I, Joseph Madden, on May 2, 2016 have walked into the girls’ bathroom located in the basement of the Norris University Center, opened the largest stall’s door and sat down on its toilet (the seat was down, obviously).

Remarkably, all the other people in here have not stopped going about their business. I still hear muffled pee streams, toilets flushing, ruffling toilet paper and washing hands, even though I am a man and I am here. Granted, I am in a stall, but so are the countless other transgender women across the nation who are just now being able to go to the bathroom of their choice.

I smiled at the woman I walked past on the way in here, and I am sure many more have noticed that I am not a woman simply by seeing my beat up vans and hairy legs under the stall door. But, for whatever reason, not one of them has been compelled to ask me to leave. I cannot speak for how these women felt, but I do not think that any of them are threatened or unable to pee now that a penis has entered their bathroom.

In short, I don’t believe my presence, a male presence, has affected any of the women in this bathroom.

But going into this bathroom has certainly affected me.

How am I, a person who identifies as male, supposed to feel walking past a placard of a woman in a dress with the word “women” written underneath it? This bathroom, as most public ones do, has aggressively demanded that I define my gender, and I cannot ignore the fact that I do not belong here because I identify with a different one.

I feel like I am lying to myself, and I feel overwhelmingly like the “other.” And I cannot imagine how transgender people, men and women, feel walking into bathrooms every day that do not match their gender identity. I cannot begin to conceive how it feels to have come to terms with being a different gender than the one you are assigned at birth — a feat difficult beyond exaggeration in our society — and be forced to go against that knowledge of yourself every time you have to go to the bathroom.

I was also not compelled to do terrible things to the women in this bathroom now that I have gained entry, in spite of what those in opposition of these so-called “Bathroom Bills” might have you think. Moreover, I am not sure what license being in a bathroom with these women would give me to hurt any of them. There are many people in here, and they are only exposing themselves behind closed doors.

What my experience within these four walls has taught me is that the presence of a man in a women’s bathroom does not stop women from going into the bathroom, and that a man is no more capable of hurting women in a bathroom than he is anywhere else. It has also taught me that having to go against your gender identity by walking into a bathroom where do not belong is alienating. It made me realize that transgender people having to do that every day is forcing them to go against the gender they have come to identify with. More than anything, sitting in this girls’ bathroom has showed me that every person in every state should have the right to pee in a place where they feel comfortable.

Joseph Madden is a Weinberg freshman. He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.