2y ago

Police called on boy with autism and mum using toilet in anti-trans incident

www.thepinknews.com Police called on boy with autism and mum using toilet in anti-trans incident

The mum of a teen boy with autism has filed a lawsuit against a cinema chain after the pair were removed after using toilet together.

More toilet hysteria.

A manufactured panic about trans people using the toilets they feel safest in, making them (and any other gender non-conforming individual) unsafe regardless of which choice they make, also makes it unsafe for parents to take their young or disabled children to the toilet if the child happens to be a different sex from the parent.

We need to bury these establishments in costly litigation that force these laws to be repealed. Ridiculous people.

37 comments

“We can always tell!”
They can’t, but that’s not a flaw: the stated aim is to terrify and harass trans people out of public venues, but the side effects, of policing ANY behavior or presentation that is outside of cultural norms - autistic people, short haired women, effeminate men - the point is to use cruelty to enforce homogeneity.
- How the Nazis started, by getting people angry over nothing
  
  Ehhhh… I wouldn't say over nothing. Germany was in crisis following The Great War. Were Nazis assholes and monsters and did they prey on bullshit fears of others? Yeah, definitely. But also, their society was falling apart due to massive inflation and street fights and the like.
  I'm not apologizing for anyone or anything. Only pointing out that post-WWI Germany was completely fucked up.
- Exactly, this is the point. They want to scare trans people back into hiding.
  
  I think even more broadly, they want to encourage the harassment of anyone who goes outside their definition of what is culturally acceptable.

The disability makes this an easy case for this plaintiff, I think New Jersey considers gender identity a protected class also. Manager was an idiot, likely soon unemployed.
- Double whammy - autism is a disability protected under ADA as well.
  Lawyers gonna have fun with this one. Id personally like to see this manager begging for forgiveness as they auction off her house and car to pay off the family.

Renovate your business and put a bunch of single person bathrooms if you care so much about anyone who may or may not be trans being in your presence in the bathroom. Otherwise shut the fuck up and let people pee in peace
- I think unisex bathrooms would be fine too. Just have stalls you can't peep through and you're golden. Gender separated bathrooms make no sense anyways.
  
  Even with stalls you can peep through I've never had anyone creeping on me in the bathroom, except kids
  Kids are the real menace here, not trans people

However, the lawsuit alleges, the theatre’s manager approached them in the cinema’s crowded lobby, shouting “blatantly discriminatory remarks”, including “a grown man should not be in the women’s restroom” and “this is not a transgender bathroom”.
As gross as this story is, this quote really pissed me off. It gave me the impression the manager was excited to do her part in The War Against Christian America Values by publicly humiliating a mother and her teen son. I'm sure the article or even lawsuit leaned a little into the dramatics but it really doesn't change much for me that the manager was excited to express their bigotry and hate.

It's a fucking bathroom and these people need to get over it. I was driving through Tennessee and had to stop to use the bathroom at a Shell station. I'm trans and the men's room was out of service. The women said only women and children can use the single toilet room. I argued with her and eventually left to find another place. I reported her to the company and left a bad review but because it's a private business they did nothing. These people are crazy and don't actually care about anyone being safe.
- That’s insane. I’m not trans or anything but I’ve used single stall bathrooms for whatever sex, and even family bathrooms if that’s all that’s available, who the fuck cares? Use what’s open. It’s unisex when it’s single toilet anyway. I will die on that hill.
  Especially if one is out of service.. like, what would male employees use?
  
  Gendered restrooms are dumb and poorly optimized. See the restroom lines at any public venue.

How much of a thin-skinned lilly bitch do you need to be to call the police on a mother helping her child with a bathroom visit?
The fact that these people co-opt symbols like the punisher in an effort to seem tough is so absurd to me.
I cannot take people seriously. The world is a parody.
- What, don't you know that 15 year olds are GROWN ADULTS who can take care of themselves??
  /S
- An adult wearing a punisher t-shirt unironically, is no different than an adult wearing a Spiderman shirt going pew pew with his wrists. In both cases I'd assume some kind of mental issue going on.

I'm glad she is suing. These people are so concerned with other's (usually children's) genitals it's disgusting.

Maybe once the lawsuit has settled and the kid's family owns the movie theater, they can make it over specifically for kids with autism.
- I'm down with that. Fuck that manager. Hope they sue him into bankruptcy.
- I'm not sure what a movie theater designed for the neurodivergent would be, but I'd be interested in finding out.
  
  A local AMC near me used to have specific screenings for people with autism where the lights were turned up a bit so it wasn’t completely dark, the sound wasn’t turned up as loud, you were allowed to make noise and weren’t asked to leave over stereotypy/tics, allowed to bring in outside food, you could leave and come back, etc
  I think they called them “sensory friendly screenings” or something like that? I worked in an autism group home at the time and we would take our clientele to them, the theater was super accommodating. I don’t think all of them do it though
  This was like 2011 though and I feel like things have gotten worse in the us since then tho so maybe it’s much less common now
  
  They already have a solution, family bathrooms. And staff who don’t yell at you for using them.
  But really this is disgusting behavior on the staffs part. Shame on those who escalated the situation unnecessarily.

This reminds me of a terrible moment from my past.
A then-girlfriend and I were at the local Wal-Mart (don't judge, no better places were open and nearby) at around 11PM, before the Plague Times, when I had to hit the head. I go into the front restrooms to tap a kidney when I notice the stall past the urinals is occupied; no big deal. Then I noticed there were two sets of feet.
Both facing the same direction.
Being a non-bigot non-prufe, I do my business and go to wash my hands, when I hear a VERY loud 'HNNNNNGH' from the stall. Okay, yeah. No comment, just wash and GTFO.
I rendezvous with the girlfriend and she asks what's with the look on my face. I start to lead her away before even considering the idea of explaining, and before we could get out of range, the explanation reveals itself. It turns out it was a young man, maybe late teens at oldes. Tow-headed, very blue eyes, EXTREMELY developmentally impaired. His guardian - I presume father - follows closely, looking utterly miserable. I didn't say anything but the youth did anothoer grunting bellow and I unwittingly winced. The guardian also cringed, and we briefly made eye contact. He sorts shrank and dragged his ward off, who was loudly happy and oblivious.
They turned out to be regular odd-hours features. The kid would always wave excitedly if he saw us from the McDonald's up front, and his guardian at least seemed relieved that we didn't say anything unkind. Poor dude, was probably mortified by the prospect of a misunderstanding, especially here in the Texas hellscape. Not helped that the guardian had an extreme case of pedo-stash and rat-faced nebbishness.
I can only imagine how bad it could have been had it been anyone else.
- Man, this story is a wild ride.

Ah, yes... everything is going as planned-- nothing to see here, carry on!
But seriously, fuck these jackasses.

I've been reading way too many historical novels, because I read "called on" and thought, oh that's nice of them to visit them after what they went through. 🤦

37 comments