Transgender woman beaten in McDonald's speaks out

Remember that viral video that made the rounds last week, of a woman being kicked, beaten and spat upon, on the floor of a McDonald's in Baltimore—then going into an epileptic seizure, as the attack continued for what seems like an eternity? Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, was the victim. She is epileptic. She is also transgender, and that was apparently the motivation for the attack. She spoke to the Baltimore Sun today.

"They said, 'That's a dude, that's a dude and she's in the female bathroom. They spit in my face."

A worker at the restaurant taped Monday's attack and created a graphic video that went viral last week. After the video garnered hundreds of thousands of views on websites, McDonald's issued a statement condemning the incident, and on Saturday the worker who taped the incident was fired. The video shows two females -- one of them a 14-year-old girl -- repeatedly kicking and punching Polis in the head as an employee and a patron try to intervene. Others can be heard laughing, and men are seen standing idly by. Toward the end of the video, one of the suspects lands a punishing blow to the victim's head, and Polis appears to have a seizure. A man's voice tells the women to run because police are coming.

"I knew they were taping me; I told the guy to stop," said Polis, a resident of Baltimore. "They didn't help me. They didn't do nothing for me."

Victim of McDonald's beating speaks out (baltimoresun.com)

Related: there have been demonstrations in support of Polis, and in support of a transgender non-discrimination bill that was killed by the Maryland Senate just a week prior to the attack. (toweleroad.com)

• [Chevan]

  Wait, just the person taking the video was fired?

  So it’s okay to let a prolonged assault happen in your restaurant as long as it doesn’t end up on the Internet?

  Nice message, McDonalds.

  • [Anonymous]

    Yet another reason not to go to McDonald’s. Not that we needed another. I hope she sues.

  • [RikF]

    You do realise that many places include requirements that employees not get directly involved in incidents? If the employees called the police then they may have done exactly what the store required of them. There was a recent story of Walmart employees being fired for tackling a gunman.

    You’re not under a legal obligation to step in and protect someone. A moral obligation? Sure. Would I have stepped in (something I’ve done before – I’ll (un)happily stand there and take a kicking to prevent someone less able to take it from being hurt further – yes. Would I have liked to see others do so? Of course. But there is no requirement to risk yourself for another person.

    • [Chevan]

      I didn’t know that, actually. I had no idea those requirements existed. Thanks for the info.

      But I still think firing the cameraman alone is odd; or does taping incidents fall under not getting involved? I don’t know.

      • [RikF]

        If he had taped it while saying ‘damn, I hope this video puts them away for a long time’ then I think he’d have been fine. Giggling about it while taping it… well, he got the minimum of what he deserved. I don’t think he becomes legally involved until he starts egging them on though.

      • [Anonymous]

        It’s not the taping per se that he was fired for. It was that he was on the clock and wasn’t doing his work. He was standing around. that’s stealing from the company.

        plus there are probably no filming inside the restaurant rules that didn’t help his case

        • [Ugly Canuck]

          Anon #66 &3^&:
          “Deemed stealing”?
          What bullshit…the employee got fired for not following their job instructions…that company in addition to firing them, want to insult their young workers further by calling them thieves as well!

          This like copying something withoput permission is NOT ‘stealing”….you sell them your time, this is just a simple amoral, business-like breach of contract, and definitely NOT a morally repugnant theft.

          Or does McDonald’s demand “repayment” of what has been “stolen” from them by slacking ex-employees?

          Screw them for trying to make slackers into sinners.

          Akin to child abuse, it abuses children by lying to them about what they have done wrong.

          Thieves, are they? And losing their McDonald’s job is “punishment”?

          Twisted world!

          “Deemd theft”? I deem that an abuse of nomenclature, by those who have all of the contractual power.

          What other breaches of contract can powerful people “deem” to be a crime?

          Copying music?

    • [Anonymous]

      many companies do have those policies, but the employees still had options. they could have tried to shield the transgender woman, they could have gotten her behind the counter or in a staff room away from the two girls, they could have used their greater numbers to shepherd the two girls outside, or the could have just said screw policy, i’m not standing by watching someone be savagely beaten. there were lots of things they could have done other than stand around gawping.

  • [Anonymous]

    That is correct Chevan. The video taper is the only person that violated the rules of employ. By slacking off on the clock.

    McDonalds, like many other companies, has strict rules about employee behavior during fights. You call the police and then you go back to work. You do NOT get involved. You do not try to stop the fight, you do not touch the customers. In fact you are not allowed to give medical aid to anyone either. You can’t give them a bandaid even. You do and you are fired. Period.

    Standing around doing nothing when you are being paid is cause for termination as that is deemed stealing from the company.

    Sad sure, but that is the reality of the game that was going on

• [Anonymous]

  Boycott McDonald’s , its not like there food was doing anyone any good anyways.

  second i propose a day when everyone wears the opposite sex clothes in protest against transgendered hate.

  isaac

• [Nicky G]

  Scary thing is, this actually happened in a pretty chill suburb of Baltimore, not at all a “The Wire” type of joint like you might imagine. Doesn’t really surprise me though. I’ve lived in this city for about 15 years, and it’s a pretty cool place in general, but there are some SERIOUS thug-tastic people EVERYWHERE. And I include blacks and whites in that statement, to be sure. Being a thug is absolutely a normal kind of thing here in Baltimore. Well, either that, or a dirty hipster.

• [Julien Couvreur]

  I’m a little confused about the hate crime and the “transgender non-discrimination bill” parts. Beating someone up, outside of commensurate self-defense, is a crime regardless of the reason.
  Whether it is out of hate, love, greed, entertainment, stupidity or other motivations should not really be a concern for the law.

  • [travtastic]

    Of course it should be. She wasn’t assaulted because she liked different music. Hate crime laws are in place to prevent intimidation. Whether or not they do so, I’m not sure.

  • [ninjapornstar]

    That’s also why the law doesn’t distinguish between first degree murder, negligent homicide, manslaughter, or a killing as a result of reckless indifference (aka “abandoned and malignant heart”). It’s all killing. Someone is dead. We have a corpse. The intentions of the perpetrator should not really be a concern for the law.

  • [dragonfrog]

    Beating someone up for some random stupid reason is a crime against that person.

    Beating someone up because they’re a member of some hated group – abortion providers, blacks, Jews, Muslims, queers, whoever – is really two separate crimes. There’s the crime inherent in the deed, and there’s the crime of the propaganda of the deed.

    So, in addition to whatever crime is present in the physical actions against the victim, there’s also a crime of intimidation against all members of that group, because the attacker is sending a threat to other members of that group, and sending a message of encouragement to others who might contemplate such a crime.

    • [glaborous immolate]

      ” there’s also a crime of intimidation against all members of that group, because the attacker is sending a threat to other members of that group, and sending a message of encouragement to others who might contemplate such a crime.”

      Well, that’s really the question. Just as “ninjapornstar” stated we have all kinds of murder based on the intentions of the killer, we would presumably have to know beyond a reasonable doubt that someone beating up a trans intends to send a message to the group or encourage others.

      That seems like something that’s kinda tough to prove in court.

      Their actions might have that effect, but you’d have to show that was their intent, wouldn’t you?

      • [dragonfrog]

        Their actions might have that effect, but you’d have to show that was their intent, wouldn’t you?

        Well, yeah, that’s how the criminal justice system works. I fail to see the problem you’re trying to point out – it sounds to me like exactly what should happen.

        If the prosecution can prove that the accused assaulted the victim, but not that it was a hate crime, then they’re just convicted of assault. If the prosecution can additionally prove the assault was a hate crime, then they’re additionally convicted of a hate crime.

        Plenty of things could easily support a conviction for a hate crime – did the accused regularly spout hatred for Muslims? shout homophobic slurs at the victim? burn a cross and dress in white robes? confess during questioning to driving to an immigrant neighbourhood specifically to attack Hispanic people because they hate them? throw a firebomb into a synagogue?

        • [glaborous immolate]

          that being said (above), some of what you said makes it a hate crime “sending a threat to other members of that group, and sending a message of encouragement to others who might contemplate such a crime” is only present (or should be) in certain types of ‘hate crimes’.

          The stuff in your list doesn’t seem to be the sorts of things that happened in the OP case. So are you arguing against it as a hate crime?

          Being part of the klan and burning a cross might just look like petty vandalism, but the context of it is a ‘message’ against all blacks, surely.

          But some would argue that, say, when a man rapes a woman its part of the system of patriarchy sending a message to all women that society does not value them as full members of the social bond. and then all the stuff that fits into whether the rapist is a patriarchalist becomes rather muddled with things that many think are mainstream political questions, not matters of generally agreed morality.

          Sure, a guy drove to a hispanic neighborhood to beat up an immigrant is going out of his way. But people mock the ‘gay panic defense’ when its a pretty plausible explanation if you’re not going to go the route of understanding the socilogical evils of the way heteronormativity enforces things in a hegemonic fashion.

          “trans people freak me out when they use the ‘wrong’ bathroom” seems like a pretty good ‘irrationality’ defense against the claim that the attack motivation was group hatred that has to rely on generally protected first amendment issues and political questions factor in.

          Was a person a member of a immigration restriction group? Does Republican party membership count in court as evidence of hate? Did the guy write an essay defending DOMA? Does that count as evidence of a social attack?

          Will it get to the point that when unionists intimidate ‘sc*bs’ it’s classed as a hate crime?

      • [drunken_orangetree]

        “That seems like something that’s kinda tough to prove in court.

        Their actions might have that effect, but you’d have to show that was their intent, wouldn’t you?”

        Welcome to the new America, where we all say, “Sorry, it simply isn’t possible.”

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Whether it is out of hate, love, greed, entertainment, stupidity or other motivations should not really be a concern for the law.

    I’m going to guess that you’re not a member of a demographic group that routinely suffers violence.

  • [sam1148]

    Whether it is out of hate, love, greed, entertainment, stupidity or other motivations should not really be a concern for the law.

    So, would you be good with ending special sentencing guidelines for those who are ‘cop killers’? After all, as you said motivations shouldn’t be the concern for the law.

  • [dculberson]

    I know people have responded to you already, but I think this angle hasn’t been covered without sarcasm: the motives of a person are always a part of the issue in the eyes of the law. Almost every major crime has different degrees for charges or differing severity in sentencing based upon the motivation, intent, or awareness of the person committing the crime. It is not unreasonable at all for there to be a different charge for a hate crime, there has been precedent for this sort of separation for hundreds of years.

• [cr1118]

  In response to Antinous / Moderator in reply to Julien Couvreur (#15)… “I’m going to guess that you’re not a member of a demographic group that routinely suffers violence.”

  As someone who is “not a member of a particular demographic group” but has suffered violence repeatedly for reasons that I can only guess at (i.e. – I didn’t wear the coolest clothes, my mom didn’t own a BMW)… I think that violence against ANYONE for ANY REASON is wrong… my life is as important and precious as my gay best friends, as my other bi-sexual best friends, as the cop on the corner, as the fireman around the block. We are all children, friends, parents, lovers, aunts, uncles, etc., to people who love us and would like to have us alive and healthy for as long as possible. If you strip each and every one of us down to the basics, put everything aside that “separates” us, we are all the same. Really, when people say they are fighting for gay rights, womens rights, etc, etc, etc, they are doing nothing except creating a bigger divide. What they want is EQUAL rights. EVERYONE should have the same rights as the next person… period.

  As far as the woman above, what happened to her was just plain wrong… for ANY reason. I’m so confused as I have seen different interviews saying different things so who really knows what the reason behind the attack was and does it matter? IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. The last interview I saw she said that the one girl started the fight after saying “why you trying to talk to my man”… really??? That’s a reason to have a fight? To injure someone else??? They are just filthy low-lives who feel better about themselves when they hurt someone else for any reason.

  The employees at McD’s is a whole other issue…

• [Teller]

  I hope to Thor this isn’t here now just because the victim is transgender. That crime was awful from Day 1, a week ago.

  • [Mister44]

    Yep. And some old lady was the only one with enough conscience to do something about it. Notice I don’t say guts – the others weren’t scared, they didn’t care.

    • [Victor Drath]

      “Yep. And some old lady was the only one with enough conscience to do something about it. Notice I don’t say guts – the others weren’t scared, they didn’t care.”

      I agree with you for a change. But I’d still call them cowardly pussies anyway, just because those words would get under their skin the worst. Funny how people stand around and watch bad things happen like they’re watching tv or something.

      But hey, if those girls think they’re tough enough to beat on a “man”, I volunteer. I could show them all kinds of neat stuff. Like how elbows can bend backwards for instance. :-)

      • [knoxblox]

        I agree that the double standard is getting way out of hand, especially when young women are baiting and assaulting people on purpose these days.

        Watching the video for the first time made my heart race and my palms sweat a little, and the lizard part of my brain’s reaction was, “someone’s getting seriously hurt, and nobody’s doing much to help.”
        I really don’t know what I would have done if I were there. I hope my initial reaction suggests that if no immediate help were available, I’d feel it necessary to wrap one of the dining room chairs around one of the attacker’s skulls, woman or no woman.

• [Anonymous]

  It turns out the attackers have a history of violent crime but are not in prison because our prisons are full of people who downloaded out of print music and may have smoked some pot in the privacy of their own home.

• [Anonymous]

  If she lives in Baltimore and is looking for work, maybe Chrissy should check out Red Emma’s.
  http://www.redemmas.org/
  They are a worker-owned and collectively managed bookstore and coffee house and are very trans-positive. Even if that isn’t the kind of work she is interested in, at least it would be a safer space to eat/drink than McDonald’s or another corporate hetero-dominant chain.

• [franko]

  i didn’t watch this video last week, and i won’t watch it this week, either. i am certain it’s a horrible thing to watch. the transgender angle slipped off the headline the first day or so i saw links to it. this fact just compounds the horror for me. i can’t believe that EVERYONE at the restaurant involved with this wasn’t fired or reprimanded in some way.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    I did not post the video of the beating in this post, nor did I link to it. The video in this post is of the victim talking about her identity and about discrimination against transgender people, after surviving the attack.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    the transgender angle slipped off the headline

    No it didn’t. The police didn’t release the fact that the victim was transgender (and the reported fact that the assailant was angry she was using the women’s bathroom, when the assailant accused her of being a man) when the report first came out. Not the same thing as just not noticing; the information was not out there.

• [Teller]

  And why not White woman beaten in McDonald’s speaks out?

  • [Rayonic]

    Perhaps it wouldn’t still be newsworthy if she wasn’t transgendered? The video was shocking, but afterward the story would have been dropped, with the implicitly racist attitude of “oh well, whatcha gonna do about those people…”

    The idea of charging minorities with hate crimes gives the story a novel twist, to the media. And it brings people out of the woodwork who don’t normally comment on this kind of thing.

    Kinda sucks, eh?

• [Marja]

  The anti-discrimination bill would have excluded public accommodations, in part because anti-trans groups stir up paranoia about who could use which bathroom.

  So it would have, in effect, said that companies couldn’t discriminate in hiring, but they could discriminate by not allowing trans employees to use the bathroom. And it would have banned discrimination in housing, but permitted continued discrimination in homeless shelters, because homeless shelters are considered public accommodations.

  Whatever you think of anti-discrimination law in general, carving out exceptions – such as the anti-trans amendment Jesse Helm added to the Americans with Disabilities Act – often works to legitimize the specically-permitted types of discrimination against the specifically-excluded groups.

• [Urizen]

  Kudos to the girl – and that’s she is now. I hope she makes a big noise over this, maybe even become a household name. It’s time for hate-filled violence to come to an end. Make McDonalds hurt from embarrassment for not instantly doing the right thing. Make Maryland embarrassed for not doing the right thing. Shame to them all.

• [aeon]

  Doesn’t this help make a case for unisex toilets? You can’t beat someone up for being in the “wrong” room when everyone shares wash facilities and each does their business privately in their own cubical.

  • [grimc]

    Doesn’t this help make a case for unisex toilets?

    Ever been to a crowded place like a stadium and see the difference between the line to get into the men’s vs. the women’s? No thanks.

    • [Mister44]

      It could work – just move the trough from the wall to the center of the room where one could straddle it.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Ever been to a crowded place like a stadium and see the difference between the line to get into the men’s vs. the women’s?

      And yet, that is exactly the situation where I prefer to use the women’s bathroom.

    • [aeon]

      If there was only one queue to the toilets and *everyone* was complaining instead of 50% then something would quickly be done to fix it. ;-) (And no, I’m definitely XY and fully equipped to take advantage of the shorter queue)

      As a parent I find “which toilet” a problem. There is that uncertain age when you’d like to closely supervise your kids but aren’t supposed to be in the appropriately gendered facility with them and don’t really want to take them into the other. Unisex facilities are a blessing there.

      There are too many transgendered individuals beaten up for choosing the “wrong” toilet. In truth they can’t get it right, some arsehole is always going to find fault whichever they choose. Take away the choice, lose the “excuse”.

      Shared wash facilities mean double the foot traffic so it should cut down on antisocial behaviour.

• [Lobster]

  I know this doesn’t justify what happened in any way, shape or form, but can we understand how some people might not think of the transgendered as their reassigned sex? Even if we’re completely open and supportive with them and want them to be happy, Miss Polis is still genetically male.

  On one level, this is a hate crime. On another… it’s not OK when someone who looks male (even if they look particularly feminine or like a crossdresser) goes into the ladies’ room. That room is for ladies. That is why it is called that. Again, Miss Polis is a strong individual with the right to live however she wishes. I just don’t know if gender-assigned restrooms are really the place to take a step forward in gender relations.

  • [glaborous immolate]

    People’s ignorance of the needs and preferences of others doesn’t change the fact that they just have to get over the differences of others, even if the entire social order is premised on binary sex and gender stereotypes.

    the whole Monty Python “struggle against reality” BS is typical of the establishment view that gender is fixed and ‘normal’

  • [Anonymous]

    “it’s not OK when someone who looks male…” That would include bull dykes then? It’s ok if the transwoman is sufficiently passable? When you’re trans you can use one room and risk being beaten for allegedly being a fag or the other and risk being beaten or screamed at for allegedly being a pervert when all you really wanted was to take a leak. The simple fact here is that no matter what genitals you were born with, if your brain tells you you’re female then you are…you *are* your mind, you only live in your body. To be beaten for daring to try to have the comfort in your own skin that everyone else takes for granted to such an extent that most of them don’t even realise it is to be denigrated as sub-human. Yeah, that room is for women. A transwoman is just that…a woman, endocrinological hiccough not withstanding. That fact that she hasn’t had the gender reassignment surgery doesn’t make a bit of difference. If you think it does then that only demonstrates exactly how little thought you’ve put into it.

    How much thought have *I* put into it? Every day. Last three years. Minimum of an hour. It has consumed, overturned and in some important ways demolished my life. I didn’t choose this, nobody does. What happens is just that your life being demolished, your marriage being destroyed and the potential for a life of ridicule, hatred and violence at the hands of mouthbreathers becomes less terrifying than the prospect of *not* doing it. I know exactly who and what I am. Don’t dare tell me you know that better than me.

• [Anonymous]

  As long as there are ignorant people, and others willing to stand by while terrible things happen. These things will happen. I cry for it. I’m angry about it. But things such as this still keep happening.

  • [Victor Drath]

    Anon #16, we should be crime fighters! Although first you need a name. …and I need one that’s not a cartoon criminal. :p

• [Godfree]

  There’s a change.org petition available for signing on this matter:
  http://bit.ly/i338wQ

• [Anonymous]

  Hate to be picky here, but no one else has mentioned this, so I will:
  “epileptic” is an adjective that is used to describe a type of seizure. People should not be called “epileptic”. They are people who have epilepsy. Think of the whole Oriental describing a type of rug = ok/ Oriental when meaning Asain person = not ok thing. Same idea.

• [Rayonic]

  Why is everyone getting intent and motivation mixed up?

• [Ruth]

  While the prejudice inherent is pretty obvious, I think you need to take certain psychological factors before condemning all the onlookers outright. You can wikipedia “Bystander Effect” for more details. Even though I try hard not to be prejudiced, spend a lot of my time around queer people, and definitely think those people deserve a lot worse treatment than they will probably end up getting, I don’t know that my morals would outweigh this desire avoid getting involved. People who have training in first aid are taught to break through the bystander effect, but you never know until it happens how you’ll react.

  • [Victor Drath]

    I am familiar with bystander effect, I’ve read about it in the past. It’s just a term for people who have no common sense, decency, character, and are just all around cowardly and useless persons. I don’t have any training that you mention, I just have a brain that thinks and reasons, and would not allow me to stand by and watch while a helpless person is beaten and stomped.

• [BadIdeaSociety]

  I am not all that interested in watching the beating video, to be honest. Is it clear in the video that the people were physically attacking a “man” who went into the woman’s restroom or were they physically attacking a “transgendered” person? I think this makes a great deal of difference in dealing with the “Hate Crime” aspect of this crime.

  This case should not only help to educate other Americans about tolerance but also about respecting the idea of our legal system. Even if this beating victim were just a weird guy dressed as a woman trying to check out women in the women’s restroom, he still didn’t deserve it.

  When I read comments in articles about sexual harassment crimes (especially, man on women crime), I often read comments from individuals claiming to be women proposing physical castration, revenge rape, and other forms of inhuman vigilante punishment. I am certain a lot of these women are speaking in hyperbole, but I imagine many of them are genuinely serious. I wouldn’t be surprised that the women who attacked the “man” in this video are cut from that ilk.

• [Anonymous]

  This is just horrible! The two ignorant women (or more appropriately, children) who are responsible for this should be jailed and have a lengthy psych eval. This makes you fear going anywhere, because not only are people this stupid, but the witnesses are too sorry to lift a finger to help!

• [noen]

  POE

  Hate crime legislation to protect gays is liberal political correctness run amok just like it is racist to call me a racist when I am being racist.

  Liberals are the true homophobes.

  /POE

• [Anonymous]

  The comment upthread about a site dedicated to videos of transgendered persons being beaten is extremely upsetting to me.

  Please Xeni investigate this if it is real and expose it.

• [fraac]

  This kind of primal xenophobia is part of all of us, and it won’t stop until we recognise it in ourselves. When you’re beating the crap out of someone who’s scarily different it’s not for a reason, it follows directly from the feeling, cause and effect. Some of us have learned that weirdos are cool and attacking them is uncool but I doubt the impulse has been removed so much as suppressed while the cameras are on.

• [ultranaut]

  I am very curious why people of ambiguous gender make others so uncomfortable. I’ve always seen the humor in them but never the horror others find. What is horrifying is discovering someone you liked and respected is actually deeply bigoted in ways they don’t even realize. People need to lighten the fuck up about sex! Dude in a dress pissing in the same room isn’t anything to get upset about unless they try to piss on you.
  When I am king the tranny beater prison will be staffed exclusively by drag queens.

  • [aeon]

    I think it depends on context.

    I have had to (on a professional basis and while working in ED) place a urinary catheter in someone with ambiguous genitalia who, while identifying as male, had such a marked hypospadias on his rather undersized penis that the urethra was way up inside his vagina. (Go hit a dictionary if you can’t picture it). It wasn’t an issue. I had a job to do.

    On another occasion in a public toilet, a dude in dress came and hitched up at the next urinal and flopped out a huge veiny cock. Highly disconcerting and on a weirdly visceral level. I shriveled up and left quickly, despite having the ability to cope in a controlled, professional environment. So I can understand, if not condone, how some with less control over their emotions might resort to violence.

    • [RevRalf23]

      That you can still say you understand how someone might resort to violence might be a sign you may need to get outside yourself and learn a little more about dealing with the fact that there are many people out there that do things you don’t approve of, aeon. Or at least accept the fact that it was your choice to stare down that crossdressers’ veiny cock you remember so vividly.

      I’ll admit my perspective may be skewed from working at gay bars, but I really don’t understand this sentiment about some sort of imagined sanctity of gender-assigned restrooms.

      Also, Lobster, you might not be aware, but part of the process of changing your sex requires a year (at least) of living in the role of your gender (dressing, acting, and behaving as such) before you can be approved for corrective surgery. Using the women’s restroom wasn’t some sort of political move she made, this was part of the psychological process she is following in order to move her life forward.

    • [RikF]

      1) Why were you looking?
      2) Would you have had the same reaction to a guy in a kilt?
      3) Was it the dress, or did you just feel a little… inadequate? Would you have had the same reaction if the person you’d been checking out had unleashed the ‘huge and veiny’ appendage from behind a zipper? I think there may be other issues at work here…

      • [aeon]

        1. It was hard not to. He was breaking the unwritten personal space rules at the urinal and the usual flip it out and pee motion was so exaggerated… Motion in peripheral vision causes reflex fixation.
        2. No. But traditional kilt wearers don’t wear any underwear so there generally isn’t any more movement than normal. And the kilt wearers I’ve pee’d next to weren’t standing too close.
        3. Absolutely! I see people naked every day at work so have a pretty good idea of the range of normal. This was way up on the upper tail of the bell curve.

        What can I say? I was creeped out by the behaviour, the out of context mode of dress *and* alone in the room with this individual. I didn’t feel safe and I believe that was the intention.

        Going back to my point higher up about unisex toilets higher up the page, that particular encounter couldn’t have happened in such a facility. No space issues and no opportunity to check out the equipment however inadvertent. Just two people washing hands in a washroom.

        • [redesigned]

          @aeon

          i wasn’t there so i have no way of knowing the situation, but some food for though:

          1. the first thing you need to understand is that you were creeped out because of your own insecurity/biases, not anything the other person did as they never directly engaged you in any way nor did anything out of the ordinary. Remember, how we dress is completely a cultural context.

          2. peeking at someone else’s junk without their consent is a way creepier more invasive action then what someone happened to be wearing while using the facilities.

          3. your interpretation of their intentions are also completely your own insecurities/bias. that they didn’t stand at a specific urnal, happens all the time, you probably wouldn’t have made anything of it if it were an 80yr old man in regular clothes. the movement they made when pulling their junk out? if they were the huge size you describe and pulling it out of a different configuration of clothing, that alone would account for the difference, again you make very negative assumptions based on your personal biases/prejudices.

        • [aeon]

          I agree with you that beating someone up just for the way they appear is horrible and wrong.

          To deal with your other points, of course my reaction to the cross dressing guy in the toilet was determined by my own insecurities and biases. How could it possibly be otherwise? We are each the product of our environment, upbringing, experiences and culture. Yourself included — and you use your own biases and insecurities to judge me. People are different — I am particularly keen on having personal space, especially if there’s plenty of other space around. That’s the product of being repeatedly beaten up when I was younger. So stand too close and make a sudden movement and I’m going to look for the threat and reason to flee. It’s a hard wired reflex that I have particularly strongly — I wasn’t peeking, I was looking for the knife… Others with similar experiences resort rapidly to violence if they feel threatened.

          The whole point of cultural norms is that they provide a framework for people to get along and tolerate each other without having to resort to violence and despite their biases and insecurities. Transgress too far outside and you run the risk of inadvertently pushing someone’s buttons. That someone might be a fighter not a flee-er and may have a perfectly understandable reason for behaving that way. I think I already pointed out how Unisex toilets could avoid any excuses for unpleasantness in this area?

• [redesigned]

  beating a person up in a public bathroom, and continuing to beat them while they are down, is horrible and wrong…regardless the “reasons”. there is no justifying that sort of behavior. there are no conditions that make it okay or acceptable.

  if mc donalds has a policy of not interfering if a patron is getting brutally assaulted then that isn’t a place i’d ever support.

  this is a sad story, i’m just glad that the victim has made it through intact enough to speak out against hate crimes and violence.

• [Cassandra]

  Hopefully this will change some Mainers’ minds about bill 1046 in the senate, which is slated to repeal restroom rights for transgendered persons.

• [Anonymous]

  This video is just the tip of the iceberg. All over the internet you can find videos of vulnerable people being swarmed and beaten to unconsciousness and beyond. The worst part is the attackers often don’t even try to conceal their identities. Some even look right in the camera and give a previews of the savagery they are about to commit. They do this because they know no one will do anything about it.

• [travtastic]

  If I remember correctly, the manager was a caring enough fellow to complain that she was bleeding on his floor.

• [magnetiquewolf]

  i think employees are trained not to involve themselves if a fight breaks out between customers. they’re trained to call the police. and while this may not necessarily be the moral thing to do, it certainly protects employees from harm, and most importantly to McDonald’s, protects the company from liability. McDonald’s would be legally responsible if one of their employees was harmed or killed while intervening in a fight between customers. other than selling cheap but extremely unhealthy food to people who can’t afford to buy nutritious healthy food (which tends to attract unhappy low-income individuals, especially unhappy angry low-income teenagers..) other than all THAT, McDonald’s isn’t really at direct fault for this particular incident.

  what those two 14 year old’s did is pretty standard behaviour for 14 year olds across North America. teens are cruel. teens are violent. teens are TAUGHT to be cruel and violent by the very society that later blames them for their cruelty and violence.

  those two kids need some serious emotional health rehabilitation.

  may Chrissy Lee heal well and be back on her feet as soon as possible. for all we can judge her for who she is, at least she doesn’t beat the crap out of people for no good reason.

• [Pete0]

  Prez O should step up and have this young lady to the WH. Maybe Henry Louis Gates Jr is free for another beer…

• [Anonymous]

  I’m not going to post any links, but there is a VERY NSFW site called… actually I’m not even going to mention its name. It has hundreds of videos far worse than this, some recorded by passers by, some recorded by the perpetrators. Many assaults are instigated for the sole purpose of making videos that show how ruthless their creators can be. Again, people do this because they know they’ll get away with it.