Teen says server demanded proof of gender in restaurant restroom

The Hill

a day ago

A Minnesota teenager filed a charge of discrimination Tuesday against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, accusing a server of following her into the women's restroom and demanding she 'prove' she was a girl.
Gerika Mudra, an 18-year-old high school student, was dining with a friend at the chain restaurant's Owatonna, Minn., location in late April when a female server followed her into the bathroom and accused her of being 'a boy,' according to Gender Justice, the Minnesota-based nonprofit that filed the discrimination charge on Mudra's behalf.
'This is a women's restroom. The man needs to get out of here,' the server said while banging on the stall door, according to Gender Justice. The server blocked Mudra from exiting the restroom until she unzipped her hoodie to show that she had breasts.
Buffalo Wild Wings did not respond to two emails seeking comment on the incident and the charge of discrimination, which Gender Justice filed with the state's Department of Human Rights.
The charge alleges the restaurant violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act, one of the nation's strongest state civil rights laws that prohibits discrimination based on characteristics including sexual orientation and gender identity.
'What happened to Gerika Mudra was not just wrong, it was unlawful,' said Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, in a statement on Tuesday. '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.'
In a video released by Gender Justice, Mudra, who is biracial and not transgender, said this was not the first time she has been questioned about her gender in a public restroom.
'This wasn't the first time this has happened, but this is, like, the worst time,' she said. 'After that, I just don't like going in public bathrooms. Like, I just hold it in. I just keep thinking, 'I'm gonna keep getting harassed like this.''
Mudra's stepmother, Shauna Otterness, said what happened to Mudra was 'cruel and humiliating' and left her feeling 'enraged.'
'We know Gerika was targeted because of how she looks. She didn't do anything wrong. She just didn't fit what that server thought a girl should look like,' she said in a statement released by Gender Justice. 'I was shocked and heartbroken by how many people shared similar stories after I posted about it online. This shouldn't be normal. We can do better, and we have to.'
Nineteen states have laws prohibiting transgender people from using facilities that match their gender identity in K-12 schools, and most also bar trans people from entering restrooms consistent with their gender identity in government-owned buildings, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ laws. A measure to bar trans students from bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity failed to advance in the Minnesota legislature in 2017.
'This kind of gender policing is, unfortunately, nothing new. And yet, in our current climate we have to ask: What if Gerika had been a trans person?' said Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice. 'Would this story have ended differently? That's the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.'
'Gerika's story sits at the intersection of anti-LGBTQ+ panic, racism, and rigid gender norms and stereotypes,' Peterson said. 'A growing culture of suspicion and control is targeting trans, gender-nonconforming, and Black girls and women—anyone who doesn't match narrow ideas of how women should look or behave. When people are harassed just for existing, none of us are truly safe.'