My sports team is back in action this year. Our first game was this past weekend...on the road...in the Northwest. If one will remember, I wrote this piece last year about my fear of the locker room. Because of our limited schedule on the road last year, I never had to actually deal with the potential locker room issue.
This time, though, there was no local hotel we were staying in after the game (we flew into a city a few hours away from the game), and we would not be heading home until the following day. After the game, we were also eating out with the other team and the game officials, so I really didn't want to be smelly.
As it turned out, the locker room was just as big an issue for me as it was for some of my own teammates...if not worse. About half the team had no apparent issues, with about 30-40% of the team having such an issue with it that they decided not to shower at all (just washing off with a cloth or something). I fell into the remaining percentage that wanted to shower, but still had some apprehension about being naked in front of others. One woman wanted to shower by herself, so, since I was one of the last in from the field, I let her go alone after the rest had showered. I then went after her. Both of us were still visible to others as we went in and out of the showering area, but it was a little limited.
Was I scared? Hmm...a little, yes. Frightened...well, not really, but I was definitely self conscious about it. As I was showering, I tried to keep my side to the area where anyone could see me...as seeing me from the side doesn't show off my lack of hips as much. I just didn't want too many of my "flaws" showing through.
In the end, though, nothing really happened. I definitely felt like I walked away from the situation feeling a lot better, but I also wasn't under the close scrutiny of anyone's eyes. Seriously, there is enough about me to start to question things...my lack of hips, my small nipples/areolas, the larger frame for my size, etc. Sure, there's no penis dangling around, and I'm actually similar in size to one of my teammates who has larger arms and legs than me. Of course, she was called 'he' by one of our waitresses the night before. I told her about the pronoun issue later on, and she said she used to get that a lot...so much that she started using the guys bathroom more than the women's bathroom.
Anyway, I got a passing grade on the locker room. Let's just hope I don't have to retake the test.
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