Go with the old tried and true.
Posted on 08/12/2025 3:09:11 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The 18-year-old high school student alleged the server would not let her exit the Buffalo Wild Wings restroom until she unzipped her hoodie and showed she had breasts.
A Minnesota teen filed a charge of discrimination against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant on Tuesday after she alleged that a server followed her into the women’s restroom and demanded she “prove” she was a girl.
Gerika Mudra, 18, went to dinner in April with a friend in Owatonna, about an hour south of Minneapolis. When she went to the restroom, a server followed her inside and banged on the stall door while saying, “This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,” according to Gender Justice, a Minnesota gender-equality organization that filed the charge on Mudra’s behalf.
Gerika Mudra, 18, says she was harassed by a server who accused her of being a boy in the girls' bathroom.Gender Justice Mudra, a biracial lesbian who is not transgender, said she’s been in similar situations before, where people have suggested she’s in the wrong restroom, but when she tells them she’s a woman they leave her alone. However, when she came out of the stall at Buffalo Wild Wings and told the server, “I am a lady,” she said the server responded, “You have to get out now,” according to a statement shared by Gender Justice.
Islamic court in Indonesia sentences 2 men to public caning after they were caught hugging and kissing Mudra said she had to prove to the server that she is a woman by unzipping her hoodie to show she has breasts. The server didn’t say anything in response but left the restroom, Mudra said.
“She made me feel very uncomfortable,” Mudra said. “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.”
Inspire Brands, which represents Buffalo Wild Wings, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gender Justice filed the charge of discrimination with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, arguing that what happened to Mudra violates the state’s Human Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, among other protected classes.
Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said at a news conference Tuesday that even though Mudra is not trans, the server’s actions “were based on assumptions that she made about” Mudra, and Minnesota’s law protects against discrimination based on stereotypes or assumptions about protected characteristics like gender identity.
“Businesses have a legal obligation not to just have anti-discrimination policies on paper, but to train staff and ensure that those policies are followed in real time,” Baldwin said. “When that doesn’t happen, the business is liable for the harm caused.”
Gender Justice said Mudra’s experience “reflects a broader climate of fear and suspicion aimed at anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow expectations of what girls and women ‘should’ look like.” That suspicion has been driven largely by the wave of state legislation targeting trans people, particularly their access to school sports and bathrooms that align with their gender identities, though Minnesota has not enacted any such legislation.
Nineteen states have laws that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities in K-12 schools, and in many of those states the restrictions apply to other government-owned buildings as well, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Twenty-seven states have laws that prohibit trans people from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities.
Even prior to such laws, trans people have long reported facing harassment in public restrooms and avoided using them as a result. There have been several reports this year of women who are not transgender alleging harassment in public restrooms because they were suspected of being trans, including at the U.S. Capitol in January, Phoenix in February, Florida in March and Boston in May.
“This kind of gender policing is, unfortunately, nothing new,” Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice, said in a statement. “And yet, in our current climate we have to ask: What if Gerika had been a trans person? Would this story have ended differently? That’s the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.”
Even if Mudra had been trans, she would be able to file a discrimination complaint under state law in Minnesota, which is one of 21 states and Washington, D.C., that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public accommodations, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Two states explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation only, and six additional states interpret existing measures against discrimination based on sex to also include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Twenty-one states do not have explicit protections from discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.
I'm sure this wasn't a bare chest inspection.
If I were 13 today, I would be using that line on girls.
Owatonna
Isn’t there a practical joke involving that word?
“Repeat this real fast: Owatonna Siam.”
Over zealous zealots should not be enforcers of good ideas.
“I’m sure this wasn’t a bare chest inspection”
Don’t be too sure. Was Laz working?
She looks like a dude, Jim.
I’m afraid she does have a somewhat ambiguous appearance. I’ve seen young men that were very similar. However, she should’ve had an ID on her that should suffice.
If you don’t want to be treated as a man, then do not be so damn BUTCH.
Gee, things were so much simpler in the old days... Sigh
Exactly.
Yup. People show themselves as they want to be seen. You can’t get “righteous angry” when people take you for what you yourself have decided to appear as.
Photo looks like a girl
Interesting that I read through the entire article, and it did not say the enforcer was male or female.
wy69
From the Dakota language.
Looks like a girl to me, too; and a cute one.
The horror, the horror.
Prove it happened.
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