Video of Starbucks employee in UK branch

[FisherthemsFriend]

https://twitter.com/RupertMyers/status/1655477645184835586

It’s not clear what the customer said, it’s presumed she misgenders the employee as he calls her transphobic. He calls her Karen and then either grabs the phone or the person who’s filming.

Yes!! @landOFconfusion disingenuous is the word here 😂

German Frau did once just mean what that poster said, just like Karen was just a name …….

Absolutely appalling behaviour from the employee. Can’t believe no other staff intervened either - or customers.

I know very well what the term means. And I know very well how you used it linguistically. You can pretend all you like, you used it as a denigrating linguistic device just as a misogynist would.

Your attempts at declaring me stupid just add to the perception that you cannot help show misogyny and empty arrogance on this board. Please do crack on posting, the more people see your posts the more people realize the way this male staff member acted is a commonality with male people who support the prioritisation of gender over sex when sex matters.

It is a feature, not a bug.

the more people realize the way this male staff member acted is a commonality with male people who support the prioritisation of gender over sex when sex matters.

It is a feature, not a bug

Well said, and nail squarely on the head.

The woman WAS loud. She was being accused of being transphobic, berated and had a derogatory slur used angainst her and being removed from the Starbucks outlet after being denied service or a refund.

For referring to the person as a man it seems. Which she probably did intuitively in the normal course of business.

What would you have done?

Yes, and the other examples I gave have happened too, more than once. I find it fascinating how it's unacceptable and offensive in the eyes of most people to claim to be a wheelchair user or a member of a minority ethnic group when you patently aren't, but AOK to claim to be the opposite sex, or to have opted out of having a sex, which are equally impossible in terms of material reality.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2366260/Body-Integrity-Identity-Disorder-Chloe-Jennings-White-58-disown-legs.html

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23101806.issue-day-able-bodied-norwegian-identifies-disabled-woman/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/13/rachel-dolezal-i-wasnt-identifying-as-black-to-upset-people-i-was-being-me

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3209406-this-is-just-i-have-no-words

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5089529/University-failed-male-student-baby-role-play-fetish.html

I genuinely didn't either. I thought he was pointing and gesticulating simply at the fact he was wearing earrings per se, and blusher. And that was on a close-up screen.

In a real life setting I wouldn't notice anything. I'd be looking at the menu and ordering a coffee and getting my card out to pay for it. Quick smile as I looked up and said 'thanks' to whoever takes my order. I would hear the voice, primarily; and be subliminally aware of the staff member's height.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution would already mean 'male' had pinged in my brain. That's instinct, that's material reality, not prejudice.

None of know what happened but the most likely thing is that the customer did exactly this and made a mistake in how she referred to this individual. Not motivated by anything unpleasant at all. Far more likely than her going in to buy a coffee and casually insult a staff member as she did so.

So you can excuse yourself for making a mistake but someone else is being apparently hateful for doing the same thing.

Oh God I watched that 3 times while I tried to sort out sound, I never noticed the earrings spelled out they them.

If I dont notice in a calm environment, only looking at one person, I'm definitely not going to notice in a loud store with others in the queue and more staff.

May I suggest much bigger earrings, or a very large print sign that says
THEY/THEM OR YOU GET YELLED AT AND CALLED KAREN AND TOLD YOU ARE TRESPASSING.

^ in foot high letters, very obvious on the door to the place. At least then partially sighted people like me stand a chance of seeing it and going to a different store.

Think she was, I would have felt intimidated by her. Imagine that being a man, wonder if that would have been different

well this thread has gone just as expected with the usual flying monkeys arriving

a young man did behave threateningly using his very male loud voice and physique to try and intimidate a middle aged woman who tk his astonishment & rage didn’t apologise meekly but stood her ground

and no we don’t need ti imagine what would have happened if it has been a man. There’s no way mr Starbucks would have done that to a man - funnily enough the very rarely physically threaten men. Gosh I wonder why

Probably tried to diffuse the situation by saying I'm sorry I misgendered you (if that was the case & I think we're speculating), then carried on with my day. I wouldn't have started shouting & getting involved.

If employee had continued (which I doubt if there was no issue ongoing) then I probably would have asked for manager or another employee to intervene.

We don't know what was said before this & how it became so heated.

He called her 'Karen' thus possibly misgendering her and also using a perfectly good woman's name as an insult - one especially directed at middle aged women. Nasty, violent man.

Who are 'they'?

If you lump all trans people into one category & say things like 'they never do this to a man' you are dehumanising a person - this isn't fresh.
To me it was two people, I haven't seen what happened before, they were both heated, and one was an employee which is the difference between their positions in this. I suspect employee lost their job because they were representing the company & looks like they weren't exactly suited to the role! They crossed a line with the phone issue.
Could it have been handled differently? Of course. Could someone intervened & diffused? Yes I'm sure.

I see a woman standing her ground and someone (and I genuinely have no interest in deliberately misgendering them) behaving in an aggressive and intimidating way towards her. She is not reciprocating in the same way. There is no equivalency.

And we also don't know that the woman didn't apologise and try to diffuse the situation.

But, victim blame away. Obviously the shouty, violent man is in the right and it's up to the woman to make things right 🙄

He is a man so was identified as a man full stop. Just stop buying into any of it and giving it oxygen as it's just what these men with this particular sexual kink want.

Can’t believe people saying she was loud etc. As far as I can make out, she was defending herself after being accused of being transphobic.

She didn’t move towards him physically, didn’t verbally abuse him or threaten him or react when he did all those things. She was just adamant about being misrepresented

Women! You should only be meek and quiet when a angry, aggressive man is shouting at you. Know your place!

That sounds quite likely. Whatever the woman said the man should not have reacted in the way he did. It's nasty and aggressive and totally male. My DH has long hair, he is most definitely not a woman, so why does this guy think a ponytail makes him a woman?

Oh and she wanted her coffee too. That she’d paid for

Wow. So to be clear, you think the reason the male person escalated to violence is because the female person didn't diffuse the situation by apologising?

I mean yes, you are probably right that he wouldn't have escalated to rage if she'd shown appropriate obsequience to his patriarchal social authority, but fuck me that's not something we should be endorsing!

(Language note: for clarity I've used pronouns in the older, sex-based sense. I accept the male person does not id as man and reassure anyone with concerns that I have no intention to misgender them by this. It's unfortunate that the genderist instance on redefining words that already have needful meanings sometimes makes it impossible not to cause offence.)

If the women had said or done something so bad as to justify the reaction then presumably the colleague would have backed the angry employee up.

The fact angry employee was sacked so swiftly suggests there is nothing to support any claim that the customer had done anything particularly awful or deserving of this kind of abuse

The woman was being abused by a male person that looked more than a foot taller than her, clapping in her face. And continually speaking over the top of her.

I would have done what she did and asked for a refund from the other staff member.

That male staff member then acted like they were the manager and denied her a refund or the service she paid for. The other employee was standing right there and did not intervene at all.

So, failing that there seemed no one else there, that this staff member had the authority to deny service and demand she leave without refund, who do you think she could have gone to?

Sorry, my immediate reaction to a very tall man yelling at me without a break and clapping at me very close to my face is to raise my voice to be heard to say anything. Even sorry would have been yelled to be heard. Fear would be feeding my reaction also, with arms waving and then the staff member standing in a position I felt blocked my clear exit.

How great though that you feel you would have kept your calm in the face of that reaction.

The tall young man, towering over a middle aged woman, was intimidated by her? Because she was standing her ground?