I hadn't seen this anywhere until just a few minutes ago. This is all the more shocking because there have been other attacks on LGBT at fast food franchises recently. The woman is kicked repeatedly, even in the head, and dragged across the floor.
In terms of descriptions for the Baltimore attack, "absolutely disgusting" seems pretty apt:
After an unidentified transwoman tried to use the bathroom at a Baltimore McDonald's, two patrons started attacking her in full view of other customers and employees. What did the employees do? They filmed it on their phones.
While you can see the manager yelling stop at the two women attacking the customer, none of the other employees even try to intervene or keep the women from dragging the victim across the restaurant floor. Instead, it's the elderly female customer that seems to do the most to help. The manager and employees simply watch as the victim starts to have a seizure and offer no help whatsoever.
You can let McDonalds know how you feel about their employees reprehensible actions - especially since they filmed it and promptly put it on the internet to degrade the victim further.
The video is after the jump. Trigger Warning: The video is extremely violent.
UPDATE: County police have confirmed that the attack happened April 18 at a McDonald's in Rosedale, in the 6300 block of Kenwood Ave. Two suspects have been arrested. Details after the jump.
[UPDATED WITH VID, hat tip to Dreaming of Better Days]
It gets worse:
Toward the end of the video, one of the suspects lands a punishing blow to the victim's head, and she appears to have a seizure. A man's voice tells the women to run because police are coming.
Someone is beaten until she is shaking, and the attackers are advised to run from the police...
The video is available at the same site. Not sure how to embed. Anyone?
http://www.bilerico.com/...
I am getting really frustrated with the coverage of inequality issues on Daily Kos. All forms of inequality--ability, age, race, ethnic, class, gender, sexual, religious, et cet--are stemming from our ideology, which is mostly economic or economic-related. All of these isms, these discriminations are features of it, imo. These violent attacks are but symptoms, sporadic and shocking episodes out of a Harold Pinter drama, amidst a long, slow, tedious drumbeat of oppression in manifold forms.
We have been trained to see humans in certain ways, we have constructed outside the lines of what biology tells us about male and female and we see brutality for those who do not conform. Our concepts of gender and even sex are then ossified according to economic notions, division of labor and even spiritually reinforced. We need to destroy these ideologies, not permit them tacitly. Better to destroy cherished notions than to watch the destruction of more people.
That said, there are protections in place for transpeople in a number of states--we need to be an ally community and urge for more protections. But even in states with protections, this episode and others like it will continue to be the threat foisted over transpeople's heads.
UPDATE
It's looking like this may be racially-motivated, and that the attackers may not have known the victim was transgendered. I know that there are at times really nasty fights between women. There seems to be a lot of ambiguity. Our culture of "fighting" in this country needs to be dealt with differently. h/t to Lucien Sanchez
UPDATE h/t to psychodrew
McDonald's employee originally claimed that the victim had been told to not use the women's bathroom, then attacked. So the type of hate crime here seems to not be in so much doubt. What's with the local authorities?
Again, I urge that we destroy these inhumane ideologies. These ideologies lead to the killing of people.
UPDATE: Deoliver47 has more information on the victim, named Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, who previously was convicted for, among other things, prostitution:
I'm not as shocked as some folks are here - since years of work with women and gay men with an arrest history for street prostitution has shown me that no one really cares about sex workers - cis or trans - the abuse and violence happens daily. This happened to be video taped.
Watch what will happen now - her arrest record will be used against her. I've gone to court with clients who have been burned, cut-up, beaten, hospitalized -- and no one - even family members has given a shit (excuse my strong language)
Btw - "if" it is true that the victim is a sex worker - I'd like to point out that McDonald's and other fast food joints are some of the only places that street sex workers can find a bathroom. Period.
Some cities have support services - I don't know about B-More - my work was mostly done in NY and PR with groups like Frost'd.
http://frostd.org/....
The question will also be raised about the identity and occupation of the perps.
To turn this simply into a racial incident will be easy - on the part of many. I just read the comments sections of the few articles I could find - toxic.
The transphobia is also clear(in comments sections) A right wing website which I won't link to is already taking a different tack - its okay that this happened because the victim does not have a clean rap sheet.
You have to be the Holy Virgin Mary (no disrespect to Christians meant) in cases of rape/violence against women before you can get sympathy (and convictions).