Free Republic

Starbucks is reversing its open-door policy after almost seven years, now requiring that people make a purchase if they want to hang out at its coffee shops or use its restrooms. The coffee giant said on Monday that a new code of conduct – which will be posted in all company-owned North American stores – will also ban discrimination or harassment, consumption of outside alcohol, smoking, vaping, drug use and panhandling. The new rules reverse an open-door policy put in place in 2018, after two Black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks where they had gone for a business...

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is doubling down after proposing to prevent biological men from using women’s facilities at the U.S. Capitol, introducing the Stop the Invasion of Women’s Spaces Act. This measure goes beyond preventing biological men from using women’s facilities at the U.S. Capitol, blocking them from using single-sex spaces for women — restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms — at all federally-funded facilities. “This includes public schools and universities, national parks, government buildings, healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics, public housing and shelters, and transportation hubs like airports, train stations, and bus terminals,” a press release from...

A cruel government official absolutely brutalized and devastated some journalists this week, in a horrifying showdown that the New York Times op-ed writer M Gessen bravely describes this morning: Shortly before allowing reporters into the main chamber of the Supreme Court for oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a court employee asked us all if we needed to use a bathroom. The men’s room was right next door, the staff member said, and the women’s room down the hall. “Where should nonbinary people go?” one of the reporters asked. An uncomfortable back-and-forth followed. The staff person seemed not to...

I realize that South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is an attention-hungry partisan, trying to make a name for herself as a culture warrior by demonizing the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.And I understand that giving Mace’s proposal to ban transgender women from women’s bathrooms in the Capitol any oxygen is probably just what she wants.But I also don’t think it’s wise to allow her fear-mongering and demonizing to go unanswered.Earlier this month, voters in the state of Delaware did something momentous: They elected Democrat Sarah McBride, a transgender woman, to the House of Representatives. At...

Did the Democrats learn anything from the 2024 results? I think that it’s fair to say that voters sent a clear message on issues like men in women’s bathrooms or competing against their daughters.Enter Rep. Nancy Mace, who doesn’t want a man in the women’s room even if the person in question is a “trans woman” elected in Delaware. Well, here is the story:Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Tuesday that her effort to ban transgender women from using female bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol is a direct response to the election of Sarah McBride, who is set to be the...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sidestepped any specifics Tuesday when asked about Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who will be the first transgender member of the House, amid an effort by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to ban transgender women from single-sex facilities such as women’s restrooms in the Capitol. “We welcome all members with open arms who are newly elected representatives of the people. I believe it’s a — it’s a command. We treat all persons with dignity and respect,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday when asked about McBride. “And I’m not going to engage in silly debates about this,”...

In a district where 92 percent of people voted for Kamala Harris, fury and despair have arguably never been better business. In Washington, D.C., ‘rage rooms’—facilities where customers can pay a modest fee to take out their frustrations on helpless plates, cups, and glass bottles—have enjoyed a noticeable uptick in demand since Donald Trump’s victory in the election last week. “On a typical night, we will get from seven to nine reservations for the rage room,” Ray Page, general manager at Kraken in the Penn Quarter, told The Washington Post on Friday. “Tonight since the election we’re up to 17....

By September 1, the school administration demanded that toilet paper, napkins, and liquid soap be brought in. The mayor's office conducted an inspection and stated that this was unacceptable. A shopping list was given to parents of students at School No. 38. It included liquid soap, at least 200 napkins, two rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, and copy paper. It was noted that all purchases had to be put in a separate bag and signed. The parents were not told what purposes this was all being collected for. The press service of the Petrozavodsk administration told Pod’yom that...

Weird how we never hear about men's toilets or locker rooms becoming gender-neutral or 'unisex', isn't it? Only women's locker rooms and bathrooms must be converted to accommodate men who think they're women. In Brisbane, girls are afraid to use the bathroom -- a basic and necessary biological function -- because the now unisex spaces are populated with boys loitering outside and urinating in waste bins. But suck it up, young ladies. Can't make a man feel unsafe or unwelcome. Why were the girls facilities converted to “gender neutral”? Why is it the girls who lose out? Who thought it...

That’s relieving news. City lawmakers are aiming to solve an all-too-common problem of not knowing where to go when you’ve got to go — which plagues tourists and locals alike — with a bill to add thousands of new thrones to the Big Apple within the next 12 years. If passed, the plan introduced by Brooklyn Councilmember Sandy Nurse on Thursday would amend the city’s charter and require the government to build a four-year plan of “establishing and maintaining a public bathroom network,” Hell Gate NYC reported. “This is really an issue of equity and justice. It’s been a long...

MILFORD, N.H. — A debate over the Milford School District's bathroom policies is continuing after a temporary fix is not sitting well with students or parents. Monday night, the school board voted to limit the number of students who use restrooms and locker rooms to the number of private stalls that exist in the restroom. With trash bags now covering urinals, students and parents said the new policy isn't a good fix, and school leaders said it's affecting students' work in the classroom. "None of us actually asked for any sort of change," said high school student Marelyn Bergin. "The...

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is requiring all schools in the district to adopt new signage in an effort to make restrooms gender-neutral. The initiative, which CPS is referring to as a "big step forward for gender equity," requires the schools to display language outside of restrooms informing students, whether they are male or female, that they may use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. "We’re requiring all schools to adopt new signage to make our restrooms more inclusive," CPS wrote in a tweet announcing the change. "This is a big step forward for gender equity for our students...

Ann Arbor will require all public restrooms in the city to carry menstrual products under a new ordinance that takes effect in January. It means pads and tampons, as well as soap and toilet paper, will have to be available for free in every public restroom throughout the Michigan city. "We as a society, for too long, have not taken menstruation seriously," Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor told NPR. "Access to menstrual products is a fundamental human necessity." Some U.S. states and cities already supply free menstrual products at certain locations, such as school and homeless shelters, but Taylor said...

Mark Vincent Busenbark, a middle-aged man with a cross-dressing alter ego he calls Vica Steel, has been creating intellectual and moral havoc in Frank Allis Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin for a year. Last school year, Busenbark, a science teacher, created a creepy video about his creepy predilection for cross-dressing and pretending to be sometimes a man and sometimes a woman. Then, with the permission of his administration, he presumptuously showed his creepy “coming out” video to all K-5 students without their parents’ knowledge or consent. In this video, he describes in biased language his disordered and delusional view of...

The plot to storm the girls’ bathroom started with a Snapchat message and ended with a knee to the crotch. It all went down at North Pole High School in North Pole, Alaska — a small, Christmas-loving city southeast of Fairbanks — on the morning of April 4. The snap at issue: a student transitioning from female to male posted a selfie from the boys’ bathroom. Some boys at the high school who saw the selfie, however, were angry and decided they would walk into the girls’ bathroom to take their own Snapchat selfie “as a form of protest,” Fairbanks...

The liberal bastion of Massachusetts is sweating over a ballot initiative that could overturn a 2016 law that opened women's public restrooms to men. Bay State voters will see several issues on their ballot in November, including the results of an underdog, grassroots effort to fight the bill signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker. The grassroots effort, begun by 21 people just weeks after Baker signed the bill, meant collecting 50,000 signatures in 45 days. Yet the group now known as Keep MA Safe successfully gathered enough certified signatures by the deadline, and that effort is listed as Question...

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Montclair Public School District is rolling out a new initiative this year: "all-gender restrooms" in each building. Superintendent Kendra Johnson alerted local parents and guardians about the restroom changes as part of a "Welcome Back" letter sent at the beginning of the school year. According to Johnson, 2018-19 will be the first year that the district has at least one "all-gender" restroom in each school building.

Starbucks announced a new policy Saturday that allows anyone to sit in its cafés or use its restrooms, even if they don’t buy anything. The new policy comes five weeks after two black men who hadn’t bought anything were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks. Company executives have said its previous policies were loose and ambiguous, leaving decisions on whether people could sit in its stores or use the restroom up to store managers. […] The company said anyone can use its cafés, patios or restrooms without buying anything, but it noted workers should still call the police if someone is...

Customers are not only paying for the coffee; they are paying for the heat and air conditioning, tables, accessible WiFi and bathrooms. Partners are paid to keep the place clean and comfortable for customers who spend literal hours studying, working, and holding meetings in the store. It seems like a fair trade to me. It doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me, however, if I pay $5 for my drink and then have to wait in line with a bunch of random tourists who just walked in wanting to use the single-family bathroom without buying anything. It also doesn’t...

CALGARY, Alberta - Canadian law enforcement officials have ruled out foul play in the death of a man whose body was found Monday inside the wall of a restroom at a mall in Calgary. The Calgary Herald reported that the man was found after a worker was called to fix a toilet that wouldn’t flush in a fourth-floor women’s restroom in the Core Shopping Centre food court. The worker removed a panel of the wall and found the body. Officials with the Calgary Police Service said that the unnamed man, who was in his 20s, entered the restroom the Friday...