Lesbian mistaken for trans woman in woman's bathroom in Arizona

[Christinapple]

https://www.advocate.com/news/lesbian-mistaken-transgender-arizona-walmart

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/masculine-looking-cis-woman-confronted-by-cops-in-walmart-restroom-kalaya-morton-demands-justice-video/ar-AA1AdWpn

But I thought people "can always tell"?

It also led to the irony the only males in the bathroom were two male police officers who were notified by a store employee who mistakenly thought a male had entered the woman's toilets.

"In an alarming incident at a Tucson, Arizona Walmart, 19-year-old Kalaya Morton*, a Black cisgender lesbian, was confronted by two male sheriff’s deputies while using the women’s restroom, sparking outrage and a demand for accountability.
Morton, who identifies as masculine-presenting or a “stud,” recounted the humiliating encounter that occurred when a store employee erroneously assumed she was a transgender woman. The saga began innocuously enough: Morton had entered the restroom with her ex-girlfriend, who was kindly handing her a tampon— an act of friendship that, unfortunately, soon spiraled into something far more troubling. In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, Morton detailed her shock when the two deputies barged in, shining flashlights into the restroom stall.

“You have to get out of here. You have to come out. We need to talk to you.” Imagine trying to pee in peace, only to have the police storm in like it’s an episode of Cops: Restroom Edition.
“I’m still using the restroom. I’m sitting down, I’m peeing. What is the issue?,” Morton incredulously told the deputies as she sat there.
Now, while most people hope for a streamlined bathroom experience, Morton was treated more like a suspect than a bathroom user. The deputies apparently needed to crack the case of “Who Looks Like a Man in the Ladies’ Room,” a particularly absurd mystery, if you ask us."

So how is this our fault?

I support the right of a member of public to call for help if they believe a male has entered a female space. Which is what happened in the incident we are discussing. Do you not believe we should have that right? I highly doubt that anyone would call the police and say ‘there’s a woman pretending to be a man in the ladies, come quickly’. Your arguments are hilariously stupid.

Yes. They’re female but… if they’ve chosen to present as masculinised with a beard then they should accept they will be questioned. That’s on them - you can’t have it both ways by wanting to be accepted as a woman in women only spaces but reject your womanhood and present as male. If they get embarrassed, they’ll have to suck it up and reframe it as the trans euphoria that arises for being seen the the sex you say you are, yet are not…

I do worry this black lesbian WAS actually targeted for racial reasons though - look at the way Michelle Obama is constantly accused of being a trans/man by the white supremacists. Denying black women their female status is straight out of the racial abuse text book in parts of the US.

The blackness is irrelevant.Her being a lesbian is irrelevant.

How exactly is her blackness irrelevant? How is her being a lesbian irrelevant? Black women and lesbians are disproportionately critiqued for not confirming to feminine beauty standards. A forum of presumably white straight women shrugging their shoulders at the police being called on an innocent black woman as no big deal and calling themselves feminist is pretty gross.

Oh well. Wouldn’t have happened if men weren’t dressing as women and entering their bathroom. I feel this nothing burger is very convenient once again to those pushing an agenda.

So you support the police being called every time a trans man used the female loos?

you are determined to make this our fault somehow.
Don't presume we are all white and straight, at least one butch lesbian has posted her experiences here (one of whom said it made her feel shit)

Your (frankly pathetic) comment about male police coming out to an emergency callout is... hilarious. Try harder.

Property management would have been the party to authorise the police action.

And i suspect that Walmart company policy is to call in the police as Arizona is a Open and Concealed Carry State, although Walmart have requested shoppers not to Open carry 🤷‍♀️

So why didn't this "man" dress as a woman? Why are of these cases were a woman is questioned or policed for using the women's loos because they looked like men i.e., dressed as men and not because they looked like a trans woman?

Oh well 🤷‍♀️

These are the consequences of "play stupid games win stupid prizes" I guess.

I wouldn't characterise your particular reframing of my carefully worded post about accepting standard police procedure with reference to certain safeguards in one particular context as "clarifying", to be honest! ("Dressed as police officers" is curious phrasing reminiscent of the earlier "invites" - it's all beginning to sound like something of a costume party!)

But, in short, if it wasn't already clear, yes, I'm OK with policing by consent as described in my original post, and accept that this requires a degree of trust on the part of the police - that members of the public aren't calling them in bad faith - and on the part of the public to rely on the police.

In the light of this, and with regard to your other post, I do recognise the additional issues that come with systemic racism among armed police in the US, and this does make it a more difficult call to make, but I stand by my considered responses.

If you see my responses (which include a reference to my regret at such mistakes being made because of to the current ideology, careful consideration of safeguards for the woman affected, and concern about safeguarding women to prevent their rape and murder) as "just ignoring" an innocent black woman's "vulnerability", though, I'd be surprised! If you truly do, I'd ask you to consider that omitting to explicitly address this element doesn't equate to emphatically not caring about it.

It's a question of balancing risks, and, again, devastating that this is necessary. As such, the clear common denominator here, though - what makes it all so difficult - is (predominantly) male violence.

That's why the solution is obvious. To make women less fearful and hyper-vigilant about male bodies in single-sex spaces, and the police less likely to be called in response to this, let's keep spaces single sex, and make it clear that they are.

This would address both your concern, and mine!

can't speak for others, but i am ok with the police being called where a situation has, or is likely to, escalate(d)

Gosh asking anyone to answer a question of here is either a scolding, an insult, determined to make it your fault, make you the baddies. It's almost like you can't actually answer a question about your logic being applied to the real world.

Just wondering how many trans men you think there are that this would seriously be an issue? (Outside painfully middle class university/art college towns like mine where, frankly, you trip over more trans students than there are purple-rinsed old ladies, of course. ETA but they all avoid the sexed loos and use the disabled or unisex ones, so it’s not an issue here, either.)

So a trans man taking a piss is a situation likely to escalate? And pray tell who would be escalating it? cos I'd say it's the person harassing a female sexed person trying to take a piss.

Is there an acceptable number to you of GNC women or trans women we can call the police on for trying to take a piss? If so, please tell us what it is. And how many trans women do there need to be to justify this? Because according to PP this is all because of trans women. I thought by trying to legalise single sex spaces trans men will have to use the female facilities, so what's the acceptable number of them we can call the cops on?

I’m embarrassed for you.

is it only women whom we must believe, no questions asked?
If a man came up to me and said 'Just saw a pig flying past' it would be okay for me to think that unlikely but if a woman said it it must be true, and it would be a betrayal of the sisterhood for me to query it?

Besides which I'm not denying the story happened, just that it sounds like some parts have been missed out to explain why she was in the toilet for that long and why the situation escalated so much

e.g. it might add rationale to the shop assistants reasons - sees "man" walk into the ladies toilet but comes back out after 2 minutes - thinks that's odd, but doesn't seem to have harmed anyone, no point in me doing anything now. Sees "man" walk into the ladies toilets and ten minutes later is still in there - dodgy and something of possible concern.

That's not even a trans/gender specific thing - there are multiple reasons why someone (of any sex, age, race) spending significantly longer than normal in a loo is cause for concern - they've become unwell, they're shagging or taking drugs, they're trying to nick stuff...

Your misogyny is showing. It's genderists who base womanhood on beauty standards.

The staff member called the police because they thought a man was in the women's single sex toilets.
They were wrong about her sex. They didn't call the police because she was black, and given that they thought she was a man, they can't have called the police because she was a lesbian either.
(And how would they know?)

By the way, GC stands for gender critical - that is, rejecting gender stereotypes because they are harmful to women.

Edited for clarity

🤣 sorry, pissed myself so hard I had to go and change my tenaladies.

I could give a fuck how many times the police are called (which is actually zero in the three counties that my town borders on - I know this for a fact as I am close personal friends with several serving police Chief Inspectors btw).
So, on the basis that the police are never called for this in the UK - and yet women are raped and sexually assaulted by men (both the traditional type and the new ones in frocks) every day in this country, no there is no number.

In fact, now I think about it, perhaps if the police WERE called every time this happened maybe there would have been a backlash sooner - and many of the rapes people have mentioned already on this thread might not have happened.

🤣

And as her ex-girlfriend was kindly handing her a tampon, adding an element of bathos to this traumatic tale.

That's why the solution is obvious. To make women less fearful and hyper-vigilant about male bodies in single-sex spaces, and the police less likely to be called in response to this, let's keep spaces single sex, and make it clear that they are and make it clear that they are.

But how do you actually do that? Do we all have to consent to being policed by the self appointed toilet police? I agree with single sex spaces in theory but I also don't want women harassed and policed by women who are hyper vigilant and choosing to police the room themselves or calling male police officers when no crime has occured. If we want single sex spaces then there are going to be GNC or Trans men in there and people are going to have to unlearn their internalised misogyny that women have to be feminine.

You type a lot without saying a lot! This is a forum, you should try to make a point or ask a question without sounding like a student trying to meet a word count.

Perhaps you better RTFT then because several PP have said we are to accept this if we "dress as a man" or "dress in men's clothes" 👍🏻

Indeed! How is it the fault of women in the UK that someone in Arizona called thd police??

is it the same way that trump is also our fault even though this is a British site and the vast vast majority of women here can’t vote in America??