Security at a Los Angeles bar physically removed a group of transgender women after they were harassed and attacked by a straight couple, according to video and the women’s accounts of the incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime.
Las Perlas, a popular downtown bar, is facing calls for a boycott after footage went viral over the weekend, showing its security staff grabbing several trans women and forcefully dragging them outside on Friday night.
The women said they were violently thrown after a couple inside the bar yelled slurs at them and physically attacked them.
“It’s been so traumatizing,” Jennifer Bianchi, one of the women whose removal was caught on camera, said on Monday.
Police have opened a hate crime investigation.
A group of trans women, gay men and a non-binary person went to the bar on Friday night after the DTLA Proud Festival.
At some point, a straight couple started harassing the women by repeatedly calling them men, said Bianchi, who was at Las Perlas with colleagues from Bienestar, a social services organization.
“They said we don’t belong there. They said we were men with wigs. They called us a lot of terrible stuff,” said Khloe Rios, Bienestar’s manager for the transgender program and services.
She said they tried to ignore the harassment, but then the man got close to them and ultimately slapped her friend.
Instead of trying to shield the women from the abuse, the bar’s security then decided to throw out the entire group of eight LGBTQ people, as well as the couple, the women said, adding that the security were particularly aggressive with the trans women.
Rios’ cellphone footage captured one security guard putting his arms around Bianchi as she said, “Don’t touch me like that! I need my shoe.” The guard was then seen shoving her and wrapping his arms around her, before forcing her toward the door.
A guard grabbed another woman, putting his arms around her neck and forcing her out.
Cedd Moses, the chief executive the company that owns Las Perlas, said he guards removed the guests that were not compliant with the manager’s request to leave.”
However, the bar laer apologized on Facebook to the trans community and said it was hiring a new security company “that has received sensitivity training.”
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