Are women's restrooms for femmes only?

For a bouncer at a Mexican restaurant in New York's Greenwich Village, unless you look like a Barbie doll, you shouldn't be allowed to use the women's restroom.

The following is the text of a press release issued last week by the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GenderPAC):

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'Female' on your drivers' license is no guarantee against harassment and gender discrimination. That's what Khadijah Farmer, a 28-year-old African American lesbian, discovered this past summer when she tried to use the women's restroom at a landmark New York City restaurant.

On June 24, after attending the Gay Pride march in New York City, Farmer and friends went to dinner at the Caliente Cab Company, a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village. Farmer says that while she was in a bathroom stall, a male bouncer entered the restroom and banged on the stall door, claiming someone had complained that a man was in the women's restroom.

Farmer described the bouncer"s behavior as "hostile and aggressive," and says that even after she told him she was female and in the correct bathroom, he didn't leave. She exited the stall and offered to show him her ID as proof, but he refused, saying, "Your ID is neither here nor there."

Farmer and her friends were told to pay their tab, and escorted out of the restaurant before they could finish their meal.

"I shouldn't be harassed when I'm just trying to do something everyone in the world does," said Farmer in describing the incident. "I was thrown out of the restaurant because of who I am and how I look. It was humiliating."

Farmer has filed a lawsuit against Caliente Cab Company alleging illegal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression, as well as illegal sex stereotyping.

"This incident illustrates the discrimination that many women experience if they have short hair, are heavy-set, or wear clothing that is not strictly feminine," said Riki Wilchins, Executive Director of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition. "Such a simple act as using a restroom can be stressful -- even dangerous. We need to get the gender police out of people's daily lives."

Added Wilchins, "It's not that Ms. Farmer is too masculine in appearance. It's that the bouncer's idea of what a woman should look like is too narrow."

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Best of luck to Kadijah Farmer in her lawsuit.