Walked into a bathroom. Took a leak. Walked out. Two girls were giving me the stinkeye.

yeah, they do that to me all the time. Real horse hockey. Could be worse, I guess - I haven't had the police called on me yet.

By arguing that I need to "check my privilege" the implied statement is that the accuser has none.

See, I seriously disagree with that, and anyone who you have run into who has used privilege in that way is not only wrong, but an idiot.

All the people who are going to Oberlin are privileged. Some happen to be more privileged than others, but they are all privileged to go to a high class school in a safe (if a little boring - I've been there) town in the liberal north of a midwestern purple state.

This is the thing about privilege, and that is super hard for people to understand (including the people who use it most), is that Everyone has advantages that others don't, and everyone has disadvantages that others don't.

You grew up in New Mexico (at least part of the time). That means that you did not have the priviliges of an incredibly good upper class middle school in New York - let's say. that is a privilege that someone else has over you. Anyone, of any colour who had the Privilege of doing so, should acknowledge that and use what they gained from that experience to help the people who didn't have that. That help might be Donating to a school board, or donating to a school library, or it might be investing their life into education and becoming a teacher so that they can give back. it might just be as small as saying "you didn't learn that in school? It's cool man, let me show you this trick for it..."

You're a white man. That means that, as of right now, when you do business with people they take you seriously. When you were a teen, however, you were pretty into the goth scene (right? I feel like we had this conversation). Were you ever followed around in a convenience store because you were dressed a certain way or looked a certain way? That's a privilege that you have over the past you, the adolescent person who is judged because of his clothing and long hair.

Privilege doesn't mean your life's not shit, it means that even in your shit life you've had some ups that other people haven't, or experience to make you wiser. The people who gave you the stink eye in the restroom? they're idiots, and probably reacted the way they did because they're unreasonably afraid of gender neutral bathrooms. They took that fear out on you, and that is fucking wrong.

Short, sort of unrelated story time re: how I feel about taking shit out on other people.

The worst my depression ever got was November 11, 2007. After being confronted with unthinking behaviour, I yelled at my grandmother (whom I love dearly) and drove off. I parked in a coffee shop parking lot and was weeping when my dad called me - my grandmother was afraid for me. I knew I had to change, and I could never treat my grandmother like that again.

When I started sitting down and actually dealing with my depression, I made a rule. If I had an angry moment, or an upsetting end to a conversation, I would go over that situation and ask myself if my anger was justified, if I was right to be upset. If it was, then no regrets. If I wasn't, then I had to turn around, go back and apologize for my actions.

I did this as recently as yesterday afternoon, when I went back and apologized to my supervisor for being an asshole about shit she can't change.

So, when I see those people taking their fear out on you I get pretty mad.

However, you have a privilege over them - the likelihood that you will be overpowered in a bathroom and assaulted is significantly lower than theirs, so you don't need that fear as much as they need it. It doesn't make what they did and said okay, but it does mean that I can understand why they are afraid.

People of any colour, race or creed can have a privilege over any other person - it's not some system that sets itself up directly to drag you down as a cisgender heterosexual white male. That being said, it can be used that way, and I would assert is being used that way by some of these students, and that's why I said we need to look at their broad points because these people are an extremeexample. They also, like Tea Partiers, just happen to be the loudest.

And if I were an unemployed coal miner in West Virginia I'd have a great deal of difficulty finding the empathetic position with someone who identifies as "LatinX."

My gender neutral friend from Costa Rica would be upset, but I Imagine they would charm the pants off of the coal miners if given a chance.