The Gender Police!

You knew this would happen… the gender police casting their dragnet, rounding up anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow gender norms.

I Was In The Women's Restroom When A Man Came In And Called Out A Question That Left Me Nauseated

"I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot."

HuffPost

By Rey Katz

Mar 22, 2026

“Hello? Are you a male or female in there?” a rumbling voice called into the women’s restroom. A man’s boots stepped across the threshold, clunking on the tile floor, as I sat alone in the stall closest to the door.

I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot.

We’ve seen this before, whenever legislatures go bananas passing anti-trans laws and stoking fear that people are in bathrooms doing something other than what everyone does there… use the bathroom.

“Is this the women’s room?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered curtly, forced a smile, and walked away quickly, past the word “Women” in 6-inch green painted letters on the wooden wall of the building.

Some conservatives seem to believe all women have long hair and wear dresses, an image rooted in rigid, often religiously influenced ideas about gender.

Cisgender Minnesota Lesbian Files Discrimination Charge Against a Buffalo Wild Wings Over Alleged Restroom Harassment

Gerika Mudra alleges that a server followed her into the bathroom and said, “The man needs to get out of here.”

Them

By Samantha Riedel

August 13, 2025

A Minnesota teenager filed a discrimination charge against a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise this week, alleging that a worker followed her into a bathroom and coerced her to “prove” her gender by showing her chest.

Gerika Mudra, an 18-year biracial, cisgender lesbian, says that she “will never go back” to the Owatonna Buffalo Wild Wings after eating there with a friend in April this year. In her complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), Mudra alleges that when she used the women’s bathroom during her meal, a server followed her into the bathroom, misgendered her, and ordered her to leave.

“This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,” the unnamed worker allegedly said, according to the nonprofit legal aid organization Gender Justice, which is representing Mudra. The worker allegedly continued to insist that Mudra “[had] to get out now” until she exited her stall and unzipped her sweatshirt to show that she had breasts “just to make it stop,” Gender Justice wrote in a statement this week.

The Gender Police is on the prowl!

For nearly a decade, Republican politicians in the U.S. have pushed for “bathroom bills” which ban transgender people from public facilities that match their gender. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson enacted one such ban at the U.S. Capitol in January. Although these policies specifically target trans people, they contribute to profiling and harassment of cis women as well, particularly Black and brown women, whose genders are regularly policed. In May, two cis lesbians alleged that security staff at Boston’s Liberty Hotel “forcibly removed” them from a bathroom, compelled them to “prove” their sex by showing ID cards, and told them to leave the premises.

And we’re likely to see more of these incidents: more ordinary, law-abiding people confronted, questioned, and harassed by self-appointed enforcers of gender norms.

Meanwhile.

Trans people are less safe when forced to use the wrong restroom, study finds

Trans people reported less harassment when they can use the appropriate public restroom.

LGBTQ Nation

Arin Waller (She/They)

February 20, 2025

According to a recent study by the Williams Institute, transgender people are more likely to face harassment when using restrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth, as opposed to their gender identity.

The study examines experiences in the past 12 months from both trans male and female participants who were asked if they ever experienced verbal harassment or were denied access to restroom facilities of their corresponding gender and sex assigned at birth.

In the study, it was found that around 10% of transgender men were denied access to and or verbally harassed in women’s restrooms.

So yes; these policies don’t just harm trans people. They create an environment where anyone who doesn’t “look feminine enough” becomes a target.

And here’s the hard truth: the people pushing these laws know the harm they cause—not just to the trans community, but to cis women as well. But they keep doing it anyway, because it mobilizes voters.

And I’m glad the woman in the Buffalo Wild Wings case is suing. She should.