Campus Official's Comments Lead to Man Not Using Restroom

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -- A few weeks ago, Myles Minier decided he would never use the restroom in public. Minier was born physically as a woman, but identifies as a man. After being confronted for using the men’s restroom at Kellogg Community College, he decided he would just not go anywhere but at home.

“I’ve been using the men’s room for the last three years,” he said. “It came to a point that I was not going to use the restroom at all; I was not going to use the women’s room, I was going to wait until I got home.”

This lasted about a week until he was reassured by the campus security and campus police that he indeed had no reason to not use the men’s room.

It was a custodian that confronted Minier when he exited the men’s room in November.

“I was approached by a faculty member and he asked me if I had come out of the men’s room earlier that day and I said, ‘yes, I am a man and I will use the men’s room,’” Minier said. “He said, 'you can’t do that I have security footage and if you do that security will have to come.'"

Minier said that he had not reason to believe otherwise.

"I was under the full belief that what he was telling me was the truth,” he said,

Eric Greene, Director of Public Relations at Kellogg Community College, said the custodial staff and campus security are not employees of the school, but are contracted. The school also has a police officer, but that individual is a staff person at the college.

After some investigation and meetings with administration at the college, Minier was told that there is no reason he cannot use the men’s room

“Security said there was nothing wrong with it and he decided to take it up in his own hands and using his own judgement to tell me I couldn’t,” Minier said.

But the damage was already done, to some degree.

“For that week that I could not use the restroom at KCC, I was second guessing everywhere I went,” he said. “If someone would say that at a community college, what are they going to say in the real world?”

Being told he could not use the men's room also threw Minier into all kinds of old insecurities.

“I have only been identifying as a man for five years, but I knew I was a man since I was in sixth grade,” he said. “But, you know, growing up in a country hick town, that’s all hush hush.”

Living as a woman when he knew he was a man was a terrible experience.

“It’s like being stuck inside a plastic bag that can be opened from the outside, but you cannot open it from the inside,” he said. “It’s like suffocating.”

Minier is 18. His decision to begin living as a man came just after he survived a suicide attempt and had to come to terms with the truth to both himself and his family.

“It was me saying I am not just a lesbian; I am a boy, he said. “I started more and more being away from my family and being with friends. My family has yet to fully support me.”

Minier said he began using the men’s room when he felt he could pass as a man and not make other men uncomfortable.

“When I got my hair cut,” he said. “I feel like I have a rather masculine body. When I was able to bind my chest down.”

Minier said he was told that the custodian would be facing consequences for his actions, but he did not know what those consequences were.

This isn’t the first time Minier faced discrimination at his school. Rob Rock is a non-traditional student at KCC and became friends with Minier.

“He always knew he had a safe place with me and my fiance Tanya,” the 49-year-old student said. “The first incident involved his instructor. His instructor was hovering outside the restroom stall.

“[Minier] had posted about it just briefly, (on social media), but did not really go into a lot of detail at that time about it.”

Minier and Rock met with Tara Zaremba, who was the former advisor for Spectrum, an organization for all members of the LGBT+ community and its allies.

“Once we sat down with Tara, it was more like a domino effect,” Rock said. “Spectrum, the LGBT group at the college has not been active this semester at all.”

On Dec. 14, Rock and Minier hosted the first resurgent meeting of Spectrum. The meeting was fruitful and resulted in plans for the next semester.

Greene said that group was welcome to bring things before the college board, including the bathroom issues.

"We don't have a specific police that addresses bathroom usage," Greene said. "It's my understanding that the students...are trying to revitalize [Spectrum] and I think KCC would welcome their recommendations."

For Minier’s part, he is comfortable both on campus and off.

“I am able to use the restroom now,” he said.

Some of the challenges of being transgender will last for all of Minier’s life. For example, he has not yet legally changed his name. So that requires him to communicate who he is at the beginning of every semester.

“I go before the semester starts and talk to professors individually. It’s face to face every semester,” Minier said. “It’s who I am. It’s who I used to be. It’s what I live with.”

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