Are you working in UNA 15 or 14? What do you mean when you say

So, the system recognizes them as unauthenticated.

Do you hope to give users feedback as to whether they system recognizes them as unauthenticated?

That's what I want for my users. I show the side menu to authenticated users. It is populated with lots of options. Top menu is visible to everyone, but has bare minimum options (search, and an events page for publicly announced events).

This doesn't answer your question, but it is a different approach to achieve a design distinction between authenticated and unauthenticated (beyond the avatar in the upper right).