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A group of transgender women hoped to spend last Friday night celebrating their participation in Downtown L.A.’s Proud fest. Instead, they became targets of a suspected hate crime.
Transgender staff and a gay man from Bienestar Human Services were forcibly ejected from the bar Las Perlas after a couple reportedly started verbally railing on them, hurling transphobic slurs their way.
Los Angeles Police Officer Drake Madison says the harassment, which occurred around 10pm, soon devolved into an altercation. However, local LGBTQ community members claim the incident really turned sour when security at Las Perlas grabbed the victims and aggressively forced them to exit the bar. Video posted to social media shows guards dragging the trans women toward the entrance.
“Don’t touch me like that!” one woman cries in the video before she is pushed into a wall. She is pulled out, begging staff to let her grab her shoe.
Another woman sitting at a table is grabbed by her neck and dragged to the door in a chokehold. She stares baffled into the camera. “What happened?” she asks.
Madison tells NewNowNext that even after the trans women were thrown out of the bar, other patrons continued to harass them.
“Once outside the bar, [the suspect] threatened to shoot the manager and all transgender individuals in the bar,” Madison adds. “It is being investigated as a hate crime.”
However, Madison could not say if the LAPD was investigating the bar itself.
On Saturday, LGBTQ community members protested Las Perlas for ejecting the women and called for a boycott of the bar. The fallout echoes a similar incident last year in D.C., where HRC Rapid Response Press Secretary Charlotte Clymer was forcibly removed from a restaurant for refusing to provide an ID before using a women’s bathroom. In January, a judge fined the restaurant, Cuba Libre, $7,000 for discriminating against Clymer.
Later, Las Perlas’ team apologized for the incident on its social media. Management claimed it has fired its security company and is looking for community organizations to partner with to train its staff.
“This incident is not in alignment with who we are, and our intent is to prove this in action and deed, not words and hyperbole,” they wrote. “ Thank you for giving us this chance.”
The bar also said it would donate its profits from the weekend following the altercation to Bienestar Human Services.
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