Teen left outraged after Buffalo Wild Wings staffer 'followed her into women's bathroom and demanded proof she's a girl'
Gerika Mudra, 18, had been enjoying an outing with her friend at the Owatonna location in April when she got up to use the restroom.
She never expected to be followed into the women's room by an employee, who began banging on the stall door and saying: 'This is a women's restroom. The man needs to get out of here.'
Mudra, a biracial lesbian, is a cis-gendered woman. After telling the employee she was a 'lady,' the worker demanded she lift up her shirt and 'prove' she was female.
The employee blocked the high schooler from leaving the restroom until the teen unzipped her hoodie and showed her breasts, Gender Justice, an organization that filed a discrimination complaint on Mudra's behalf, said.
'What happened to Gerika Mudra was not just wrong, it was unlawful,' staff attorney, Sara Jane Baldwin, said in a statement.
'Minnesota law protects people from exactly this kind of discrimination in public spaces. No one should be harassed, humiliated, or forced to prove themselves just to use the bathroom.'
After showing her chest, Mudra was allowed to leave the bathroom by the employee.
'She just rolled her eyes and walked away,' Mudra told The Minnesota Star Tribune. 'She didn't even say sorry.'
Prior to the bathroom visit, the teen had noticed the waitress was acting weird, claiming she was cheerfully telling other patrons 'Happy Easter,' while shooting them 'dirty looks' and 'whispering' about her and her friend.
'Because she didn't fit someone else's idea of what a girl should look like, she was treated as suspicious,' Gender Justice Executive Director, Megan Peterson, told The Tribune.
Although Mudra is not transgender, nearly a third of LGBT+ people have reported being harassed while using the restroom.
'What if Gerika had been a trans person?' Peterson questioned. 'Would this story have ended differently? That's the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.'
The organization filed a discrimination complaint on Mudra's behalf with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, requesting a formal apology from the restaurant and better training for its employees.
The state law states that businesses have a 'legal duty to protect their customers from harassment and discrimination,' Baldwin said.
'That means providing staff with training, creating clear policies, and creating a culture that ensures every person is treated with respect and dignity.
'What happened to Gerika is exactly the kind of harm our laws are meant to prevent, and it's time businesses take those responsibilities seriously,' she said.
Mudra's stepmother, Shauna Otterness was 'enraged' about the incident and accused the restaurant of 'humiliating' her daughter.
The experience left the teen scared, who said: 'I will definitely never go back there.'
It wasn't the first time the androgynous teen had been mistaken for a man, but she claimed it was the 'worst time.'
'She was mad, screaming. She made me feel very uncomfortable,' Mudra said of the staff member.
Now, the teen avoids using the restaurant in public and often opts to hold it in to avoid similar situations.
'After that, I just don't like going in public bathrooms. I just hold it in... I want to be able to use the bathroom in peace.'
Her stepmother said that Mudra 'should be able to use the bathroom in peace in any public bathroom without being nervous.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Multiple dead after gunman opens fire in New York restaurant
At least three people were killed and eight more were wounded when multiple gunmen opened fire inside a Brooklyn restaurant. The horror unfolded in the early hours of Sunday morning at Taste of the City Lounge in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Tisch said 36 shell casings were recovered from the scene at 903 Franklin Avenue. A separate firearm was discovered at the corner of Eastern Parkway, which investigators say may have been one used in the shooting spree. Tisch said at her press conference that the shooting was 'terrible' but stressed that it was an anomaly amid New York's falling crime stats. 'We have the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims seven months into the year we've seen on record in the city of New York,' she said. The Taste of the City Lounge where the shooting unfolded specializes in Caribbean cuisine and offers a hookah bar and DJs. It is less than half a mile from the historic Brooklyn Museum, and closed at 2am on Sunday - an hour and a half before the shooting - according to its website. New York City Mayor Eric Adams and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are yet to comment on the shooting, with former Governor and Mamdani's rival in the mayoral race Andrew Cuomo the first to respond. He said on X: 'Another horrific mass shooting in NYC last night, as three lives were lost and eight wounded in a senseless, deadly attack. My heart goes out to the victims and to their loved ones. 'Public safety is, and always has been, Job 1. This isn't the time to defund or dismantle the police. We need more officers, not less, to keep our communities safe.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Our sons died from prescription pills laced with opioid 40X stronger than fentanyl... our warning to parents
Grey McCallister described her son Lucci with love: a talented tattoo artist, a loving brother, and a great friend with a smile that could light up a room. Lucci's life was cut short in January when the 22-year-old bought and took what he believed was Xanax. The pill was actually made up entirely of a synthetic opioid called nitazene that can be 40 times deadlier than fentanyl. Lucci overdosed and died. Since then, McCallister has heard from other parents in her native Houston, Texas, who say their children's deaths were also linked to nitazenes, a class of drugs that health officials worry could drive the next phase in the overdose epidemic. 'In the past two weeks, I would say even the last week, with the interest in Lucci's story, other parents are reaching out to me because they've lost their children,' she told the Daily Mail. Houston has been hit particularly hard by the arrival of nitazene, which first began infiltrating the US drug supply in 2019. From May 2024 to 2025 alone, Texas DEA agents reported 15 nitazene overdose deaths in people aged 17 to 59, the highest death count since the first drug seizure in 2022. Lucci's friend Hunter Clement, 21, was one of them. He took two pills sold to him in April, one a counterfeit Xanax and the other a counterfeit Percocet. He also overdosed and died. Most standard post-mortem drug screens do not test for nitazenes, and the local authorities in Houston did not have the type of comprehensive panel that would detect nitazenes So, the two moms took the pills they found near their sons' bodies to a specialized lab for testing. When the results came back as nitazenes, the women said they'd never heard of the drug. 'I'll never forget when the detective called,' McCallister, who has a background in pharmaceuticals, said. 'I had him repeat the name twice. I had him spell it two or three times. I was looking for an active ingredient in there, something I recognized the name of, and I didn't.' What they learned was that the pill that killed Lucci was pure nitazene. There was no fentanyl and zero trace of Xanax. In hindsight, McCallister suspects this was not Lucci's first encounter with nitazene. Last year, Lucci took a pill and suffered a non-fatal overdose that required five doses of Narcan, the antidote for opioid overdoses, to bring him back to life. McCallister thinks nitazene had been pressed into that pill. 'He bounced back because he was terrified, and he was doing better,' McCallister said. 'I think the thing with people of that age is you want to have a social life, you hang out with people, and that usually involves alcohol, and I think that's when the inhibitions slip.' McCallister is currently working with law enforcement to find out where her son had been buying the counterfeit pills. Typically, Lucci's family checked in with him 'a gazillion times a day,' his mom said. The family exchanged calls, texts, memes, and funny videos. But on the day he overdosed, they began to worry when they hadn't heard from him for hours. He was found dead in his apartment on January 26 with two pills nearby pressed to look like Xanax. 'He had a fulfilling life. He had a family that loved him. He was doing great,' his mother said. When Clement, mourning her son's death a few months later, learned of Lucci's passing, she immediately connected the two. She reached out to McCallister and, from there, had two pills left near Hunter's body tested more comprehensively for the toxins that a standard screen could not detect. Clement found Hunter one April evening after a long day at work. Hunter had come home the night before, apparently drunk, sparking worry in his parents. Perhaps he had taken half a pill, she thought at the time. Like Lucci, Hunter had been doing well. He had been introduced to the pills by a friend the previous year, likely not knowing they could contain fentanyl or nitazenes. He had a few rough months, but he never overdosed or needed Narcan. And his personality hadn't changed much. From December through his death in April, he was the same son they knew and loved, his mom told the Daily Mail. But that night in April, his parents feared Hunter had made a sharp turn down the wrong path. 'The next day, when I went to work, he was sleeping. My husband went and checked on him around noon. He was sitting up in his bed,' Clement told the Daily Mail. 'And then, when I got home, I found him in his bed, and he must have taken one of each [counterfeit oxycodone and counterfeit Xanax].' The first version, or analog, of nitazenes was developed in the 1950s as a potent opioid painkiller, but was never used in medicine due to its dangerously high overdose risk. But still deadlier analogs of the original, like N-pyrrolidino protonitazene, which killed Lucci and Hunter, have resurfaced since 2019, infiltrating the illicit drug supplies of Europe, the UK, and the US. Andrew Renna, Assistant Port Director for Cargo Operations at JFK Airport in New York City told US Customs and Border Protection in May: 'Earlier this month, we seized almost a pound of nitazene that was going to a private residence in South Carolina. It was shipped from the United Kingdom. 'Unfortunately, here at JFK, we're seeing xylazine and nitazenes at least a few times a week in quantities ranging from just a few grams to upwards of a pound or more.' The US is still steeped in a years-long opioid overdose crisis that is believed to have killed more than 800,000 people since it began in 1999. According to a report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the US overdose death rate decreased by four from 2022 to 2023, dropping from 32.6 to 31.3 fatalities per 100,000 people. The decline is promising, but the increasing danger of another deadly synthetic opiate has overshadowed public health officials' optimism. With the threat of a new wave of the opioid epidemic taking form, parents like McCallister and Clement have channeled their grief into an awareness campaign by sharing their sons' stories. 'Sadly, it just takes one pill, or one line of something, or, heaven forbid, in the future, a hit off of a vape,' McCallister said. 'I mean, this is very dangerous territory we're wading into.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Black mayors of cities Trump decries as 'lawless' tout significant declines in violent crimes
As President Donald Trump declared Washington, D.C., a crime-ridden wasteland in need of federal intervention this week and threatened similar federal interventions in other Black-led cities, several mayors compared notes. The president's characterization of their cities contradicts what they began noticing last year: that they were seeing a drop in violent crime after a pandemic-era spike. In some cases the declines were monumental, due in large part to more youth engagement, gun buyback programs and community partnerships. Now members of the African American Mayors Association are determined to stop Trump from burying accomplishments that they already felt were overlooked. And they're using the administration's unprecedented law enforcement takeover in the nation's capital as an opportunity to disprove his narrative about some of the country's greatest urban enclaves. 'It gives us an opportunity to say we need to amplify our voices to confront the rhetoric that crime is just running rampant around major U.S. cities. It's just not true,' said Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, and president of the African American Mayors Association. 'It's not supported by any evidence or statistics whatsoever.' After deploying the first of 800 National Guard members to Washington, the Republican president is setting his sights on other cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, calling them crime-ridden and 'horribly run." One thing they all have in common: They're led by Black mayors. 'It was not lost on any member of our organization that the mayors either were Black or perceived to be Democrats,' Johnson said. 'And that's unfortunate. For mayors, we play with whoever's on the field.' The federal government's actions have heightened some of the mayors' desires to champion the strategies used to help make their cities safer. Some places are seeing dramatic drops in crime rates Trump argued that federal law enforcement had to step in after a prominent employee of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was attacked in an attempted carjacking. He also pointed to homeless encampments, graffiti and potholes as evidence of Washington 'getting worse.' However statistics published by Washington's Metropolitan Police contradict the president and show violent crime has dropped there since a post-pandemic peak in 2023. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson scoffed at Trump's remarks, hailing the city's 'historic progress driving down homicides by more than 30% and shootings by almost 40% in the last year alone.' Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, where homicides fell 14% between 2023 and 2024, called the federal takeover nothing but a performative 'power grab.' In Baltimore, officials say they have seen historic decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings this year, and those have been on the decline since 2022, according to the city's public safety data dashboard. Carjackings were down 20% in 2023, and other major crimes fell in 2024. Only burglaries have climbed slightly. The lower crime rates are attributed to tackling violence with a 'public health' approach, city officials say. In 2021, under Mayor Brandon Scott, Baltimore created a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan that called for more investment in community violence intervention, more services for crime victims and other initiatives. Scott accused Trump of exploiting crime as a 'wedge issue and dog whistle' rather than caring about curbing violence. 'He has actively undermined efforts that are making a difference saving lives in cities across the country in favor of militarized policing of Black communities,' Scott said via email. The Democratic mayor pointed out that the Justice Department has slashed over $1 million in funding this year that would have gone toward community anti-violence measures. He vowed to keep on making headway, regardless. 'We will continue to closely work with our regional federal law enforcement agencies, who have been great partners, and will do everything in our power to continue the progress despite the roadblocks this administration attempts to implement,' Scott said. Community organizations help curb violence Just last week Oakland officials touted significant decreases in crime in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2024, including a 21% drop in homicides and a 29% decrease in all violent crime, according to the midyear report by the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Officials credited collaborations with community organizations and crisis response services through the city's Department of Violence Prevention, established in 2017. 'These results show that we're on the right track,' Mayor Barbara Lee said at a news conference. 'We're going to keep building on this progress with the same comprehensive approach that got us here.' After Trump gave his assessment of Oakland this week, she rejected it as 'fearmongering.' Social justice advocates agree that crime has gone down and say Trump is perpetuating exaggerated perceptions that have long plagued Oakland. Nicole Lee, executive director of Urban Peace Movement, an Oakland-based organization that focuses on empowering communities of color and young people through initiatives such as leadership training and assistance to victims of gun violence, said much credit for the gains on lower crime rates is due to community groups. 'We really want to acknowledge all of the hard work that our network of community partners and community organizations have been doing over the past couple of years coming out of the pandemic to really create real community safety,' Lee said. 'The things we are doing are working.' She worries that an intervention by military forces would undermine that progress. 'It creates kind of an environment of fear in our community,' Lee said. Patrols and youth curfews In Washington, agents from multiple federal agencies, National Guard members and even the United States Park Police have been seen performing law enforcement duties from patrolling the National Mall to questioning people parked illegally. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the guard troops will not be armed but declined to elaborate on their assignments to safety patrols and beautification efforts. Savannah's Johnson said he is all for partnering with the federal government, but troops on city streets is not what he envisioned. Instead, cities need federal assistance for things like multistate investigation and fighting problems such as gun trafficking, and cybercrimes. 'I'm a former law enforcement officer. There is a different skill set that is used for municipal law enforcement agencies than the military,' Johnson said. There has also been speculation that federal intervention could entail curfews for young people. But that would do more harm, Nicole Lee said, disproportionately affecting young people of color and wrongfully assuming that youths are the main instigators of violence. 'If you're a young person, basically you can be cited, criminalized, simply for being outside after certain hours,' Lee said. 'Not only does that not solve anything in regard to violence and crime, it puts young people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system.' A game of wait-and-see For now, Johnson said, the mayors are watching their counterpart in Washington, Muriel Bowser, closely to see how she navigates the unprecedented federal intervention. She has been walking a fine line between critiquing and cooperating since Trump's takeover, but things ramped up Friday when officials sued to try to block the takeover. Johnson praised Bowser for carrying on with dignity and grace. 'Black mayors are resilient. We are intrinsically children of struggle,' Johnson said. 'We learn to adapt quickly, and I believe that we will and we are.'
