http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Guard-Charged-with-Assault-After-Confronting-Transgender-Woman-Using-Womens-Restroom-380010941.html/

A transgender woman says she was kicked out of a Giant bathroom by a security guard. News4's Jackie Bensen spoke with the woman who said her privacy was invaded. (Published Thursday, May 19, 2016)

D.C. police have charged a security guard at a Giant grocery store with simple assault after a transgender woman said the guard forced her out of the women's restroom.

Ebony Belcher, 32, said she went to the Giant in northeast D.C. with a friend to pick up a delivery from the Western Union.

While at the Giant, she asked a store employee to point her to the restroom and passed a female security officer standing in the hallway.

The officer came into the restroom and told her to get out, according to Belcher.

"She opened the door and came in and started calling me derogatory names," Belcher said.

She said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and pushed her out of the store.

Belcher said the guard told her, "You guys cannot keep coming in here and using our women's restroom. They did not pass the law yet."

She said she called police and reported the incident after she left the store. According to a police report, officers arrested the guard at the Giant after the confrontation.

[DC] Security Guard Arrested After Bathroom ConfrontationSecurity Guard Arrested After Bathroom Confrontation

Belcher said she suffers from Parkinson's disease and almost fell while the officer was shoving her.

The guard, who has not been identified, is a special police officer at a Giant store near Third and H streets in northeast D.C.

Giant issued a statement, which read: "As this matter involves a third party that provides security services for Giant and there's an ongoing criminal investigation, all inquiries related to the incident at the H Street Giant should be directed to the local police for a comment at this time."


Ebony Belcher is pictured.
Photo credit: Jackie Bensen/NBC Washington

President Obama recently issued a directive to public schools that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.

A controversial law in North Carolina has also brought the issue to the forefront. The law says transgender people must use public bathrooms, showers and changing rooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate. The Justice Department has sued North Carolina, saying the law violates civil rights laws.

Oh this likeness to the First *cough* Lady is incredible!

Thought for a moment you'd missed and posted a picture of Meechelle!

It is incredible, I tell ya!
I can't get over it.
I can't stop saying... It is incredible.

What a sorry place that is so obsessed with people's genitals.

I wonder how many trangendered people wish that liberals had never stuck their nose in this issue.

A lot of trans people are passing. Others are left alone because most transphobes will just finish quickly and get out of there.

But now that this has become a major ideological battle involving accusations of bigotry, states rights, religious rights, etc etc, its become such an inflamed issue with rising passions, I'd wager more and more people are acting out in hostile ways towards trans people.

I bet we're gonna read news stories about masculine women or effeminate men who are denied bathroom because someone _thought_ they were transgender using the 'wrong' bathroom.

I don't see many ways for us to move forward on this as a culture, really. There's bigots on both sides and they seem to be getting more entrenched.

One solution is just to build more and more private restrooms, and basically phase out group bathrooms; but the construction costs...

What an amazing time we live in if an armed guard actually stands near us to watch us pee.

Because we MIGHT just have a bomb in there.

Giggity. =)

it's your boys fault, don't blame society... less than 1% (of the US population) are transgendered, but the 99 and two thirds% (of the US population) has to change for them... real democratic process there, huh...

Errr, "boy"? O.O

I do believe this nation is supposed to allow freedoms for every single one of its citizens. You act as though transsgender is a "new thing". Would you like to re-read a few history books and discover how before the 1800s, many American (yes, full American) tribes actually embraced transgenderism, referring to them as "one with two spirits".

See, this is the problem with people sometimes. They look one way, and one way only. They don't look around, they look through. They seek normalcy and conformity, without even bothering to embrace the history of their own country, which as you'll learn, was very much a state of open-mindedness and individuality.

It is incredible, I tell ya!
I can't get over it.
I can't stop saying... It is incredible.

BTW: Have you seen MY penis thread?

I can see why the guard was arrested and charged with assault.
Everything else in the story is pretty much immaterial.


What exactly do they have to "change?
Feeling a false sense of security in public bathrooms?
Forces them to stop having movie Wednesdays?

IMO this is like the gun law debate in that passing/overturning laws to allow/not allow transgender public bathroom use isn't going to stop or really affect criminal things like lesbians inappropriately hitting on women in the bathroom, fetish people using their cellphones under the stall or setting up wireless cams, gay dudes cruising or blowing each other under the stalls.

It's not going to increase that crap, because those that are going to do it are already doing it.

The only ones effected are people that aren't out to prove any kind of point that just want to use the bathroom and not get kicked out or assaulted for doing so.

Not to mention since you say they are only less than 1% of the population, then 99 and two thirds% of the time you will not run into any kind of transgender person in the bathroom at the same time as you.

So by saying "discrimination against less than 1% of the population, based on gender, regarding public or federally funded institution bathroom use is illegal" what "change" are you forced to make?
Do you assault a lot of people to get them out of the bathroom?
Do you stand in front of bathrooms all day making sure no "women looking" people go in?
When you enter the bathroom do you go around each stall and person and make sure they have the "right" equipment?

If/when laws stating you can only use a bathroom if you have the appropriate genitals based on your birth certificate is passed you are going to have to "change" more as you might have to prove your gender before going to the bathroom.
That's when government starts creating agencies like a Potty Safety Administration. "PSA policy states take off your shoes, step into the xray machine with your hands held at head height, and have your gender I.D. card ready at all times, for your safety."

Thank you. This is a really major point I want to make, because it bears some thought.

100 years ago, 50 years ago, 10 years ago, not even ONE year ago, this wasn't an issue.

Now suddenly it is? =)

See, what's happening is the mass media is making a big deal about this to keep us in the "news". As far as I'm concerned, this is nothing more than the actions of thoughtless, clueless, right-winged ash-holes looking to stump for some kind of election bid. =)

Why not? It worked with Terry Schivo way back when, you know, back when people suddenly cared about the rights of people in a vegetative state.

Or it worked during the 1970s, when suddenly Roe vs. Wade took center stage and thrust abortion rights into the spotlight, and everyone magically started to think about sparing a child's life.

Or it worked when one person decided to end his life, and didn't think we had to have a say in self-assisted suicide.

Well, you see where I'm going with this.

NONE of these things were a big deal, until the media made something out of them. =)

And now you've got these self-righteous morons who now, suddenly, magically, think these things ARE a big deal. So...they've been using the bathroom all this time, for centuries, with transgenders and never realized it - and now, NOW, they feel they should complain...?

You do get how ludicrous that sounds right? =)

so you everything should change for the better of the .00033 percent of the population? without a vote? oh wait, there has been a vote because it was shot down three times when it went before congress... your opinions are welcome, but this one makes as much sense as it does for obarry to shove this down our throats in the first place...


nobody should ever have to "prove" their gender, because it's written on your birth certificate when you are born, in you forget....

if you don't believe me, go and and check... it's right there, in black and white, on every birth certificate ever handed out... all of them

and who is paying you? the anti republican party? you seem to forget, the liberals CONTROL THE MEDIA, not the republicans

--------------------
Why Trans People Are Concerned About Focus on Bathrooms

The "bathroom issue" has recently taken center stage in the contentious debate over transgender rights.

While advocates agree it's an important matter, they're now concerned that the attention on bathrooms is detracting from the other equally important problems trans people face but are being overshadowed by the narrow scope of the current discussions, according to advocates.

"This focus on the bathroom as a battleground is really just a distraction from the bigger issue: that transgender people face rampant discrimination daily across all walks of life," said Alison Gill, a trans woman who's vice chair on the board of advocacy group Trans United Fund.

"The opposition has really picked up on bathrooms as a way to oppose trans people's rights without having to explicitly say so," Gill told ABC News today. "We need to stop fixating on bathrooms and start talking about larger issues, which have been made invisible by the opposition."

Trans people don't just face discrimination in bathrooms but also in employment, health care, housing and other public accommodations, Gill said. She added that trans people also face high rates of poverty, violence and suicide -- which are even higher for trans people of color.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey conducted in 2011 found that over 6,000 trans and gender non-conforming respondents were four times more likely to make less than $10,000 a year compared to the general population. The survey's key findings added that about 41 percent of respondents reported attempted suicide, a staggering number compared to 1.6 percent of the general population.

Gill said that she believed transphobic people and lawmakers are using bathrooms as a way to "undermine and bury" such statistics and issues.

"Bathrooms are icky, and most people already don't like being in there, so linking that negative feeling with a disadvantaged group is really a good fear tactic," she said.

Gill added that "bathrooms and the idea of a bathroom predator have come up in almost every major civil rights movement in the recent past."

"They came up in 1964 when opponents of the Civil Rights Act tried to create fears about people of color being in bathrooms with white people," she said. "They came up in 1970 when opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment said the act could would force people to use co-ed bathrooms. And they came up in 1990 when businesses opposing the Americans With Disabilities Act said it was too expensive and difficult to create bathrooms accommodating to people with disabilities."

Catherine Oakley, senior legal counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, told ABC News today she believed that opponents of LGBTQ people have now "honed in on bathroom messaging" again after major losses, such as same-sex marriage, which was ruled legal nationwide by the Supreme Court last year.

"After the marriage equality fight, these opponents didn't disappear," Oakley said. "They just needed a new direction, and decided to target the next most vulnerable group: transgender people."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/transgender-advocates-concerned-focus-bathroom-issue/story?id=39091947/

President Obonzo,
shouldn't be trying to mandate
a bunch of willy nilly bathroom laws.

If need be, to accommodate the trannies,
a third restroom category could be created.

Either that, or the trannies can do their business
at their own homes.

got any positive Post to make?

Yes. People should be concerned with their own genitals and leave other people to deal with theirs.