OK, seriously, who has a needle phobia so bad that they’ll pass out when you’re in a stall? It’s not like you’re walking around, threatening them with it.
If you are, diabetes is a lot more interesting than it sounds.
It’s like being a ninja, but without the cool stuff. And I can’t eat cake. Or kill people with my hands. But there’s stealth, and sometimes I wear black.
I told my mom about the diabetes analogy, and her reaction was the same as mine: It’s discrimination. (Actually her reaction was more like, “Who in their right minds would do that? And why are you always asking me these strange questions?”)
Also, I’d like to point out that just because an action is even across the board doesn’t mean it’s fair or just. Being non-discriminatory in selection doesn’t necessarily mean it’s non-discriminatory in the execution.
I had been so openly femme for the past couple years, I doubt there could have been much surprise. Especially since I had already grown breasts, it was getting kind of obvious.
Now, now simmer down. It was a HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO used to illustrate the point that the bouncer in this case treated the patron the same way he would have (hypothetically) treated any other (hypothetical) misunderstanding. HOWEVER PATENTLY OBSURD.
I’ve seen bouncers remove anybody NEAR a fight or scuffle in bars and concerts. Wether the person was guilty or not. If the bouncer determined a person was part of the trouble, out they go. Perhaps we frequent different bars or concert halls… what can I tell you?
It was surely an embarrassing, even Fark headline-worthy mistake, but there was no intent to make the woman fit any gender moulds or conform to any rules of conduct or dress. He didn’t know she was a woman, and certainly didn’t know she was a lesbian. As far as he knew (however wrong in hindsight) it was a man in the ladies room with the very likely intent to cause harm or break the law.
He was told it was a man, thought he saw a man, and so he ejected her. This is enough for a bouncer in a private establishment to eject.
It turns out he was wrong, but based on the information he had at the time (that a person identified by another patron was a man), and the information he gathered in his arrival on the scene (that the person appeared to be a man) he did what his job called for.
He did nothing wrong.
He didn’t look at her and think “Oh, a dyke trying to be a man, I’ll toss her”.
he didn’t look at her and think “Oh, a black woman… out she goes”.
He looked at her and thought “Wow, that is a man in the ladies room, this can’t be good” and threw her out.
Sorry, but she was treated equal to the way any other person would have been treated.
Notice, before you take me to the Pit that “Equal” does not equal “fair”. She wasn’t treated fairly, but if I had a dime for every time something didn’t go favorably in my direction, I could pay my SDMB dues years in advance. Hell, I could probably pay my mortgage.
Bottom line is she was treated equal to the way I’d expect ANY perceived threat to be treated in a private establishment. Me… the guy in the cubicle next to me or the guy next to him. It doesn’t matter who is gay, straight, black, white, has long hair or short hair or shaved their legs this week or who didn’t.
This is a WIN for gay-rights! You got treated like everybody else. It only took, what… 30 years? I’m on your side here. Yay for us!
And now she wants to sue because of it? I’m more disgusted by* that* than anything else to be honest. I’ll go as far as to say that this lawsuit drags the struggle for the rights and freedoms of GLB & Ts backwards.
“But I’m a woman. Here’s my ID.”
Somewhere between the bathroom and the street she was tossed out into, I’d bet there were some words exchanged that would easily move this scenario from an honest bouncer just doing his job, to a situation more than worthy of litigation, imho.
Decide for yourself.
The person’s sexuality is complety and utterly IRRELEVANT to the discussion. That’s my entire point. The bouncer didn’t know she was a lesbian. Hell, he though she was a MAN for crying out loud! He didn’t bounce her with any pre-conceived knowledge of her sexuality. In fact the complete and total opposite.
If I had a dime for everytime I told a bouncer I wasn’t vomiting in the bathroom because I was intoxicated but because I ate bad shellfish for dinner…
OK, well, I’d have twenty cents. But the point is, bouncers have heard it all for excuses and explanations, and I may have mentioned this in my original post… THEY’RE NOT REQUIRED TO LISTEN OR GIVE A GOOD GODDAMN about your explanation or story.
I don’t know what evidence she even offered. Was that in the article? My experience (although limited) with bouncers tells me there’s very little time to present your case before you find yourself on the sidewalk.
They are a private employee working on behalf of a private establishment. There is no due process or trial by a jury of your peers. All it takes to get thrown out of a bar or restaurant (I’ve seen the place in question referred to as either) is the bouncer’s belief that you are in the wrong.
If you don’t like that, open your own bar and instruct your bouncers conduct a thorough investigation of each an every complaint.
It’s not fair necessarily, but it’s the way it is. That’s what makes it FAIR. I’m a straight white guy and I’d expect to be thrown out of a club, bar, restaurant or concert hall if I was thought to be involved with illicit or potentially illegal activity.
If that suspicion turned out to be wrong I’d use my power as a consumer to not patronize said establishment anymore, and to try and get my friends to join me in not being customers anymore, I may even complain to the manager and see if I can’t get a comp’d drink or meal, but there’s little shelter by the law here.
Watch the video linked above, think about it for a bit, and then decide if you want to continue on the road to The Pit.
You do not know this for a fact. There is a very real possibility that he threw her out because he thought she was a lesbian. Anti-gay prejudice is hardly uncommon, even in New York. And that’s the point of the lawsuit: if he threw her out because he doesn’t like lesbians, he’s violated New York’s anti-discrimination laws, and has opened himself (and his employers) up to a lawsuit. If he can convince a jury that he didn’t know she was a woman, he’ll win the case. If he can’t, he’s boned. But you can’t set his innocence up as a precondition of the argument over his guilt. We don’t know, any of us, for a fact, what his motivation was.
Not necessarily. Business must abide by the law, and the law sometimes dictates how the business interacts with the public. A business can’t refuse to do business with someone because of the color of their skin, for the most obvious example. But that doesn’t just mean that a business can’t make a rule saying, “No blacks.” It also can’t make rules that effectively excludes blacks, even if that’s not the explicit purpose of the rule. If looking like a man and being in the women’s bathroom gets you thrown out, you have effectively prevented masculine women from using your bathroom. I don’t know the specifics of New York’s anti-discrimination laws, but that may be illegal in that state or city.
Oh this pisses me off even more!
The guy in the green shirt at about 1.12 has it right! If you don’t like the way this went down, leverage your power as a consumer to voice your opinion against the establishment by all means. Isn’t that why so may of our elders died at war; so we could have that freedom and power?
They (the restaurant) DO need to apologize. That much is a given, no? This was a colossal mistake. In retrospect (KEY word here), they were wrong and they need to fess up to that.
But it’s akin to mistakes that get made everyday in every bar, restaurant, strip club or student watering hole from New York to California.
Welcome to the masses.
Judging by that You Tube clip, Khadijah Farmer seems shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that people may, on occasion, present a less-than-genuine ID to a bouncer. :dubious:
Again, I will go on record: I am “straight, but not narrow”. I consider myself an adamant defendant of Gay rights, and a supporter of the GLBTG community. Some of my closest friends are Gay. There is no “breeder” more in support of the Gay community and their rights and freedoms than me. My support is so strong and outward that I have been misconstrued as Gay myself!
I believe that we are all equal. It’s just that sometimes, we get the short end of the stick. Straight or Gay. Sorry 'bout that.
On Edit:
Miller, you’re the one speculating some sort of hatred for lesbians, not me. Given the time in which the entire event likely took place (can we agree on 10 minutes from start to finish?) and the ‘bottom-line’ objective of a bouncer, there is very LITTTLE possibility that he threw her out because he thought she was a lesbian.
It is FAR more likely to deduce that he threw her out because he genuinely thought she was a man up to no good in the women’s rest room.
Occam’s Razor.
True only he will know for sure, but based on what we know you’re seriously coming to a debate with “he knew the self-admitted masculine-looking lesbian was, in fact a lesbian and therefore dolled out some sort of anti-gay justice… even though he was employed by an advertised gay-friendly establishment”.
Bugger off! It was an honest, although awkward mistake that has been blown WAY out of proportion.
Yes. And you’re the one speculating that it was an honest mistake. Neither of us knows for sure.
Why is the possibility so low? What does the length of the encounter have to do with it?
Anti-gay prejudice is not a particularly extraordinary phenomenon, so it’s not getting shaved off by Occam’s Razor. Mind, I’m not saying I know he’s a homophobe for a fact, merely that the possibility cannot be so cavalierly dismissed.
Well, maybe we can nail them for false advertising, too.
Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that it was an honest mistake. So what? That doesn’t mean it’s not a violation of the law. The restaurant discriminated against this woman in action, if not in intent, and their liability is no less because of that.
Incidentally, you’re getting awfully worked up over this for someone playing Devil’s Advocate.
I started out taking the “nut point of view”, but the more I read, the more annoyed I get at Khadijah Farmer’s expectancy of some sort of special rules because she is Gay… or butch… or whatever her reasoning is.
Because a bouncer’s objective is simply to end the problem. Not to launch a lengthy investigation or interview witnesses, or take statements or to even listen to the “troublemakers” explanation. The bouncer’s objective is to end the problem as quickly as possible so other patrons don’t potentially get hurt.
This happens very fast. They get what information they can, then they act in what they truly believe to be the best interest of the business.
Cavalierly? Um, no. I’m simply taking the most likely explanation and giving it more weight. I say he made a mistake in judgement in a short period of time after having been given incorrect information. You’re saying he’s some sort of anti-gay vigilante just waiting for the right opportunity to abuse his power as a bouncer at a NYC restaurant to keep those filthy homosexuals down!
Maybe it’s for a jury to decide. I, for one feel confident common sense would prevail in at least 1 of 12 jurors.
Sure it does. Even MURDER has a distinction between intent (1st degree) and accident (3rd degree or even manslaughter).
She wants to be treated the same as any other woman attending the restaurant. How is that special rights?
Who was potentially getting hurt in this situation? The woman was alone in a bathroom stall in an otherwise empty bathroom. It’s hardly an emergency situation, and the bouncer could have taken a minute to confirm that there was actually something inappropriate going on.
We’re talking about bouncers, here, not United States Marines. They’re hired thugs. Which is not to say they can’t be smart, or principled, but those aren’t exactly at the top of the job description.
No, I’m just saying maybe the dude was a bigot. It’s not exactly rare, you know.
Well, fuck, I didn’t intend to back into that truck in the parking lot last month. Guess that meant I didn’t have to pay for his repairs.
Yeah, the nerve of her to have to go to the bathroom. Damn those gays & their “special rules.”
Sure. And if not for that, because she’s black. And if that doesn’t work, maybe she’ll turn out to be color blind, or left-handed, or dyslexic, and she and her insta-mob can keep pressing buttons until they find the one that opens the cash register.
I watched the video. I saw a mannish woman that could easily be mistaken for male, and a bunch of shit-stirring crusaders getting giddy at the prospect of a boycott. Maybe the bouncer really was a slavering lesbophobe, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary (none being presented yet in this thread, I notice) my feeling is that it was a simple mistake. One that deserved an apology, and probably would’ve received one (and never made the news) if Urkelette and her coterie hadn’t immediately sprung into Indignant Outrage mode.
Maybe it’ll still result in a public apology. Or maybe before then, New York (or some other part of the nation) will suffer another true crisis that reminds us just how ridiculous and inconsequential this sort of petty bullshit is in the grand scheme of things.
It’s actually a pretty big fucking deal to quite a lot of people. “Not important to you,” doesn’t equal, “Not important.”
Now that I’ve vented in the pit, I feel better.
Imho, her sexuality isn’t directly involved. What I believe to be the root issue can be seen if you rotate a few different hypotheticals into the situation.
Replace Khadijah with…
…a cancer survivor undergoing chemo who has had a double mastectomy.
…a woman who was wearing a jumpsuit and a baseball cap because she was volunteering to pick up trash in a nearby park.
…a woman who has facial hair.
I would have the same vitriol if any of these hypothetical women had received the same treatment and people faulted them for suing. I would have the same vitriol if a long-haired man had been kicked out of the restaurant because another man had seen him enter the Men’s room and then informed the bouncer that a woman was in the Men’s room.
If a woman being asked to leave a NY bar is high on your list of pressing social matters—if you truly have that much free time and can find no higher cause worthy of your devotion—I honestly don’t know whether to envy or pity the overabundance of leisure you must enjoy.
She was barged in on while her pants were around her ankles taking a piss, with a fist pounding at the stall door. She was informed that she was being considered male, that she was acting inappropriately by occupying the inappropriate bathroom, and that she would have to pay for the meal that she and her party had not yet received, and then leave. All without any sort of reasonable opportunity to even try and prove that she had every right to be there.
That is not just being “asked to leave a NY bar”.
Nice job of ducking my main question, RumMunkey. I’ve now seen a picture of the lady in question and she actually looks a bit more feminine than my friend. My question stands. Should my friend be allowed to use a ladies room in public?
I don’t blame the bouncer for checking on a report that a man was in a women’s restroom. That was his job, after all, and it isn’t a pleasant one. What I blame him for is refusing to accept not only her word that she was a woman but her offer of identification indicating that she was one. A suitable response to an honest mistake would have been to accept the offer and apologize. Instead, he chose to refuse accept evidence that she was a woman and toss her out. That’s wear the bouncer was out of line in my opinion. It could have been settled quite simply if he’d chosen to accept her identification and apologized.