On January 30, 2009, the Charm City Boys drag kings performed at Club Hippo, a gay bar in Baltimore. After the performance, one of the performers entered the men's bathroom. The head of security, a woman, watched him enter and instructed a staff member to remove the transman from the bathroom. The staff member confronted him inside, saying he had to use the women's room. Said staff member than removed him from the bathroom.
The transman then confronted the head of security who had sent the staff member in. The head of security asked him, "Have you had surgery?" while motioning below his waist. She said he could use the men's bathroom "if you've had surgery."*
Outraged transfolk, genderqueers, drag kings, his friends and allies at the bar immediately confronted the staff and the management. The general manager of the bar defended the staff's actions, again referring to genitals and bottom surgery as the criteria for bathroom use.
In response to the queer outrage, the management has hired a lawyer and posted the following message on their website:
"To all Patrons: The Hippo cares about the rights and feelings of all our community members and patrons. We view our patrons as a large family with various needs. It has been standard practice for us to accommodate the needs of all our patrons. We will continue to do so. We are investigating the legality of various rest room designations. We will be happy to make whatever changes possible within the law. We have acted quickly in this regard and are hoping for an expeditious resolution of this matter. Thank you for understanding our predicament. Thanks, The Management"
Baltimore transfolx and allies are organizing. Team Trans is mobilizing massive awareness among the bar's clients and meeting with the management. We are going to overturn transphobic and gender-segregated spaces, one bathroom at a time.
* FYI: Bottom surgery is prohibitively expensive and undesirable for many trans people, but especially for trans men - phalloplasty costing about $100,000. Of course, the staff's determination of gender had nothing to do with genitals and everything to do with him being a drag king and a trans persyn. Team Trans believes in self-determination and dignity for all trans people: post-operative, non-op, no-hormones, drag performers, and genderqueers alike.
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ReplyDeleteUnderstanding Our Predicament: Trans Bathroom Struggles
ReplyDeleteAn Open Letter to Club Hippo Concerning Transgender Bathroom Struggles from Baltimore Gender Mutiny
On January 30, 2009, the Charm City Boys drag king troupe performed at Club Hippo. After the performance, one of the kings entered the men's bathroom. The head of security, a woman, watched him enter and instructed a staff member to follow and remove the transman from the bathroom. The staff member confronted him inside and said that he had to use the women's room. An argument ensued, which escalated until the staff member forcibly removed him from the bathroom. When the individual and his allies confronted the head of security and the management, those individuals maintained that genitals, surgical status, and legal gender are the bar's criteria for bathroom use.
Club Hippo opened in 1972 in Baltimore and is one of the longest-standing gay bars in the country. Staff and management have a history of policing the bathrooms, especially on drag nights and "ladies nights". At Ladies Tea, for example, an additional "Women Only" sign appears on the women's room door, to discourage drag queens and transwomen from using the bathroom.
The January 30 incident was met with widespread outrage from the drag performers, transgender patrons of the bar, and friends of the ousted transman. A petition appeared online and gathered 200 signatures; activists met and communicated with the bar management. Club Hippo hired a lawyer and posted the following statement on its website:
To all Patrons,
The Hippo cares about the rights and feelings of all our community members and patrons. We view our patrons as a large family with various needs. It has been standard practice for us to accommodate the needs of all our patrons. We will continue to do so.
We are investigating the legality of various rest room designations. We will be happy to make whatever changes possible within the law. We have acted quickly in this regard and are hoping for an expeditious resolution of this matter. Thank you for understanding our predicament.
Thanks,
The Management
On Thursday, February 5th, the management of the Hippo decided to designate their two smallest bathrooms as "gender-neutral".
There are some of our allies who will consider the Hippo's actions "trans inclusive" and will be appeased. The following is our statement to those individuals, as well as to the management of Club Hippo.
Understand that trans people experience a systematic imbalance of power in society. Discrimination and oppression against trans people pervades all institutions in our society, especially health care, the prison system, homeless shelters, and other gender-segregated spaces. Transphobia intersects with other forms of oppression such as poverty, white supremacy, and patriarchy to impact the bodies of trans people with increasing vioence. Bathrooms, as gender-segregated spaces, are a daily source of danger and discomfort for trans people. Understand that we as trans people are not on an equal playing field with non-trans people who use bathrooms. Their power and privilege outweigh ours. For example, if a non-trans woman is uncomfortable with sharing bathroom space with a drag queen, her complaints will be acted upon. But the drag queen's constant discomfort in bathrooms, her daily struggle to find a bathroom that is free from harassment, receive little attention.
In the context of the ongoing predicament that transpeople face, what significance does the Hippo's "concession" have? The Hippo plans to designate two single-occupancy bathrooms as "gender-neutral" and maintain its policies around the other bathrooms. Creating this separation reinforces the idea that the bar's "normal" bathrooms are only for non-trans people. It reinforces the entitement of patrons and staff to harass trans people in the bathroom. "After all," they will say, "you have your own bathrooms."
Club Hippo's bathroom policies are discriminatory against transgender people. According to statements from the management, the criteria for using a "Men's" or a "Women's" bathroom are one's genitals, surgical status, and legal gender. In practice, patrons and staff have targeted people based gender expression and gender identity. Only afterwards have questions about genitals and legal status been raised. In other words, biological and legal arguments are being used to justify behaviors that constitute transphobic discrimination. Moreover, policies based on genitals, surgical status, and legal gender discriminate against transpeople who have not undergone difficult, expensive transition procedures - that is, virtually all transpeople.
We believe that the only just criteria for bathroom use are self-identity, comfort, safety, and self-determination - not genitals, surgical status, or legal gender. In order for the management of Club Hippo to be an ally to its trans patrons, they must support the self-identity, dignity, and self-determination of trans people, rather than continuing to fold to the irrational fears of their non-trans patrons.
The issue is still far from settled; however, we are confident that it can be. We want Club Hippo to meet the following standards:
Take responsibility for the January 30th incident and the "women's only" signs and acknowledge them as discrimination against your trans patrons;
Stop policing of the bathrooms by staff and refrain from posting transphobic signs on bathroom doors;
Stand with transpeople by posting signs on bathroom doors that ask patrons to respect people's decisions to use the bathrooms they feel most comfortable with; and
Conduct training: bring in a group to train your staff to understand trans struggles around bathrooms, support trans people's bathroom rights and deal with complaints from non-trans patrons.
We look forward to meeting with you in the future and working to ensure that these standards are met.
A Non-affiliated group of Trans folks and Allies,
We are Everywhere...
Endorsed By:
Bash Back!
Gender Mutiny Baltimore
Services United
Contact: Gender.Mutiny@gmail.com