Speaking Of Gay, Brick And Mortar Businesses Discriminating Against Trans People…
July 5th, 2008 by Autumn SandeenWhen it comes to gay owned and/or operated brick and mortar businesses discriminating against transgender people, one just has to look at gay bars as having examples of the worst offenders.
Take Colorado’s Denver Wrangler.
They are so brazen in their discrimination against transgender people that they’ve posted their discriminatory policy on their website:
- Gender matching I.D. required.
- I.D. must be state issued photo identification or driver license, military I.D., US passport or visa.
- I.D. must be current (not expired).
Which class of people do you imagine has identification cards where the sex marker doesn’t match the gender presentation? If you guessed transgender people — the same transgender people who are protected against public accommodation discrimination in Colorado’s new public accommodation anti-discrimination law — you guessed correctly.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the Wrangler’s policies were challenged by a complaint
to the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office by even one potential transgender patron, the city’s ARTICLE IV (that covers public accommodation) indicates the bar is blatantly violating the law with an unlawful policy — I’m sure one potential transgender patron’s complaint would result in the city suing Wrangler’s. (And geez, that’s not even basing a complaint on the new state public accommodation law, of which Wrangler’s is also in violation of!)
Although…I guess I could ask my rocket scientist friend Zoe Brain to get a her opinion on whether or not unlawful discrimination is occurring. I’m not sure a rocket scientist’s opinion would add anything to the discussion, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to know what a rocket scientist thinks about this. 
Wrapping this diary up, let me point out that Pam’s House Blend is going to Denver in late August for the Democratic National Convention. Whatever shall I do should the bar’s discriminatory policy be still in place when PHB makes the trip to the Mile High City?
I’m sure my rocket scientist friend could provide y’all with some good guesses about some lawful behaviors I may engage in at the Denver Wrangler’s location.
~~~~~
Related:
* Q Of The Day: When Is It Okay For Gay Owned Businesses To Discriminate Against Transgender People?
* Pam’s House Blend tag for employment - housing - public accommodation
* I’m Going To Colorado In August With PHB; I’m Going To Make Use Of Public Accommodations
* If Dr. Dobson Were King, We’d All Be Wearing Depends
* When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom
Posted in LGBT, always the bathroom, civil rights, discrimination, diversity, employment - housing - public accomodation, gay, law and legislation, law and order, transactivism, transgender, transgender civil rights | No Comments »

to their site by the use of an automatic search-and-replace program. It looks this way because of their embarrassing post of an article that changed the name of Beijing Olympics hopeful Tyson Gay to “Tyson Homosexual” (emphasis added).

I can; however, give you an example from this past week of a drag show which, in my opinion, was such an exercise.
I feel like I’ve been talking about public restrooms way too much of late. Blame the news cycles; blame conservative Christians — LGBT civil rights and public accommodation issues seem to be boiling down
Some of the “broad us” at Stonewall were drag queens; some of the “broad us” at Stonewall were transgender and/or transsexual people (even if those words weren’t terms used to describe gender variant people at the time); and some of the “broad us” at Stonewall didn’t publicly identify as gay women, but as lesbians.
As a term, gay isn’t always seen as inclusive of us all, and in this case gay isn’t an adequate description of who was there at Stonewall.
