No, a woman being forcibly evicted from a public establishment for not being feminine enough is high on my list of pressing social concerns. Businesses that violate hard-won anti-discrimination laws are high on my list of concerns. Securing equal protection for gay and transgendered citizens is high on my list of concerns.
Making fun of people because they’re interested in social issues that don’t directly impact me? Not so high on my list of concerns.
Forgive me. I had seen this as an isolated event and was unaware that “lesbians mistaken for men in women’s bathrooms being kicked out of restaurants” was an endemic societal problem. So this is merely the tip of the dyke-ejection iceberg? The test case that will draw attention to a terrible institutionalized practice taking place across the country, that is only now being publicized because of one woman’s courage to speak out? A light shone upon society’s “dirty little secret” of denying butch women their right to public excretion? How many have simply crossed their legs and suffered in silence before this—thousands? Tell me it’s not millions!
I’m not denying she was treated badly, and in her place I’d have been pissed. But so far nobody’s presented anything except speculation that it had anything to do with her being a lesbian (as opposed to being presumed male). The drive to turn this into some gay-rights crusade is such a stretch as to be laughable.
Occasionally I see CNN or the local news lead with some trifling story and think to myself “wow, there must not be much going on in the world if this is the top story.” I get the same impression of the state of gay rights, watching the attention given to this ridiculous story.
To fake…their gender?
Sir, what are you smoking? May I have some?
No, that is not what I was advocating at all.
What I was saying is, we all make choices about our appearances with full knowledge of society’s norms and expectations. Therefore, when we make choices that deviate from those norms and expectations, we’re making those choices with some level of expectation about how we’re going to be treated. That doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t make it fair, but it DOES mean that the individual made choices that enabled that sort of behavior.
I gave what I believed was a reasonable analogy with regard to one of my friends who did the whole Goth thing around the time of Columbine. When we went into retail stores together, it was patently obvious that employees were watching our everymove, because “people in black trenchcoats are trouble makers shoplifters”. Did that make that judgment correct? Did it make it right? Did it make it fair? Absolutely not. At times, it made me uncomfortable to be around him in public because of those sorts of reactions. He could have easily “updated his appearance” to fit with “society’s norms” so that he wouldn’t get those sorts of reactions, but it was a conscious choice NOT to fit within those norms, so those sorts of reactions aren’t unexpected, and shouldn’t be treated like it’s some kind of an outrage.
Now, I’ll try to ellaborate from the bouncer’s perspective… a woman approaches you and says there’s a man in the women’s room. This is a very real concern because, if it is a man, he could be a sexual predator. Then consider he sees this woman, with the preconceived notion that she’s a man… can you blame him if he ALSO mistakes her for a man? Also remember, a bouncer’s job isn’t to apply politically correct rulings, it is his job to prevent problems or end them as soon as possible. So he’s faced with a woman who, very reasonably IME, thought there was a man in the ladies room, and potentially feared for her safety VS. someone whom is easily mistakable for a man or actually was a man preying on drunk women in a bar bathroom… it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that happened. IMO, he made the best choice given the options available.
Now, as for the woman, she didn’t do anything wrong either. She is well within her rights to express herself however she feels necessary. In fact, as one who often rides the edge, or outside of, society’s norms myself, I appreciate and encourage her boldness. However, it can’t possibly be the first time she was mistaken for a man, right? It can’t possibly be the first time she at least received strange looks when she walked into the ladies’ room, right? Our society isn’t perfectly tolerant, and these sorts of reactions, while unfortunate, are not unexpected. And, while, I imagine this is the first time anything like this had happened to her, acting shocked seems disingenuous to me.
Now, IMO, if she was offended, the correct course of action is to seek an apology from the owner of the establishment and a promise to review policies to prevent that sort of occurence in the future. Why make a big deal from it when it doesn’t have to be? That is, the point is to correct what was wrong and prevent it from occuring again in the future… right? There’s no need to involve anyone outside if it can easily be fixed like that. If, after her conversation with the management, she’s still not pleased, she could simply promise not to return, or even organize a boycott. FWIW, when I’ve been mistreated at any business, I clearly state why to the management, and my intent to bring my business elsewhere and encourage my friends and family to do the same.
IMO, suing just looks bad. There are better ways to get her message across, but, society DOES have opinions about suing too. Even when perfectly justified, it is stigmatized with making her look like a money-grubber who is taking advantage of a situation. IOW, right or wrong, I think she’s doing the entire cause a disservice by raising a lawsuit. If she wants to hurt them monetarially to get her point across, a boycott is just as effective.
I wonder how this would have worked if the woman using the bathroom had been mistaken for a white guy instead of a black guy.
Are you suggesting gay rights (or women’s rights) groups and the media ignore this and just wait for a lesbian to be killed or assaulted, for an un-feminine woman to be denied a promotion for being too butch?
The story is troubling because it shows that butch women, lesbian or straight, don’t have to do anything to be discriminated against. It’s what they’re not doing that’s the problem. And when femme women complain about waxing, haircuts, high heels, etc. they’re told (as in the recent Pit thread) that it’s their choice to buy into fashion and trends, and that they could choose to wear men’s suits and loafers and keep their hair short and suffer little to no negative consequences.
I don’t think we’d even be having this conversation if there wasn’t litigation involved. I don’t think the press coverage that prompted this OP would have occurred if there wasn’t litigation involved.
I think this situation is under-reported, and that it happens more often than most people realize. Litigation as a vehicle for social change is not something new. Even if they lose the suit, they will have succeeded in catalyzing conversation. Even though things said here and in the Pit have made me angry and frustrated, I am encouraged that the conversations took place.
It isn’t just about one woman and one bouncer in one Manhattan restaurant, and I applaud them for deciding to take this to the level that they did. I applaud the legal firm for recognizing this as an opportunity. Hand in hand with my belief that situations like this are under-reported, the chances of finding individuals who have such experiences (or worse) and who are willing to take it into the legal system are slim, so I understand and accept why the decision was made to file a case that isn’t a bullet-proof slam dunk. People being willing to litigate are rare not just because this happens at a frequency that some people believe to be within the bounds of “Yeah, well…life sucks. Get over it.”…but because people do not feel empowered to come forward.
Cases like this empower people, even if they fail in the courtroom, even if they fail to change minds in many living rooms.
I didn’t suggest that, but that certainly sounds reasonable, as those strike me as legitimate concerns. Assuming, of course, that the murder/assault is somehow related to the woman’s sexual orientation (as opposed to just being something bad that happened to a woman who happens to be gay). Or if there’s convincing evidence that the “un-feminine woman’s” failure to be promoted is really due to her butch appearance, rather than her competence, attitude, etc.
I personally don’t care how men or women look; the worst reaction I might have is a moment of confusion as I attempt to discern some androgyne’s gender. But bad things happen all the time to all kinds of people, including gay people—they’re not all civil rights violations just by implication. I think exaggerating the connection, in cases where there may not even be one, is a sort of wolf-crying that does harm to the rights cause, rather than good.
I don’t believe anyone is suggesting that every bad thing that happens to every gay person is a civil rights violation. However, being ejected from a place of public accomodation (the restaurant) on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is a violation of the civil rights laws of the City of New York. Assuming that the facts are as the woman described them, she was the victim of a civil rights violation. Is this comparable in scope to, say, Bull Connor unleashing dogs and hoses on black people? Of course not. But it is an affront to her dignity and a violation of the law and there is no reason why the restaurant should not be held accountable for it.
Point taken, but I disagree with litigation or law as a form of social change. In fact, IMO, it tends to slow these sorts of movements. Take a few other key court decisions like the Scopes trial or Row v. Wade; agree with the results of the cases or not, but these sorts of things cause a visceral reaction from the resistent sides rather than a gradual one because it, in effect, forces the new views down their throat rather than allowing the gentler process for it to occur as it would.
IMO, this sort of litigation will serve to polarize opinions on this matter… was she right or wrong? Was the bouncer right or wrong? Polarization makes integration more difficult. I have an image of a sponge, that is society, and a glass of water, the new paradigm. There’s JUST enough space in the glass for the sponge, if it’s allowed to soak up the water, will fit in the glass. Thus, if we insert it slowly, it may take time, but you won’t spill any water. If you’re impatient and shove it in, the water can’t soak in, and we end up with lots of spilled water.
In the grand scheme of this, this is ultimately a fairly minor encounter being blown into a fairly big deal. In my mind, it trivializes the whole ordeal, and to one side, makes her look like a petty-money grubbing woman eager to take advantage of the situation, and to the other side, she looks like a civil rights hero fighting the good fight. IME, the truth lies in between… that it wasn’t a case of discrimination, just an unfortunate set of circumstances based on her self expression, and resulting in her being made to leave based on perfectly normal operating procedures by the bouncer.
Even if she does go to court and does win… what does it change? It further validates the polarized views of the occurence… it monetarily injures a business that was acting well within established business practices for a bar… and it offers no real solution for what can be done to prevent these sorts of situations again in the future. All it really does is line the pockets of a few lawyers.
I want your life. 
This may be one of the best things I have read here since I joined in 1999.
Seriously. Well put and painfully true.
Cartooniverse
I don’t know how many times this has been said in this thread, but what the hell, let’s try one more time: it’s not outrageous that she was mistaken for a man. It everything that happened after that mistaken identity that’s outrageous.
Thank you for taking my post out of context, but still… Are you serious? It’s outrageous that an individual, deliberately or not (and apparently not, in this case) was responsible for complaints and the establishment, well within its rights, asked that person to leave?
The point I was trying to make was that, whoever made the complaints were not being unreasonable because A) she is mistakable for a man and B) a man in the ladies room is a very serious complaint because he could be a voyeur or, worse, a sexual predator.
Not to mention, according to the article linked immediately after the OP, the restaurant “was displaying a gay rights flag”. It also says that “…people overn mistak her for a man. She…corrects them and that nine times out of ten, they apologize.” Bottom line, she RECEIVED an apology.
But, this isn’t a case of “oops, sorry, I thought you were a man”, it’s a case of one customer making another/other customer(s) uncomfortable. In a case like this, it’s SOP to remove the offending party, so… you’re a bouncer, you’re faced with this decision… whom do you ask to leave, the woman who was uncomfortable with what she thought was a man in the restroom and it’s not unlikely that other women would feel the same OR do you ask the woman who looks like a man and, for all he knew, WAS a man. Whom do you kick out?
It’s outrageous that he made absolutely no effort to establish wether or not she had a right to be in that bathroom, yes. And no, he did not have the right to ask her to leave in those circumstances. He is, in fact, specifically forbidden by law to prevent someone from using a bathroom in New York because they don’t follow traditional expressions of gender identity.
People keep pointing this out like it proves something. Yes, the place had a pride flag. So? How does that make their behavior acceptable? And apologies are cheap. The restaurant has done nothing to ensure this does not happen again, and has taken no disciplinary measure with the bouncer. Absent either of those efforts, their apology is meaningless.
Neither, obviously. The fact that the first woman was uncomfortable is neither the fault or the responsibilty of Ms. Farmer. If the other woman can’t handle that, she can go eat somewhere else. And the bouncer did have a way of knowing if she was a man. She had identification, and she was there with two other people who could confimrm her gender. The bouncer was aware of both of these facts, but chose to ignore them.
First of all, you have not established that that is New York law… I even rescanned the thread and saw no legal references. Second, it’s not discrimination based on gender, a business has a right to refuse service to anyone, provide it’s not because of their status as a member of a protected group. The fact that she is lesbian or female are inconsequential to the fact that her presence as she appeared was disturbing to other customers. I have been turned away from businesses for far more trivial reasons like “not having sleeves on my shirt” or “not willing to accept my fiancee’s passport as valid ID” or, get this, “we accept CAC cards for Civilians and Active/Retired Duty, but not Contractors”.
Hell, in these parts, most bars allow women to wear sleeveless shirts, but not men. In fact, as I said above, I was specifically turned away once because of it (it was laundry day and it was a spur of the moment thing, I normally have enough self-respect not to dress like that, thank you). Should I sue them for “enforcing gender stereotypes”, or think to myself “Do I want to go here enough to go home and change my shirt, or would I rather go elsewhere where I can enter dressed like this?”
The point of that is, if a place where it should be reasonable to expect individuals acting outside of gender norms were mistaken with her gender… maybe there’s more to her being mistaken as a man. I’d expect in an establishment like that, the bouncer, and many of the patrons, are a little bit more adept at recognizing women that express themselves that way.
This is not what I said. I never said it was anyone’s “fault”. In fact, I specifically said I don’t think anyone did anything wrong. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the woman who made the complaint. It’s reasonable to assume she mistook her gender as if it’s a malicious action, there’s no accounting for it. If you were her, aware, as I’d stated several times without refutation, that “he” could very well be a voyeur or a sexual predator, would you not report it to the bouncer?
Now let’s look at the bouncer, you see this woman, with the thought in your head that she’s a man. Can you blame him for thinking that she was? If he does nothing, it is TERRIBLE for the business, because the woman, and anyone else who was aware of the situation (probably several customers) would get the impression that the business would not remove a sexual predator from the women’s room. IOW, REALLY bad press.
Let me try to come up with an analogy… yeah, it’s a little contrived, but bare with me please. Let’s say we’re in a similar establishment, and there’s an individual who looks like he’s wearing a Nazi swastika on his shirt. The bouncer finds the guy and asks him to leave. The guy claims, truthfully, that he’s a Jainist and it’s nothing to do with Naziism (whether a Jainist would ever be wear a shirt like that, or so clueless that some offenderati would say something… I dunno). The bouncer should, IMO, remove the individual wearing the shirt because, even though he was doing nothing wrong, it was raising an issue. It wouldn’t be religious censorship or prejudice, simply a business attempting to make the maximum number of customers comfortable.
Either way, in both cases (real and my example), individuals were outside of the norm of society, and they did this, as can be reasonably expected, with foreknowledge of the types of responses their appearances would receive from the general public. The business is faced with looking like they don’t care about sexual predators prowling their bathrooms to several customers OR offending a single customer. The sound business decision is obvious.
In the linked video interview, Ms. Farmer’s lawyer from the Transexual Defence Fund mentions the law. I’ve not been able to find the text of the law online, though. Searching for “New York transgender law,” brings up plenty of references to it, if not a direct link.
In New York, at least, gender expression (not just gender) is a protected class. You can’t refuse service to someone for being a transexual, or for being a butch lesbian. The latter is what effectively happened here, even if it was not the intent.
It’s the other customer’s complaint that’s inconsequential here. Why is her comfort automatically given precedence over Ms. Farmers? For that matter, what if the woman had complained that there was a lesbian in the women’s bathroom, and she was uncomfortable about that? Would the restaurant still have been in the right to throw Ms. Farmer out? After all, the got a complaint, and the most important thing is acting on that complaint, regardless of the complaint’s validity, right?
You were kept out of a bar for being a slob. That’s not quite the same thing as what we’re talking about, is it?
“Something more to her being mistaken as a man?” Like what, pray tell? If there’s something more going on here, why hasn’t the restaurant come forward to explain what this something more is?
I don’t blame the woman for her reaction. Interestingly enough, neither does Khadija Farmer.
As I said in my first post to you, I don’t blame him for mistaking her for a man. It’s how he handled the situation after that mistake that deserves censure.
And hey, guess what? They’re getting pretty bad fucking press already. A lot more than they would have gotten if the bouncer had just looked at her fucking ID and then let her pee in peace.
And now they look like they don’t care about gay rights. And they’re in Greenwich Village. And this happened because when one customer complained, they evicted three people without cause. Even judged on a strict economic basis, the decision was fucked up. Taking into account the legal and ethical aspects, and there is no part of the restaurants actions in this situation which can be reasonably defended.
“with foreknowledge of responses their appearances would receive from the general public” (from BLaM’s post above) really does not sit well with me as an assumption that can be applied with a sweeping motion to everyone who might encounter this sort of experience.
There is a use case for being unaware of how the general public will interpret an individual. In my youth, this would be me. I was raised in a rural area, and I preferred functional, comfortable clothing long before I was aware that it was “strange” to some people.
As has already been stated, there is a use case for one’s job (or other situational reasons) for which an individual disregards the consequences not for a personal/political statement. Some of the women who used to work with me as large-animal grooms at OSU come to mind. One (conservative, straight) he had relatively short hair, was thin and small-chested, and wore mostly the same thing as the rest of us did to work: cow/horse/pig/llama-shit-stained jeans, a t-shirt and either a sweatshirt or a flannel, and maybe a heavy barn coat when it was snowing, and steel-toed workboots.
Now, she made a conscious effort never wear a baseball hat, even while complaining that it would be easier if she wore one…and wore boots that were “girlier” (her words) even though they weren’t as warm or sturdy when getting stepped on by a draft horse… in order to avoid having her gender be confused. The other women I worked with (also straight) blew right past the stigmas in order to be comfortable and safe at work. I didn’t get to know them well enough to determine if they made that choice without a second thought, or if they’d started out like the first girl, but just grew tired of having crap in their hair and bruised toes, and it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter either way.
Now that I’m an adult, and I’ve survived high school and endured some of the consequences of going against the grain, some would define my motivations for dressing as I do as being to purposefully fly in the face of the status quo. Sometimes they’re right (performing drag). But pretty much every day that I get dressed, my motivations are the same as when I was a naive kid: to wear a wardrobe that is comfortable and functional in my life.
My point being, if I woke up tomorrow to discover that the rest of the world dressed exactly the same way I did, I would still dress this way. I would not start dressing in some other fashion in order to fly in the face of convention.
I am not sure how much difference it would make in the court room, but the New York Hate Crimes Act doesn’t seem to list “gender expression”, though it does specifically say gender or “sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct.”
It should be pointed out that service wasn’t “refused” in the usual meaning of the phrase. This wasn’t the result of a “No lesbians allowed” policy. This is a case of someone getting thrown out after an ugly misunderstanding by a probably assholish bouncer.
Which if she were pursuing a cause of action under the Hate Crimes law (which since there are no criminal charges involved I don’t believe she can) that might make some difference. The NYC civil rights law, however, which is viewable here, states in relevant part:
So her gender identity or expression is fully protected under New York City law.
She was refused service, and it was because of an ugly misunderstanding that arose directly from the bouncer’s unlawful actions relating to her gender identity or expression. This had nothing to do with her sexual orientation so tossing out any supposed “‘no lesbians allowed’ policy” is a canard.