Carolina’s puts everyone in. But Casey also didn’t set out to be transgender. He feels he was born into the wrong sex. Even before his hormones and breast-removal surgery, no one doubted his maleness, he said, reinforcing his belief that “that’s my authentic self.”

“I was never trying to dress up as anything to fool anybody.”

Our next two experiences were positive. At Drury Inn in West Des Moines, Casey approached the front desk clerk and asked which bathroom he, a transgender person, should use. That’s the hotel that last July called police on Meagan Taylor, a transgender guest. “Whichever one you like,” the woman answered pleasantly. Clearly, they’ve learned.

In the bathroom in Des Moines’ Gray’s Lake Park, at least four female patrons, one carrying a child, saw Casey washing his hands and didn’t flinch. One asked him about problems with the tap.

Individuals may have different levels of awareness or acceptance of transgender people. But businesses, at least, should be schooled on their civil rights. The overarching message is that lawmakers in North Carolina and elsewhere are creating a problem by seeking a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Rekha Basu is a columnist for the Des Moines Register. Write her at 715 Locust St., Des Moines, IA 50309 or email her at rbasu@dmreg.com.