{"id":46067,"date":"2025-08-12T23:36:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46067"},"modified":"2025-08-12T23:37:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:37:37","slug":"minnesota-teen-says-server-forced-her-to-prove-her-gender-in-restaurant-bathroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46067","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota teen says server forced her to prove her gender in restaurant bathroom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Minnesota teenager filed a charge of discrimination<\/a> against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant Tuesday, alleging a server followed her into the women\u2019s restroom and demanded she \u201cprove\u201d she was a girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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: \u201cThis is a women\u2019s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,\u201d according to Gender Justice, a Minnesota gender-equality organization that filed the charge on Mudra\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mudra, a biracial lesbian who isn\u2019t transgender, said that she has been in similar situations before, when people have suggested she\u2019s in the wrong restroom, but that when she tells them she\u2019s a woman they leave her alone. However, when she came out of the stall at Buffalo Wild Wings and told the server, \u201cI am a lady,\u201d she said, the server responded, \u201cYou have to get out now,\u201d Gender Justice said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mudra said she felt she had to prove to the server that she is a woman, so she unzipped her hoodie to show she has breasts. The server didn\u2019t say anything in response but left the restroom, Mudra said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe made me feel very uncomfortable,\u201d Mudra said. \u201cAfter that, I just don\u2019t like going in public bathrooms. I just hold it in. … I want to be able to use the bathroom in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspire Brands, which represents Buffalo Wild Wings, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender Justice filed the charge of discrimination with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, arguing that what happened to Mudra violates the state\u2019s Human Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, among other protected statuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said at a news conference Tuesday that even though Mudra isn\u2019t trans, the server\u2019s actions \u201cwere based on assumptions that she made about\u201d Mudra, and that Minnesota\u2019s law protects against discrimination based on stereotypes or assumptions about protected characteristics like gender identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusinesses have a legal obligation not to just have antidiscrimination policies on paper, but to train staff and ensure that those policies are followed in real time,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cWhen that doesn\u2019t happen, the business is liable for the harm caused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender Justice said Mudra\u2019s experience \u201creflects a broader climate of fear and suspicion aimed at anyone who doesn\u2019t conform to narrow expectations of what girls and women \u2018should\u2019 look like.\u201d 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 hasn\u2019t enacted any such legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nineteen states have laws that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms<\/a> 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<\/a> prohibit trans people from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before such laws, trans people had long reported facing harassment in public restrooms<\/a> and avoided using them as a result. There have been several reports this year of women who aren\u2019t transgender alleging harassment in public restrooms because they were suspected of being trans, including at the U.S. Capitol in January<\/a>, Phoenix in February<\/a>, Florida in March<\/a> and Boston in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis kind of gender policing is, unfortunately, nothing new,\u201d Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice, said in a statement. \u201cAnd yet, in our current climate we have to ask: What if Gerika had been a trans person? Would this story have ended differently? That\u2019s the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> 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 don\u2019t have explicit protections from discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Minnesota teenager filed a charge of discrimination against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant Tuesday, alleging a server followed her into the women\u2019s restroom and demanded she \u201cprove\u201d 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[3160,1875,1196,4083,6008],"class_list":["post-46067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-discrimination","tag-girl","tag-minnesota","tag-restaurant","tag-waiter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46071,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46067\/revisions\/46071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}