Summary
Walmart fired Dani Davis, a 6’4" cisgender woman, after a man who mistook her for transgender verbally threatened her in a women’s restroom at a Florida store.
Davis, visibly shaken, reported the March 14 incident to her immediate supervisor but was fired for not informing salaried management, allegedly creating a “security risk.”
Davis called the firing discriminatory. After viral backlash, Walmart offered to reinstate her with back pay.
Davis, a longtime employee, is uncertain about returning, citing fears of a hostile work environment.
Is it really worth drawing significant attention to? It may feel nice as a gotcha but I really feel the emphasis should be that trans rights are worth protecting for their own sake
Yeah it’s the same as “the patriarchy hurts men too”. It is worth pointing out in the sense that if some people aren’t free then no-one is free, but it also feels like we shouldn’t have to and we take the focus away from the ones that are most hurt.
I think it’s worth pointing out because so many people are selfish, bigoted assholes.
I’m Black and Queer. The fact is that the majority of ⚪ people don’t give the slightest fuck whether I live or die. (And don’t #NotAllWhites at me. I didn’t say “all”.) That’s why writers always kill the Black person first in movies. That’s why people watch so much torture porn of cops beating and killing us.
You are absolutely 100% correct. Trans people should be worth protecting for our own sake. I don’t know how to convince people that we’re humans too, but if people stopped killing us only because it hurts their wives and sisters too, I’ll take it.
They are. But by pointing out that it hurts cis people too we attempt to move it from “it’s a shame that they treat you like that” to an understanding that transphobic rhetoric may hurt them or other cis people in their lives. Because the fact is, most cis people who love a trans person have maybe one or two of us in their lives. Some have a lot, but we’re a small minority that’s spread out. And maybe you love your cousin you see every few years, but are you going to riot so they can take a peaceful crap in a public restroom?
I don’t mean it as a gotcha. Clearly too many people don’t care about the rights and dignity of other people unless it affects them. I wish they did, but the current political climate makes it clear that they don’t.
So I think this is worth bringing up to people about any social justice issue. Racism and nativism are used to control white workers. Patriarchy hurts men. Transphobia hurts cisgender people.
However, it is crucial to communicate to people that these ideologies are fundamentally bad and need to be abolished or else people can walk away thinking “We need to implement transphobia the ‘right’ way so it stops hurting cis people.”