By Ann Rostow–
She Shocked the Sheriff
I was struck by a video of a woman in a Tucson Walmart, who was confronted by male sheriff deputies in the ladies room. Kalaya Morton, 19, a cisgender, masculine lesbian, was in the bathroom during a shopping trip when a couple of uniformed officers entered the facility and asked her to stop what she was doing (changing a tampon) and come out with them. Morton came out of the stall and lifted her shirt to demonstrate her status, but that was apparently not good enough for one deputy, who said she “looked like a man,” The Advocate reported.
The craziest part of this story, in my view, is the fact that there is no bathroom law on the books in the state. According to the magazine, Morton figured that a Walmart employee had called the sheriff, since one cashier, in particular, had been eyeing her suspiciously. But on what legal basis would a working sheriff’s office dispatch two men to a public bathroom in Arizona? Why? To do what? And why allow the two male officers to enter the ladies room? Why can’t they stay outside and confront their “suspect” when she’s done?
Have we reached the point where a manly looking female may no longer visit a public ladies room regardless of any state statutes, good or bad, that may lie on the books? I gather Congresswomen Mace and Boebert got bent out of shape in the Capitol ladies room the other day and had to apologize for misgendering some innocent woman who was trying to pee. And, of course, considering the House rules require people to use the bathroom of their birth gender, I’m still waiting to see what happens when a bearded transman joins Nancy and Lauren at the sinks, or when trans Congresswoman Sarah McBride pops into the men’s room for a quick lipstick touch up.
Simpler Days
Moving on, I gather that Yeshiva University has finally resolved the years-long court case filed against the school by GLBT students trying to set up a campus club. The conflict between the orthodox private college and the gay students has led to the creation of a LGBTQ club that will operate according to rabbinical guidelines.
Fine fine fine. I write this because, a few years back, I remember devoting quite a bit of ink to the trials and tribulations of the Yeshiva students and the recalcitrant administration. I think Yeshiva even cancelled all student clubs at one point in order to sidestep some ruling I can’t recall.
Now I see this story as part of a different era. It’s like those apocalyptic movies where everyone is enjoying the American dream up until a tsunami engulfs lower Manhattan and the whole dynamic changes. Sally and Timmy won’t be sharing a sundae at the soda shop after all, because they’re trying to climb a cell tower in Brooklyn to save their lives! Likewise, it won’t really matter if the Yeshiva kids get to plan a pride party because they’re about to be arrested for trying to use the wrong bathroom and sent to the homophobic wing of the nearest delinquency center!
Of course, we still care, sort of. But our lives are falling apart and our civil rights movement is in correction territory. (Cue: Horrified scream fading with doppler effect as if dropping into an abyss.) We don’t care as much because we have worse things to worry about—so much so that some of us aren’t worried at all anymore because we have thrown up our hands in despair and self-preservation. And now that we’re oblivious to the larger context, we can once again focus on things like the gay student center at Yeshiva University, just as Sally and Timmy can enjoy sharing half a pack of lifesavers from the tower landing as they watch the world being swept away below them.
Bored Penguin
In search of material, I paused on an article about a lesbian penguin in Kentucky, given that, as you may have noticed, we seem to have covered many more gay male penguins than lesbian penguins. I guess this penguin, Green Bean, has gone viral on TikTok after finding a ball and delivering it to her girlfriend, Randi.
I like it, but, honestly, I’ve been far more impressed with the egg hatching drama we’ve seen from the guy penguins. I was also quite moved by the death of Sphen, who had a very long relationship with penguin hubby Magic. Magic was heard to let out a grief-stricken wail after Sphen died.
Still, I was thinking I might stretch this penguin story out a little bit, create some colorful queer creature copy, so I kept reading about Green Bean, who seems very nice and sweet. I even watched three minutes of her appearance on a local morning show, where everyone petted her and talked about nothing. Her keeper noted that Green Bean was not a breeding penguin, because she lived with other females and was not interested. That’s the closest anyone came to revealing Green Bean’s true nature, but it was several years ago and I’m assuming this show aired before Green Bean met Randi.
That said, Green Bean’s only real claim to fame at this point is the mildly entertaining gesture with the ball on the video. Would anyone even care about the ball business if Green Bean and Randi were heterosexual penguins? I think not.
But wait! I was just about to move on when I discovered that the folks at the National Aquarium of New Zealand rank their penguins, announcing citations for the “Naughty Penguin of the Month” and the “Good Penguin of the Month.” Recently, Tux was named Naughty Penguin after he “pushed Timmy off the pier after it took him an hour to walk there,” while Mr. Mac won Good Penguin honors because he “calls out to his blind girlfriend so she can find her burrow easily.”
I have spent so much time on this, I’m embarrassed to say. That includes reading dozens of entries on the New Zealand “Naughty Penguin of the Month” list. And some of those penguins were quite naughty indeed.
Open Your Mouth for Noodles
On March 31, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in (deep breath) Catholic Charities v Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission. No, it’s not a GLBT case, but as you know by now, all religious freedom cases have an impact on our legal standing. As you also may know, we don’t seem to fare very well in cases that pit state or local authorities against anything called “Catholic Something.” At least not with this Court.
Catholic Charities is a network of nonprofits that do secular charity work under the auspices of the Catholic Church. The agencies and their national coordinators at Catholic Charities USA are not religious institutions; they are separately incorporated. Nonetheless, they have made every effort to weasel out of non-discrimination laws and take advantage of church exemptions that should not apply to their activities. In this case, for example, Catholic Charities wants to opt out of unemployment benefit taxes. These taxes are levied on all corporations, but religious groups are exempt. That exemption, however, applies to churchy groups, not corporations like Catholic Charities that evolved from religious projects. (Or so say San Francisco Bay Times legal experts.)
Our community got on the wrong side of one of these cases after Philadelphia refused to put foster kids with the local Catholic Charities placement operation. Catholic Charities was in violation of city nondiscrimination laws by refusing to place kids with same-sex foster parents, so Philadelphia dropped the group as a contractor. Catholic Charities sued, and the High Court found a senseless loophole to rule in their favor. At the time. Philadelphia allowed “discrimination” in placements on a case-by-case basis in order to make sure a foster match was viable. The Court ruled that these “exceptions” meant that the city must make exceptions for Catholic Charities as well.
I won’t delve into that decision any further. I know it would be fun for all of us, but I lack the mental energy. (I will note that Justice Barrett managed to preserve a useful precedent that four of her conservative colleagues preferred to trash.) Let’s just say that, with this High Court crew, anything Catholic gets a nearly automatic high five. I wonder what they’d say if the Muslim Charity Coalition wanted to avoid a corporate tax or didn’t like some city policy. Or what about my own religious home, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? (I am ordained in the faith.)
As an aside, I know that, one year, the Florida state capital was obliged to allow all seasonal displays from all religions into an area that was designated a public forum. The Pastafarian Church presented an orange office chair, filled with (fake) spaghetti, googly eyes, and a quote from scripture: “A closed mouth catches no noodly appendages.” I wonder what happened to that feature in subsequent years?
Judging Trump
We saw an excellent ruling on Tuesday, March 19, from U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes, who put a hold on Trump’s effort to ban transgender men and women from military service. In a 79-page opinion, Judge Reyes, who coincidentally is gay, enjoined the Trump administration from putting the anti-trans policy into effect. Even using the easiest standard of legal review for argument’s sake, Judge Reyes said the Trump rationale still failed to pass muster. Indeed, Reyes determined that the transgender plaintiffs were likely to prevail in the underlying lawsuit, and that the Trump plan was “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.” Just reading that makes us want to hit the showers.
From what I understand, Trump and his associates are gob smacked that all these federal judges keep telling them what they can and cannot do, this despite the fact that so many of their power plays are flatly unconstitutional. I see in my in-box that another federal judge, Julia Kobick out of Boston, just held a hearing on the decision to stop allowing citizens to change their gender marker on their passport, as well as the cancellation of a Biden rule that allowed people to use “X” instead of “M” or “F.” Not only did Kobick point out that the new rule appears to discriminate against transgender men and women, but she noted it could “burden their ability” to use their passports.
I’m always strangely nervous when I have to present identification. You’d think I was an OSS agent stopped by a Vichy officer while delivering new radio signals in a hollowed-out baguette to my colleagues in the next village. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was carrying a male driver’s license. I’m assuming that Trump isn’t forcing everyone to get new passport photos that seem to reveal a different gender, but who knows?
Remembering Hooters
Finally, I was touched by a New York Times essay titled “Why Dads Take Their Gay Sons to Hooters.” The author, Peter Rothpletz, recalled his grandfather awkwardly bringing him to the notorious eatery when he was in his early teens and just showing the signs of sexual ambiguity.
“Our waitress was a tall, brassy blonde—a caricature of the caricature that is a Hooters waitress,” Rothpletz recalled “She was in her late 20s with a deep yet indistinct Southern accent, and I could tell she clocked me almost immediately. Who knows if it was how I held myself or how my voice quivered or how my eyes slid away from hers. But, later in the meal, when my grandfather went to the restroom, she slipped into the booth across from me and leaned in close. ‘You’re perfect just the way you are, kid,’ she said, or something near enough to it, her voice low, kind and certain.”
Years later, Rothpletz posted the memory on social media and was surprised by the number of gay men who were also dragged to this bastion of heterosexual titillation. Many of them had also experienced the graceful compassion of the waitresses, who saw immediately the motives of the grown men and the sometimes-tough road ahead of the younger ones.
“What explains the connection between Hooters waitresses and young gay men,” he asked? “Perhaps these women—so often stigmatized as almost sex workers, so accustomed to society’s sidelong glances—see kindred spirits in the boys who aren’t quite ‘right.’ Or maybe it’s simpler: a waitress’s knack for reading a room, turned tender for those who need it most.”
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on March 27, 2025
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