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The Boston hotel where a security guard accosted a woman in the bathroom and accused her of being a man agreed to a settlement with the state, including a $10,000 charitable donation, but the woman’s lawyer said she will now sue the hotel. Ansley Baker and her partner, Liz Victor, were in the bathroom at a Kentucky Derby party at the Liberty Hotel on Charles Street in May when a security guard banged on the stall door and demanded to see Baker’s ID. “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 wrote in an since-deleted Google review. “Even after verifying she is a woman, we were both ejected from the event entirely, while shaken, crying, and publicly shamed.” The couple made headlines after Victor shared the experience in the online Google review, and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, or MCAD, initiated a complaint against the hotel. The hotel first put out a statement that said the couple were sharing a stall and had “put their hands on our security team” before they were removed from the hotel. Then, a spokesperson for Liberty Hotel said the security guard had been suspended in a follow-up statement and acknowledged that “there were missteps in our initial handling of this.” The couple have adamantly denied being in the same stall, and neither woman attacked the security guard, lawyer Lenny Kesten said. MCAD said the women were stereotyped and harassed during the incident and then retaliated against by the hotel when the couple complained online. “This outrageous incident at the Liberty Hotel left these two women emotionally shaken, humiliated, and deeply distressed,” said MCAD Chairwoman Sunita George in the Commission’s complaint. “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.” MCAD and the Liberty Hotel agreed to the hotel will cease and desist from all discriminatory conduct, update its nondiscrimination policies for employees, provide anti-discrimination training for employees and advanced training for management. The hotel will also post a non-discrimination statement in its lobby and make a charitable donation of $10,000 to LGBTQIA2S+ non-profit organization. Lawyer: The hotel ‘lied repeatedly’ Kesten, Baker and Victor’s lawyer, said the couple is grateful for the Commission’s settlement with the hotel and slammed the hotel’s “fake statement.” He plans to file a civil lawsuit on behalf of the couple for punitive damages and to subpoena “to find out exactly who did this and and find out from them, why, other than to trash the victims,” Kesten said. “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.” “We deeply regret that our initial statement may have created unintended impressions about the actions of Ansley and Liz,” Mark Fischer, the general manager of the Liberty Hotel, said in a statement Monday. “The Liberty Hotel is committed to learn from this and do everything we can so that nothing like it ever happens again,” Fischer said. “We are grateful to the MCAD for its leadership and expertise in strengthening our practices. Everyone should feel welcome and respected at the Liberty Hotel and our ongoing work with the MCAD only enhances our commitment to that pledge.” MCAD Executive Director Michael Memmolo acknowledged that “protections for gender identity and sexual orientation are being challenged nationally.” President Donald Trump has targeted transgender female athletes and ordered that Massachusetts erase “gender ideology” from its sex education materials. “The MCAD remains committed to upholding these rights and holding businesses accountable to the law” Memmolo said. “Our mission is to create a Commonwealth where discrimination is not only addressed but actively prevented.”
