A bar in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, was fined twice for anti-trans discrimination this past month after a state commission found that the bar not only banned a trans woman from using the women’s restroom but also selectively scanned people’s IDs at the door with a policy that targeted trans patrons.
The Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille must pay $15,000 for violating the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law (DEAL), the state Human and Civil Rights Commission ruled late last month. The ruling comes nearly a year after the commission issued the same ruling in a separate but related case, the Delaware News Journal reports.
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Both rulings stem from an April 2023 incident involving Kaitie Sorber, a 36-year-old transgender woman. According to Sorber’s complaint, she was previously a frequent patron of the Hideout, but on April 3, 2023, the bar’s employees refused to allow her to use the women’s restroom because her ID still listed her sex as male.
As the News Journal notes, trans people can legally correct the gender markers on their state IDs in Delaware. But at the time, Sorber had not done so yet.
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Sorber later posted a social media comment: “The bouncers at the Hideout want me to go in the men’s room only.”
On April 12, 2023, Sorber and another transgender woman, Kathy Carpenter Brown, went back to the bar, where they were denied entry, according to the commission’s July 22 ruling.
Both women filed separate complaints under the DEAL. In her complaint, Brown, an LGBTQ+ activist and founder of Transliance, said that she was denied entry to the bar when she refused to allow a bouncer to scan her ID. She claims an employee of the bar had previously messaged her explaining that IDs were being scanned to determine which bathroom patrons could use, the Journal reported last September. The bar’s owner, Bryan Derrickson, seemed to confirm this, telling the outlet, “When we ID you at the door coming in… Then if you’re a male, use the men’s bathroom.”
Brown says she alerted fellow LGBTQ+ advocate David Mariner, a cisgender man and founder of Sussex Pride, who also went to the Hideout on April 12, but claims he was allowed to enter the bar without having his ID scanned.
Brown claims that after she refused to have her ID scanned, a bouncer grabbed her. Both the bouncer and Derrickson claimed that Brown tried to force her way into the bar, but the commission found Brown’s account of the events more credible, according to the Journal. Brown says she called the police, but no one was charged.
In both Brown’s and Sorber’s cases, the Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission found that the Hideout had engaged in gender identity discrimination in violation of the DEAL. In Sorber’s case, the commission also found that the bar had illegally retaliated against her by denying her entry because of her previous social media post.
In its July 22 ruling in Sorber’s case, the commission said that the Hideout’s “bathroom policy would result in patrons, whether they are transgender or not, being stopped and directed to display their identification whenever they do not fit a Hideout employee’s subjective view of masculine or feminine qualities.”
Derrickson told the Journal that the policy was implemented because a customer had complained that “a man was in the restroom with an 8-year-old little girl.” He argued that state law around bathroom access is “confusing.” However, as the Journal notes, the DEAL does not require trans people to show ID when they use public restrooms, and the commission found that the law “unambiguously instructs that gender identity is determined by a person’s appearance, expression and behavior.”
In Brown’s case, the bar was ordered to pay her $1,000 for “emotional injury and distress,” along with a $1,000 civil penalty to the commission’s Special Administration Fund. The commission also ordered all Hideout employees to undergo anti-discrimination and equal accommodations training.
In Sorber’s case, Derrickson was ordered to pay $15,000, with $10,000 going to Sorber. The bar was also ordered to lift its ban on Sorber and revise its bathroom policy.
Derrickson told the Journal that he intends to appeal the ruling.
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