A Florida nightclub threw out a trans woman for using a women’s bathroom, according to NBC News. Being that this happened in Florida, this incident comes as no surprise. Funny enough, the club has a sign on the front window that reads, “If you are racist, sexist, homophobic or just a jerk…don’t come in.” Oh, the irony.
Piper Ayers, a trans woman, was told she couldn’t use the women’s bathroom because on her ID she is identified as a male. Any establishment that fosters an unsafe environment for transgender people is a major concern given the ongoing hate crimes against LGBTQ folk, particularly Black ones. Florida has done a mighty fine job of making nearly the entire state unsafe for LGBTQ people with its anti-gay rhetoric, resulting in situations like this.
“The next thing you know, they grab a hold of me and start shoving me out the front door,” Ayers told NBC 2 News. “I just felt worthless. Like I wasn’t a person, or I didn’t have feelings or emotions. Just no respect.”
Read more from NBC News:
State public accommodations laws, which protect against discrimination in public businesses like bars, vary widely across the country in whether they prohibit discrimination based on LGBTQ status.
Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Six more states, including Florida, interpret existing prohibitions on sex discrimination to include discrimination based on LGBTQ status.
Courts have increasingly decided in favor of transgender people who sue under discrimination laws to access restrooms. Last year, an appellate court found that Hobby Lobby violated Illinois’ anti-discrimination law — both as an employer and as a place of public accommodation — by not allowing a transgender employee to use the women’s restroom.
Every “Don’t Say Gay” move that comes out of Florida sends a ripple across the country, whether inspiring anti-LGBT policies or inciting violence against the LGBTQ community. Club spaces are continually targeted when LGBTQ people are in attendance. Just last month a few Black gay men were killed in a suspicious hit and run outside a gay bar.
Though Gov. DeSantis’ anti-gay imperatives have been aimed at the youth and education system, they’ve also caused an adverse affect on LGBTQ adults who’ve already embraced the freedom to identify as they wish.