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Jun 6, 2013
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More bad publicity? Even made it to the news in the actual Old Country.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4998980/Transgender-woman-denied-access-theme-park-skirt.html

- A transgender woman was denied access to Busch Gardens theme park for wearing a skirt a security guard deemed to be 'a costume'

- The woman's girlfriend, Bria Gibson, said she was visibly upset over the incident

-The pair were excited to attend the theme park's seasonal Halloween event, 'Howl-o-Scream' before they were asked to leave the park

-Busch Gardens has a dress code which says visitors are not permitted to wear costumes in the venue

- After taking up the matter with the guest relations department, Gibson decided to swap her shorts with her girlfriend's skirt - which finally allowed them entry
 
So either the guard saw a "man" wearing a skirt and thought "oh that's a person in a costume" or else that skirt was hideous. Even so is there some basic briefing these guards receive on how to deal with the general public and any sort of 'special circumstances' they may encounter? You know, besides the news?
 
Well, if BGW security had access to full body scanners, they could easily tell which genitalia each guest had and whether or not their dress was appropriate for their gender.
 
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Unagi said:
The security guards are complete fucking idiots if they think that she was wearing a costume.

Agreed.

However that skirt, those shoes, and white socks?  She might want to rethink that combo.  (Sorry bad attempt at a joke)
 
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Ok so I'm going to try to be as sensitive as possible here:

We don't know how along in transition this woman is, or if she's even on anything like hormones. My friend who transitioned tried to avoid places that had security checks early in her transition if she wanted to dress up, or went in here "tomboy" look (for her that meant still makeup, but jeans and a feminine fitting button up top) because she new it was possible that people would see what she was doing as something else.

Not trying to take any blame away from the guard because that is a really messed up thing to do, and really embarrassing for that woman.

Basically what I'm trying to say is look in the mirror before you go and don't give them a reason to put you in that situation. Especially since this is the 2nd (3rd?) incident this summer there which I kinda think could have been avoided by both sides.
 
I'm having trouble with the fact that the outfit, however terrible it may have been, was acceptable for the other member of the party. WTF. Is there truth in this situation, or has it been 'dramatized'?
 
MAZ said:
I'm having trouble with the fact that the outfit, however terrible it may have been, was acceptable for the other member of the party. WTF. Is there truth in this situation, or has it been 'dramatized'?

In my experience it's always somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't be shocked if something was said, but it was respectful, she was disturbed but not as upset as it's been made to sound, and they park offered an option to make it work so they could enjoy their day.

One thing I'll say I noticed, BGW employees seem to do a good job at keeping everything gender neutral and not using "he/she/sir/miss/mam" all that often. They seem to use the "you/them" when talk to people.
 
I’m not sure what is baffling? They insisted that the girlfriend, who was born female, wear the skirt, and the transgender, who was born male, wear the shorts. It is inexcusable to claim it was a costume in my opinion, regardless of how the dictum was presented.

Here is another report of the event.
 
So I've seen this couple inside the park. The transgender woman was wearing the skirt. Hopefully that means they were only slightly inconvienced.  What gets me though was that there was a woman around the park wearing this outfit, wig and all.

deluxe-suicide-squad-harley-quinn-costume.jpg


Security has some real issues they need to get straight in regards to the costumes.  Maybe have some official guidelines as opposed to the biases of whoever is assigned to the front gate that day.
 
Why oh why are security guards given sole discretion as to who is allowed to enter the park? Why do guards who question the attire of a guest not contact someone in a higher position to carefully evaluate the rules and repercussions before making a decision? Why, after this has generated such bad publicity for the park countless times in the past, are mere lineworkers still the be-all and end-all for choosing whether to cast someone's $70 park ticket into the wind?
 
Nicole said:
Honestly, it isn't fair to the security guards to be put in that position either.

Also, I would point out that this type of thing has happened before.  So, clearly there is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed.

Well said. Add in that we're in Halloween time so there's the "is this how they normally dress or is this a costume" question in the guards heads. Next up is the issue of the rising tensions in America in general. You got some potentially questionable situations even without someone transgender coming through the gate.

Hard for a security guard to be in that position.
 
Pretzel Kaiser said:
So I've seen this couple inside the park. The transgender woman was wearing the skirt. Hopefully that means they were only slightly inconvienced.  What gets me though was that there was a woman around the park wearing this outfit, wig and all.

deluxe-suicide-squad-harley-quinn-costume.jpg


Security has some real issues they need to get straight in regards to the costumes.  Maybe have some official guidelines as opposed to the biases of whoever is assigned to the front gate that day.

Incidentally I'm going as a genderbent Harley Quinn for Halloween this year!
 
Merboy said:
So either the guard saw a "man" wearing a skirt and thought "oh that's a person in a costume" or else that skirt was hideous. Even so is there some basic briefing these guards receive on how to deal with the general public and any sort of 'special circumstances' they may encounter? You know, besides the news?

There is the 3rd and or 4th options. The security guard is just a bigot and or has an aggressive personality. This is hardly the first, second, or even 3rd documented time we have where a member of the BGW security department has a completely unnecessary jerks and aggressive. That's not to say all of them are like this, certainly many if not most are lovely people. But it only takes 1 sociopath to ruin your day, party, trip to Big Ben, whatever.

Given what I have seen the past few weeks, I would not put much past anyone.
 
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