My night as a ‘woman’

I see that some transgender dudette used the ladies’ room in the Capitol building. Apparently, this was a protest against Wyoming’s recent anti-transgender law. Man (and I use that term advisedly), protests are waaay different today than when I was a rabble-rouser. Micturation as a form of political protest was never on my Bingo card.

When I saw this news, I was reminded of two things. First is Edward Abbey’s quote about bladder relief, “If a man can’t piss in his own front yard, he’s livin’ too close to town.” I’m not sure why this adage jumped to mind when I saw this blatant violation of answering nature’s call. Maybe just because I’ve always respected Abbey.

The second memory this event prompted was the night that I dressed up as a woman and went out on the town. Deuteronomy 22:5 notwithstanding, I had a great time!

You must be asking yourself why a macho jock-cowboy like yours truly would cross-dress and risk the fires of hell where the flames are not quenched and the worm dieth not. I did it for fun and charity, and here’s how it happened.

I was living in Laradise a decade or so ago, and the annual Drag Queen Bingo extravaganza was approaching. Jasmine, a young artist who had done a couple portraits of my hirsute self, invited me to be her date.

Jasmine dressed like a Cuban pimp — pencil mustache painted on with eyeliner, slicked back pomaded hair and a sharkskin suit. I knew that, given my physical reality, I could never pass for a high-dollar hooker, so I dressed up as a barefoot and pregnant American housewife.

I duct-taped enough pillows to my belly to make me look like I was carrying triplets. I donned a ratty house dress, put curlers in my hair and beard, slapped on some lipstick, took off my Tony Lamas and I was ready for a night away from the kitchen.

Along with the other gender-bent attendees, Jasmine and I played Bingo and drank beer into the wee hours. We raised a lot of dough for the Laramie women’s shelter, the downtown free clinic and other worthy causes. Old Testament laws were broken routinely, with no apparent consequences.

That is, until I had to take a leak. I waddled into the men’s room, out of habit more than anything. Stepping up to the urinal, I couldn’t see over the triplets and ended up peeing on my bare feet. That’ll teach you, I heard an ethereal voice say, to violate the natural order of things. The lesson was amplified when it took me a couple days to extract the curlers from my beard.

I recount this memory to ridicule the goofiness of right-wing bathroom laws. With all the critical issues facing us in the Big Empty — chemtrails, LDS steeples and road-killed grizzlies — legislators waste their time on who can pee where.

Hell, Wyoming is 62 million acres of outdoor, uni-sex pissoir. Does the Freedom Caucus want to confine male urination to the Red Desert, and reserve the Bighorn Basin for the gals?

Our “conservative” politicians need to loosen their bustles. If there’s anything that trumps their cherished Wyoming Values, it’s the fact that “when ya gotta go, ya gotta go,” and that pesky truism in our Constitution that says, “all members of the human race are equal.”

I might suggest that our Freedom Caucus folks get out on the town more, live a little and have some fun. I had a blast during my one cross-dressing experiment, and they may enjoy it as well.

If Rep. John Bear applied some J.D. Vance mascara and wore a slinky black cocktail dress and stiletto heels, he’d turn heads at a dry cleaners convention, and maybe make some spendin’ money.

Chuck Gray could pull off a cute pinafore and pink bows. If he tapdanced and hummed a few bars of “Good Ship Lollipop,” the crowd would go nuts.

Even Congresswoman Harriet Hageman could slip into a male persona and have a good time. If she lost the turquoise, then put on a bushy white dread-locked beard and an old Stetson, she could go as Rod Miller at Drag Queen Bingo.

The only thing cramping their style would be some jerkwater politician telling them which bathroom they had to use.