The Liberty Hotel, a luxury hotel in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, has publicly apologized for ejecting a lesbian couple after a security guard mistook one of the women for a man and objected to them being in the women’s restroom.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) announced that the hotel has agreed to resolve discrimination complaints arising from the incident. Under the proposed settlement, Liberty must make a $10,000 charitable donation to LGBTQ organizations, update its anti-discrimination policies and management training, post an anti-discrimination statement in its lobby, and issue a formal apology to Ansley Baker and his girlfriend, Liz Victor. go magazine.
In May, Baker and Victor were attending a Kentucky Derby-themed event at a hotel when they went into the bathroom. While they were inside, a security guard entered the women’s room, banged on the cubicle door, and shouted, “Men are not allowed.”
Baker, who has a more masculine gender expression, said the security guard accused her of being a “man in the women’s room” and asked her to show her ID to prove she was a woman.
In a Google review of the hotel that circulated online before being deleted, Victor described the couple’s humiliating treatment by security, noting that Baker was removed from the event despite identifying as a woman.
The Liberty Hotel initially claimed that “several women” had complained about “two adults sharing a bathroom” and that one of the women had “interfered with our security team,” but Baker and Victor denied the accusations. The hotel has since suspended the security guard, who is no longer on duty, but has not retracted his original statement.
MCAD said the women were “stereotyped, harassed and removed from the hotel” and later retaliated against when Liberty released a statement suggesting wrongdoing.
“These outrageous incidents at the Liberty Hotel have left these two women emotionally shaken, humiliated and deeply distressed,” MCAD President Sunila Thomas George said in a statement. statement. “They were denied service, humiliated in front of other hotel guests, and falsely accused of acts they did not commit. This is not only degrading, but unjust under Massachusetts civil rights law.”
Mark Fisher, general manager of the Liberty Hotel, apologized directly to the couple in a statement Monday, saying, “We deeply regret that our initial comments may have given an unintended impression about Ms. Ansley and Liz’s actions. That was not our intention.”
Fisher added that the hotel “will learn from this incident and do everything in its power to ensure this never happens again.”
Despite the settlement, Baker and Victor plan to file a civil lawsuit against the hotel. Their attorney, Lenny Kesten, said: go They will hold the Liberal Party accountable for what he called “false statements.”
“They lied repeatedly,” Kesten said. “The hotel attacked Ansley and Liz for malicious reasons to cover up security misconduct. They attacked them with a statement that required executive approval. Once we find out who did this, we will publish their names.”
The couple told Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV that they are pursuing the lawsuit to prevent similar incidents from happening to others in the future.
“I think this means just as much to both of us, and I think it means just as much to a lot of other people,” Baker told the station, adding that she felt the hotel had failed to hold anyone accountable for releasing a statement accusing it of wrongdoing.
Victor added: “We are now in a position to hold these people accountable and make a difference going forward.”
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
