As I keep repeating these bathroom bills hurt cis women because it is based solely on how someone looks to some other people. If as in this case a cis woman did not look feminine enough for the server and so this woman was forced to show her breasts. How is that feminism work going TERF people. These bathroom bills and the hype of fake false stories of danger to women only make all women less safe. See now people that look like men legally might have to use a female’s bathroom, so all a cis man has to say is he is trans and they can legally be in the woman’s bathroom. Same for any female that wants to go into the men’s room only needs to claim to be a trams women. All due to hate and bigotry making a problem where none existed. Think of it, the only assaults I have heard about in female restrooms is from cis people attacking cis females because they think they are trans. Hugs
The 18-year-old high school student said she unzipped her hoodie to show she had breasts after a Buffalo Wild Wings server didn’t believe she is a woman.
A Minnesota teenager filed a charge of discrimination against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant Tuesday, alleging a server followed her into the women’s restroom and demanded she “prove” she was a girl.
Gerika Mudra, 18, went to dinner in April with a friend in Owatonna, about an hour south of Minneapolis. When she went to the restroom, a server followed her inside and banged on the stall door while saying: “This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,” according to Gender Justice, a Minnesota gender-equality organization that filed the charge on Mudra’s behalf.
Gerika Mudra, 18, says she was harassed by a server who accused her of being a boy in the girls’ bathroom.Gender Justice
Mudra, a biracial lesbian who isn’t transgender, said that she has been in similar situations before, when people have suggested she’s in the wrong restroom, but that when she tells them she’s a woman they leave her alone. However, when she came out of the stall at Buffalo Wild Wings and told the server, “I am a lady,” she said, the server responded, “You have to get out now,” Gender Justice said in a statement.
Mudra said she felt she had to prove to the server that she is a woman, so she unzipped her hoodie to show she has breasts. The server didn’t say anything in response but left the restroom, Mudra said.
“She made me feel very uncomfortable,” Mudra said. “After that, I just don’t like going in public bathrooms. I just hold it in. … I want to be able to use the bathroom in peace.”
Inspire Brands, which represents Buffalo Wild Wings, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Buffalo Wild Wings in Owatonna, Minn.Google Maps
Gender Justice filed the charge of discrimination with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, arguing that what happened to Mudra violates the state’s Human Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, among other protected statuses.
Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said at a news conference Tuesday that even though Mudra isn’t trans, the server’s actions “were based on assumptions that she made about” Mudra, and that Minnesota’s law protects against discrimination based on stereotypes or assumptions about protected characteristics like gender identity.
“Businesses have a legal obligation not to just have antidiscrimination policies on paper, but to train staff and ensure that those policies are followed in real time,” Baldwin said. “When that doesn’t happen, the business is liable for the harm caused.”
Gender Justice said Mudra’s experience “reflects a broader climate of fear and suspicion aimed at anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow expectations of what girls and women ‘should’ look like.” That suspicion has been driven largely by the wave of state legislation targeting trans people, particularly their access to school sports and bathrooms that align with their gender identities, though Minnesota hasn’t enacted any such legislation.
Nineteen states have laws that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities in K-12 schools, and in many of those states the restrictions apply to other government-owned buildings, as well, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Twenty-seven states prohibit trans people from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities.
“This kind of gender policing is, unfortunately, nothing new,” Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice, said in a statement. “And yet, in our current climate we have to ask: What if Gerika had been a trans person? Would this story have ended differently? That’s the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.”
Even if Mudra had been trans, she would be able to file a discrimination complaint under state law in Minnesota, which is one of 21 states and Washington, D.C., that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public accommodations, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Two states explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation only, and six additional states interpret existing measures against discrimination based on sex to also include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Twenty-one states don’t have explicit protections from discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.
August 11, 1894 Federal troops forced some 1,200 jobless workers across the Potomac River and out of Washington, D.C. Jack London Led by an unemployed activist, “General” Charles “Hobo” Kelly, the jobless group’s “soldiers” included young journalist Jack London, known for writing about social issues, and miner/cowboy William ”Big Bill” Haywood who later organized western miners and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). “Big Bill” Haywood Read about “Big Bill”
August 11, 1958 A drugstore chain in Wichita, Kansas, agreed to serve all its customers after weeks of sit-ins at Dockum’s lunch counter by local African-Americans who wanted an end to segregation. On this day, as several black Wichitans were sitting at the counter even though the store refused to serve them, a white man around 40 walked in and looked at them for several minutes. Then he looked at the store manager and said, simply, “Serve them. I’m losing too much money.” He was the owner, Robert Dockum. That day the lawyer for the local NAACP branch called the company and was told by the a vice president ”he had instructed all of his managers, clerks, etc., to serve all people without regard to race, creed or color,” statewide. This was the first success of the sit-in movement which soon spread to Oklahoma City and other towns in Kansas, but is often thought to have started in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960.
August 11, 1984 Prior to his weekly radio address, unaware that the microphone was open and he was broadcasting, President Ronald Reagan joked, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” Many Americans and others throughout the world were concerned about the President’s apparently flippant attitude towards nuclear war at a time of increasing tension between the two major nuclear powers. Among other things, the U.S. had begun a major strategic arms buildup, adding many thousands of additional nuclear warheads along with a broad range of new delivery systems: long-range bombers including 100 B-1B stealth bombers and MX (10-warhead) ICBMs, considered first-strike weapons; intermediate-range missiles to be deployed in Europe; 3000 cruise missiles; and Trident nuclear submarines with sea-launched cruise missiles. Additionally, Reagan had proposed building the space-based Strategic Defense Initiative of anti-ballistic missiles, a destabilizing influence on the nuclear balance. The Nuclear Arms Control Legacy of Ronald Reagan
August 10, 1883 Adrian “Cap” Anson refused to field his visiting Chicago White Stockings team in an exhibition baseball game if the Toledo Mud Hens included star catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker in their lineup. Chicago’s Captain Anson, who grew up in slaveholding Iowa, said he wouldn’t share the diamond with a non-white player. After more than an hour’s delay, Charlie Morton, the Toledo manager, insisted that if Chicago forfeited the game, it would also lose its share of the gate receipts; Anson relented. Moses Fleetwood Walker Morton had not planned to have Walker catch due to injury, but insisted on putting him in at centerfield, despite Cap Anson’s objections.
August 10, 1948 Gay rights activist Harry Hay organized what later became the Mattachine Society (originally ~ Foundation), a groundbreaking 1950s gay rights organization. The group was named after the Mattachines, a medieval troupe of men who went village-to-village advocating social justice. Mattachine: Radical Roots of Gay Liberation
August 10, 1984 Two Plowshares activists, Barb Katt and John LaForge, damaged a guidance system for a Trident submarine with hammers at a Sperry plant in Minnesota. In sentencing them to six months’ probation, U.S. District Judge Miles W. Lord commented, “Why do we condemn and hang individual killers, while extolling the virtues of warmongers?” Barb Katt More on the Sperry Software Pair More plowshares actions
August 10, 1988 President George H.W. Bush signed legislation apologizing and compensating for the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. President Franklin Roosevelt had authorized the round-up of hundreds of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry, some of whom were American citizens, as security risks. Most lost all their property and were moved to relocation camps for the duration of the war (though not in Hawaii, then not yet a state, where public opposition would not allow it).
August 10, 1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
August 10, 2005 Mehmet Tarhan was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on two charges of “insubordination before command” and “insubordination before command for trying to escape from military service” because he refused to serve in the Turkish Army. He would not sign any paper, put on a uniform, nor allow his hair and beard to be cut. He went on two extended hunger strikes to protest his arrest and abuse while in Sivas Military Prison. War Resisters International has supported his efforts throughout his ordeal. He was released unexpectedly from prison after one year. Read more
Kennedy Center Honors could see some changes under Trump
The Kennedy Center has slightly delayed naming its list of annual lifetime achievement honorees until closer to the event in December, and the award itself, known for its rainbow-hued ribbon, may be redesigned in favor of a simpler version, sources familiar with the decisions told CBS News.
The announcement of the Kennedy Center Honors recipients, usually made annually in August, will happen in the next several weeks, one of the sources said.
Although some of the arts center’s staff and those who closely follow the event have worried the televised gala would be completely revamped and renamed in favor of a patriotic-sounding moniker, the Kennedy Center Honors name will remain untouched, sources said.
The rainbow theme won’t disappear entirely, but the ribbon for the lifetime achievement medallion will likely to be redesigned — possibly with a black or gold ribbon.
President Biden with 2022 Kennedy Center Honorees Amy Grant, Bono and The Edge of U2, and Gladys Knight during a reception at the White House on Dec. 4, 2022.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
The Honors weekend will be revamped, with a more streamlined schedule instead of multiple gatherings at the State Department, the White House and elsewhere, sources said. The events were expensive and time-consuming, and honorees sometimes skipped portions of the non-televised events.
After criticizing the Kennedy Center‘s artistic fare and its finances, President Trump earlier this year named himself as its chairman, longtime aide and supporter Richard Grenell as its president and several White House officials and Trump allies as board members. That triggered a number of artists to cancel performances and some staff members resigned.
The Kennedy Center Honors ceremony is directed and produced by CBS and airs on the network.
The size of the Kennedy Center’s development team has been severely downsized, several sources close to the matter said. That team has shrunk from more than 60 to less than 20, and some departments have been slashed altogether.
Giving by Democratic donors has collapsed, although aggressive fundraising has continued and has outpaced past years with more corporate sponsors, several sources said.
Grenell told CBS News: “I don’t want to lose a single Democratic donor. We’re working hard to keep them and expand the donor base. The arts should not be political.”
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump at The Kennedy Center for the opening night performance of “Les Misérables” on June 11, 2025.Craig Hudson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
During his first term, after several award recipients criticized him, Mr. Trump skipped the Honors shows, breaking a tradition of presidential attendance at the cultural venue.
President Biden attended during all four years of his term, including last year’s ceremony that recognized singer Bonnie Raitt, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, surviving members of the band the Grateful Dead, trumpet player Arturo Sandoval, and Harlem’s Apollo Theater.
Two of the sources said Grenell has been an effective organizer but is only occasionally at the Kennedy Center. One was critical of Grenell’s salary. Grenell started off taking zero salary and is now paid $175,000, sources said, which is less than the previous president, Deborah Rutter, whose salary topped $1 million, public tax records show.
Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center, declined to comment on Grenell’s salary or changes to the award design.
She said they’re not making changes to ceremony itself. “If anything,” she said, “it’s going to be more exciting.”
Again I keep saying this, it is a fundamentalist Christian attempt to remove all media featuring or talking about the LGBTQ+. They do not want LGBTQ+ children seeing themselves in media, in library books, but more important they do not want straight cis kids to read or see kids who are different who are accepted. They want kids to grow up thinking those LGBTQ+ kids are bad and need to be ostracized or harassed / threatened to be cis straight. They want to return to the society / schools of the 1950s. These people can not accept that other people and other cultures exist that are different from the way they feel or live. They want what Russia and Hungary did, outlaw being gay in public. Hugs
The Florida Department of Education has identified more than 50 books it says are no longer permitted in public schools across the state, citing inappropriate and pornographic content.
But some parents and advocacy groups are questioning whether the state should have the final say over what books are allowed in schools — including in Broward County.
A parent who spoke with Local 10’s Roy Ramos on Thursday with believes families should have input, and that local reviews should take place before books are removed.
“You will remove these 55 books,” said Stephana Ferrell, a parent and director of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, responding to the state’s recent directive.
The Department of Education’s list bans 55 titles from public school libraries statewide. Ferrell said the move overrides local input.
“Every district basically got that message that those 55 books violate the law according to the state. It doesn’t matter if local community standards say no, these books are okay for certain grades and we believe them to fit our community standards,” she said.
Local 10 obtained a copy of the banned list. Some of the titles were described by the state as pornographic and unsuitable for children.
Among them: Choke, This Book Is Gay, Forever, and Breathless.
Portions of these books contain graphic content, including descriptions of male genitalia, sexual acts and intercourse — some of which were too explicit to air on television.
“They are saying we can remove these books based on experts alone and it doesn’t matter what the literary value is,” Ferrell said. “They are making the argument that our school library are government speech and they can decide what is appropriate or not.”
Under current Florida law, parents may challenge books in their school district. Those challenges are then reviewed by a committee to determine whether the content is inappropriate.
Ferrell argues the state is bypassing that process entirely.
“I believe that you have to review these books in their entirety to determine whether or not the intent of the work is to sexually excite the reader,” she added. “There is no opportunity for local parents to get involved. “None of it matters. The state has decided for us.”
Broward County schools were given until Tuesday to comply with the directive and remove the books.
The list currently includes 55 titles, but critics believe more will be added.
Local 10 has reached out to Broward County Public Schools for comment on the state’s order.
Next month, beauty brand Ami Colé will shutter, marking an unfortunate reality for many Black-owned businesses — what happens when financial interest dries up?
Founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye’s July announcement, which she detailed for The Cut, shocked many across the beauty space.
In the piece, N’Diaye-Mbaye outlined the journey of starting her business, from growing up in her mother’s Harlem braiding salon to pitching Ami Colé — known for their innovation in lip oils and shade-inclusive makeup — to over 150 investors in 2019. After a surge in support for Black entrepreneurship following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, N’Diaye-Mbaye said she received more interest in the brand, becoming one of 30 Black women to raise $1 million for her start-up within months.
But four years after her official launch, N’Diaye-Mbaye said growth at Sephora couldn’t compete with corporate brands, and scaling up production to meet potential demand came at a steep cost when online influence fluctuated.
“Instead of focusing on the healthy, sustainable future of the company and meeting the needs of our loyal fan base,” N’Diaye-Mbaye wrote, “I rode a temperamental wave of appraising investors — some of whom seemed to have an attitude toward equity and ‘betting big on inclusivity’ that changed its tune a lot, to my ears, from what it sounded like in 2020.”
This sentiment isn’t unique among Black entrepreneurs. Five years after venture capital firms, investors and consumers alike followed a wave of support for Black-owned businesses, interest in diverse brands has waned significantly. Through TikTok and other social media platforms, access to an audience has never been greater, but the capital needed to sustain brands at a high profile has dropped off.
Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, Founder and CEO of Ami Colé speaks at an event on October 15, 2022 in New York City. (Craig Barritt/Getty Images)
Nationally, there has been a societal swing — in tandem with pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration — against intentional incorporation of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in creators’ paths, with waning urgency to support these businesses en masse. And the amount of money flowing to Black-founded companies has hit a multiyear low, according to the business publication Crunchbase News. Only $730 million — 0.4 percent of all funding — went to startups with a Black founder or co-founder last year, down more than two-thirds from 2021. The startups that did receive funding were mostly in the tech or health spaces.
Esthetician and beauty influencer Tiara Willis said she has noticed that cultural shift in support over the last five years. Brands rushed to onboard diverse creators in the summer of 2020. Now, the long-term partnerships, increased shade ranges and targeted marketing seem to have wavered. N’Diaye-Mbaye’s struggle to meet demand as influencers promoted her products is something that would have been covered by investors who were in it for the long haul, Willis said.
She pointed to celebrity founders like Hailey Bieber, whose Rhode makeup and skin care brand began with millions of dollars to swing big while starting her business. Rhode was acquired by e.l.f Beauty for $1 billion in May.
“They rarely ever start by themselves, like the rest of us do — they already have someone on their team,” Willis told The 19th. “Trying to build your own brand while trying to compete with companies who are able to launch products every two seconds, and are able to fill retail space and have less obstacles than brands like Ami Colé — it’s not entirely surprising she wasn’t able to keep up.”
Black creators voiced concern immediately following N’Diaye-Mbaye’s announcement, calling her brand’s shuttering “disheartening” and indicative of larger trends in the Black beauty space. Being able to trust that a brand like Ami Colé would have inclusive shade ranges and products by virtue of their leadership made shopping simpler, some said on social media.
Sephora store shelves reflect a mad dash to support Ami Colé and restock on favorites before the brand officially closes in September. Sales associates told The 19th that the lip oils had sold out online and in store immediately following the announcement, though the demand for other products has slowed since.
But consumers should not feel the pressure to support Black-owned businesses when the larger issue is who has access to capital and investors, some creators pointed out. The issue isn’t the lack of customers, Javon Ford, a cosmetic chemist and entrepreneur, said in a recent TikTok video.
“That is not a sustainable business model. The issue is money. It’s capital. Operating in a retailer like Sephora is expensive,” Ford said. “That’s how cutthroat retail is when you scale to a certain extent, and this is also why exit strategies are important, because it’s really hard to keep up with legacy brands.”
Willis echoed the unstable environment in which Black influencers like herself find themselves: “It creates financial insecurity, where I get the most support of brands based on what’s going on in the news, versus getting support because of my work and my talent and the things I provide to the table.”
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