Shower-Nuts Admit Rio Incident Was Staged

Am I the only one who thinks there is some irony when the man from the Concerned Women for America is bad-mouthing transgender people? There is an interview on the CWA web site with Theresa Rickman of the Citizens for a Responsible Whatever, where they start out lying about what the new nondiscrimination law says, go on to say ridiculous hateful things about Dana Beyer, and end up, before the interview is over, admitting that the scene where a man in a dress went into the ladies locker-room at Rio was staged by the CRW.

First, listen to how Concerned Woman Matt Barber defines the referendum movement here -- this is what the CRW wishes our local journalists would do:

MARTHA KLEDER: Matt, what is going on in Mongtomery County?

MATT BARBER: Well, Martha, Montgomery County Maryland, the county council out there put a law in place which basically allows men in dresses or women who perceive themselves as men to use showers and public facilities, restrooms and locker-rooms of the opposite sex, so a man in a dress can walk into a women's locker, shower alongside the women, use the women's restrooms and so forth. So naturally, rightfully, a group of concerned and outraged citizens there in Montgomery County started a petition drive to get a referendum in place that would rescind this ridiculous law.

This guy is good. He tells the story exactly how they want it to be told, perfect.

In case you haven't been following, the law they are referring to prohibits discrimination in employment and other things on the basis of gender identity -- it protects transgender people, so they can expect to be hired for jobs they are qualified for, they can expect to be served in restaurants, and so on. The law doesn't say anything about what bathroom anybody uses. There has never been a law regulating bathroom use, and this law doesn't change anything. This has been the CRW's frame, to scare people into signing the petitions so they can re-legalize discrimination.

Anyone who wants to argue about whether the CRW was misrepresenting their petitions needs only to look at this explanation -- this is the same thing they told people outside groceries stores and malls.

Theresa goes on and on about the organized harassment of their petition-pushers. I'll tell you what, as far as I know there were six or seven people -- including me -- covering the entire county. Most sites never got a visit, and nobody anywhere was surrounded. One guy at Leisure World got a visit by five of us, because he appeared while we were relaxing inside a Starbuck's and we saw him on the way to our cars. Whatever, whining is a way of life for those people.

This part made me sick. If Theresa Rickman had a shred of decency, she would have hung up on this interview when they started in like this:

MARTHA KLEDER: Theresa, who is Dana Beyer? Identify that person for us.

THERESA RICKMAN: Dana Beyer works for Duchy Trachtenberg. She's a senior aide to the council member, woman, that sponsored the legislation. Duchy Trachtenberg got sixty percent of her funding for her elections campaign from out of the county. [more irrelevant stuff about Trachtenberg's donations] ... and we believe that hiring a Dana, to have Dana, a transgender, you know, in the County Council offices every day, was also a very deliberate move.

MATT BARBER: Now, Dana Beyer is a man who perceives himself as a woman, correct?

THERESA RICKMAN: I believe Dana has gone, undergone a sex change operation.

MATT BARBER: Well, he's still a man who's essentially altered his physical appearance --

MARTHA KLEDER: through plastic surgery --

MATT BARBER: Plastic surgery and considers himself a woman. Well this gentleman, I understand that he lied ...

And for the rest of the interview, these hateful people referred to Dana as "he." You know, Dana's my friend, and this is reprehensible. Even Theresa had the decency to refer to Dana as "she" and explain that she has had the surgery. To listen to this recording, to hear this guy's voice, just turns my stomach. Why did the director of the Citizens for Whatever go along with this? It's not a hard question: this is the way they feel. At the bottom of this referendum effort is a loathing of transgender people, a refusal to accept them as human beings, a need to mock them.

But here's the interesting part. A while back, a man in a dress went into a gym at Rio. He signed in, went to the ladies locker-room, and came out again. Channel Seven responded immediately with a breathless acount. We found out later that Theresa Rickman was actually in the lobby of the gym when this happened, but the Citizens for Whatever have consistently denied that the event was staged.

Until now.

MARTHA KLEDER: Well Theresa, I also heard that someone tried to test this. Was there some event where a transgender or a shemale or someone tried to use the opposite sex bathroom?

THERESA RICKMAN: Yes, at Rio Sport and Health up in Germantown. A guy dressed as a girl went into the ladies bathroom. And, ah you know, essentially what uh, that was meant to get some media attention, you know, and the guy left immediately apparently, I mean but there was, this is the Rio Sport and Health Club, you know and Sport and Health has steam rooms, and there are ladies changing in those locker rooms, people in various stages of undress [laughing] all the time, so there's lots a guy can see.

Yes, that is just what we were saying: this was meant to get some media attention. Greta Kreuz from Channel Seven sent an email saying she was "offended by suggestions that this incident was fabricated by this group and that Channel 7 got sucked into reporting it as part of an 'agenda.'" We don't know if she was fooled by it, or if she was part of the plan in the first place, but Channel Seven was the only outlet to tell their public about this "test of the new law."