| Anti-Trans Protest Outside LA Spa Turns Violent, Reporter Thrown to Ground |
| Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60177"><span class="small">Muri Assunção, The New York Daily News</span></a> |
| Monday, 19 July 2021 08:18 |
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Assunção writes: "A group of protesters who showed up outside a Los Angeles spa on Saturday were met by a large police response resulting in more than a dozen arrests."
Anti-Trans Protest Outside LA Spa Turns Violent, Reporter Thrown to Ground19 July 21
The protests stemmed from a video that showed a customer of the Wi Spa in Koreatown angrily confronting a staff member complaining that a disrobed transgender woman had entered into the women’s section. The video, which was shared on social media earlier this month, quickly went viral in far-right and anti-transgender websites, but its veracity has since been put into question. A source at the spa told the Los Angeles Blade that there’s no record of appointment of any of its usual transgender clients on the day in question. Additionally, treatments at the spa are by appointment only, and most of its trans clients are known to the staff, the source said. On Saturday morning, LGBTQ activists gathered outside the spa to counter a protest of people who opposed access of trans women to the facility, carrying signs that read “Save our children” and “Stop defending pedos.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, the two groups clashed around noon, prompting the LAPD to declare an unlawful assembly in the area. “Most people did leave the area, but currently there are a number of arrests made for failure to disperse,” LAPD Det. Meghan Aguilar Aguilar said. Videos circulating on social media show police officers in riot gear hitting protesters with batons, “shooting bean bag rounds and 40-millimeter hard-foam projectiles at protesters,” the Times reported.
Lois Beckett, a reporter for The Guardian, posted a short video of a group of anti-trans protesters throwing bottles of water at her. “Just got thrown to the ground by right-wing anti-pedophile protesters as a crowd [converged] on me and chased me. They threw water at me and screamed about Jesus and said to grab my phone,” she wrote. “Police would not let me through the police line but after I got thrown on the ground they did.”
According to the L.A. Times, anti-transgender protesters were demonstrating against the spa’s policy of opening their doors to transgender clients. After the video incident, Wi Spa defended its position in a statement sent to Los Angeles Magazine. “Like many other metropolitan areas, Los Angeles contains a transgender population, some of whom enjoy visiting a spa,” the statement said. “Wi Spa strives to meet the needs of all its customers.” |
group of protesters who showed up outside a Los Angeles spa on Saturday were met by a large police response resulting in more than a dozen arrests.