Bullied and bolloxed

So Scottsdale, AZ, Mayor Mary Manross is meeting with some leaders in Arizona's TG community on Wednesday 15 August. The reason? Some face-saving.

You see, a very established and not-at-all-hip music club on her turf threw out transgender patrons over a fracas about bathroom etiquette. (One of the transgender women happens to be a City of Scottsdale employee. Ouch.) Please note: there will be no spoilers here. I'm boycotting the club that did this, as should all GLBT-friendly folk. Get details at www.azcentral.com (search transgender).

It seems our intrepid MTFs were shaking things up in this nightclub just by existing--and by flaunting their full bladders. The nerve of them! They were, newspaper reports say, upsetting the women and throwing the men into tizzies by . . . wait for it . . . using the restrooms. Being accommodating types, the transgender women switched from using the men's room to the women's room (or was it the other way around?) and back again when they were asked to by the bar's owner.

Trouble was, the uptight drunks at this dive kept complaining no matter where these Inconvenient Patrons tried to relieve themselves. Hell, I'd have peed on the walls and then hit the road waving a one-fingered salute, but these folks were--there's no other word for it--genteel. To make matters even more humiliating, there was a fair amount of bullying and picture-taking by those respectively threatened and titillated by the experience of sharing space at the bar with blokes in dresses. Eventually, the club's owner decided to ban transgender people altogether, using the logic that he didn't want to alienate other patrons, and he couldn't afford to build a TG-only bathroom, the only solution on the table so far.

Shiver-me-fucking-timbers, what about the more obvious solution? One that's already working at another Scottsdale lounge, AZ88? Simply have two bathrooms (private stalls in each) that are marked S/HE. No 'separate but equal' attitude there! Everyone's happy, all patrons can have a little private time when they need to, and no one cares who is adjusting their stockings or combing their beards at the sink next to them. Clearly, AZ88 is a lounge for grown-ups.
**NOTE/CORRECTION: APPARENTLY, THE CLUB IN QUESTION ALREADY HAS SINGLE USE RESTROOMS. WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION: HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS GET SO BOLLOXED UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Let's hope Mayor Manross will take the time to consider all of the options before meeting with transgender community leaders: she needs to use this meeting to do more than just apply some heavy make-up over her city's black eye.

There is now a complaint before the Arizona Attorney General's office against the club owner who has decided it's okay to ban an entire class of people from his establishment. Stay tuned for updates as the case proceeds.