A Second Look

On Tuesday I wrote about a trans woman being denied the use of a bathroom at Cirque Du Soleil in Las Vegas, well there were comments on the WPATH (World Professional Association on Transgender Health) Facebook page that I want to comment about this afternoon.

First there were these comments by the same person…

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN; this is las vegas, these casino properties are PRIVATE PROPERTY, they each have their own police force. they can and will do anything they want, laws are not neccessarally in effect here. these places have their own rules of conduct, and they enforce them as they please. spouting off laws or anything else will get you escorted to a private security area where you will be assaulted and confined OFF CAMERA. THEN YOU WILL BE ARRESTED FOR YOUR OPINIONS. do not ever take that forgranted in las vegas. these places are private property. they make their own laws.

what the casinos do or dont do is NOT UP TO ME. what laws they follow or dont follow ARE NOT UP TO ME. all im doing is relaying my own experience. PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ME, TELL ME THE LAWS OR IN WAY SUGGEST MY EXPERIENCE OR THE TRANS PERSONS IN THE ARTICLES EXPERIENCE COULD BE CHANGED. IF YOU DONT BELEIVE WHAT I HAVE SAID OR WHAT HAPPENED IN THE VIDEO, please come here to vegas and prove it wrong i dare you.

One person replied,

I'm a former Vegas resident, and, no--- even though I still have my El Cortez gaming card, these are no longer the days of Bugsy and his mob. All businesses open to the public are subject to local, state, and federal laws, including sanitation, food safety, gaming regs, handicap access, and human rights. The "private property" meme, even spelled in all caps, does not make anyone exempt from the rule of law. For example, southern racists can no longer engage in the atrocity of slavery on their private property. In my experience, most Vegas casino/hotel owners want to avoid a reputation for bigotry. In fact, Nevada S.B. 331, prohibiting public accommodation discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression, would not have passed in 2011 if major casino owners had opposed it. MGM's apology and clarification of their own diversity policies is the rule, rather than the exception. Though there are still incidents in Vegas (the Cosmo was problematic when I was there), I feel safer from discrimination in that city than many in the U.S.

Trans people come in all shapes and sizes, some pass easily while others does pass at all. Some trans people can afford to have electrolysis while other cannot, so are we going to prohibit those who can’t afford to remove their breads to transition?

I am reminded of a homeless shelter where residents complained to the staff about two trans women,

Two women who stay at Florence House, a homeless shelter for women in Portland, have complained that two men who dress as women have also been staying there for the past few months -- using the same common bathrooms, showers and sleeping facilities.

The women say it's unsettling to share a space with people they consider men, although shelter officials say the two people identify as transgender and are therefore allowed to stay.

And the staff reply was right on…

Officials with the Preble Street nonprofit organization, which owns the Florence House, said transgender people may appear to be male but identify themselves as women when checking in at the shelter. They have rights and are allowed to use the facilities, said Mark Swann, executive director of Preble Street.

“We don’t discriminate against anybody,” Swann said. “We accept people at the shelter as they present themselves.”

We cannot police those who are trans, gender dysphoria does not discriminate it can strike anyone and we have no business telling someone not to transition because if their looks, or socioeconomic status that they cannot transition.

Here in Connecticut it is a little different in that the casinos are on tribal land and subject to tribal law. However, other businesses in the state that come under the public accommodation laws do have to obey the law and not discriminate. It doesn’t matter if they own the building and land, if they are “open” the public they come under the law (private clubs are exempt from the law, places like golf courses, VFW, and the American Legion or private organizations like the Boy Scouts are also exempt).

It should be interesting to see what happens to the new casino that they are building off of tribal lands in East Windsor and if it will be subject to state laws. But I have to say that when I have gone to the casinos on tribal lands I have had absolutely no problems… other than losing money on the slots (I have only been there about four times in the seventeen years).

Another comment be another person said is more disturbing,

I saw the video. I could not tell that was a trans woman. She looks like a guy. Now I know things change. And I know, people start somewhere. But if you wanted to be treated like a woman you should present as a woman. You wanna be treated as a man you should be presenting is a man. Going Postal on the guy for doing his job does not help our community whatsoever. 31 years as a transgender woman and I would've asked for his ID. I would've asked why he was in there. This looks more like a person who wanted attention.

Okay… once again how is a woman supposed to look? Or how is a trans woman to look? Especially since she only transitioned seven months ago and from the picture it looks like she is letting her hair grow out from the military hair cut.

Someone reply to her and said,

I know a lot of women who have short hair and look butch? How does a woman present according to your standards?

And the original person who commented said,

It's not about a standard. It's about expecting somebody to know something without any possible clue. And then going ballistic on them. We have a lot of problems in this country right now against Trans people. This does not help us. Actually, this hurts us in looks like a cry for attention.

Are we going to have to go before a board of trans people to get a thumbs up or down on whether we can transition? Or are we going to have to take lessons and get a certificate and what to say in public when you are discriminated against?

We are who we are; there are going to be some who know what to say and what not to say before a camera and others who haven’t a clue what to say.

I got my baptism under fire back in 2007 when I went down in Washington DC for lobby days. Nobody told me what to say but I learned fast… think in sound bites. In 2007 they interviewed me for about five minutes and all they used was “I don’t think it will pass this year, we are in for the long haul” and all of sudden they labeled a “season professional.”