Boston Hotel Apologizes To Lesbian Couple Following Restroom Confrontation Over Gender

Featured image by Pat Greenhouse via Getty Images

The Liberty Hotel, a landmark property in Boston’s Beacon Hill, has issued a public apology and agreed to settle a state discrimination complaint after a security guard confronted a lesbian couple during a Kentucky Derby-themed event last spring, questioning one woman’s gender identity in the women’s restroom.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) announced Monday that the hotel reached a settlement requiring it to make a $10,000 charitable donation to an LGBTQ+ organization and update its nondiscrimination training and policies. The hotel also agreed to post a statement of nondiscrimination in its lobby and provide enhanced management training to prevent similar incidents.

The case stems from a May event when Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, said a security guard entered the women’s restroom, banged on stall doors, and shouted, “No men are allowed.” Baker said the guard accused her of being “a man in the women’s bathroom” and demanded identification to prove otherwise.

“She was humiliated and physically confronted while still inside the stall, pulling up her pants, and forced to show ID to ‘prove’ her sex,” Victor later wrote in a Google review that went viral before she deleted it. “Even after verifying she is a woman, we were both ejected from the event entirely, while shaken, crying, and publicly shamed.”

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The hotel initially claimed the couple had been “sharing a stall” and that one woman had “put a hand on our security team.” Both Baker and Victor denied those allegations. The hotel later suspended the security guard, who is no longer employed there, but it did not retract its first public statement.

According to MCAD, the women were “stereotyped, harassed, and removed” from the premises, then retaliated against when the hotel issued a false statement to the media implying misconduct.

“This outrageous incident at the Liberty Hotel left these two women emotionally shaken, humiliated, and deeply distressed,” said MCAD Chairwoman Sunila Thomas George in a statement. “They were denied services, subjected to demeaning treatment in front of other patrons of the hotel, and falsely accused of actions they did not commit, which is not only degrading, but unjust according to Massachusetts civil rights law.”

In a statement Monday, Liberty Hotel General Manager Mark Fischer apologized directly to the couple. “On behalf of the Liberty Hotel, I want to offer another apology to Ansley Baker and Liz Victor for the incident that occurred at the hotel in May of this year,” he said. “We deeply regret that our initial statement may have created unintended impressions about the actions of Ansley and Liz. That was not our intent.”

Fischer added that the hotel is “committed to learn from this and do everything we can so that nothing like it ever happens again.”

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Despite the settlement, Baker and Victor plan to move forward with a civil lawsuit against the hotel. Their attorney, Lenny Kesten, said they intend to hold the hotel accountable for issuing what he called a “fake statement.”

“They have lied repeatedly,” Kesten said. “The hotel attacked Ansley and Liz for malicious reasons to cover up the guard’s wrongdoing. They attacked them with a statement that had to be signed off by executives, and we will put those names out once we get them as to who did this.”

Victor said the couple views the settlement as a step in the right direction, but not the end of their fight. “So, we’re in the position now to hold these folks accountable and then hopefully make a difference moving forward,” she told WBZ-TV.

“We’re just trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Victor added. “To us or to anyone.”