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A lesbian couple visiting Miami say they were denied access to a strip club when the hostess and manager told them they “weren’t accompanied by a man.”
Heather Cox and Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa were visiting from San Francisco and went to Miami-area strip club, Dean's Gold, for happy hour. But when they arrived at the club, they say a hostess and manager told them they couldn't go in unless they were "accompanied by a man," the Miami New Times reports.
The Miami New Times reports the two women checked with the policy again a few weeks later, getting a similar response: "Unescorted single ladies are not allowed into the club, unless they are escorted by a gentleman," they said they were told.
"The message that women must be accompanied by men is totally infantilizing," Otálvaro, a Miami native and doctoral student in theater and performance studies at Stanford, said. "And it's a direct statement of exclusion targeted at bisexual women and lesbians. Entertainment venues should not be discriminating on the basis of race or gender or sexuality."
On Tuesday, the two women filed an official discrimination complaint with their lawyer, Matthew Dietz, saying the case is about how civil rights have excluded gender. "The sex industry caters to anachronistic attitudes and people will pay to be 'treated like a man' in the Hugh Heffner mold," he said. "However, exclusionary policies are only legal in truly private membership clubs that cater to fetishes."
Read more at the Miami New Times.
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