Bathroom Bar Ban Is Over

"The war is over" at Anderson’s Fifth Estate, a 300-capacity nightclub in Scottsdale, Ariz., for Michele de LaFreniere, a transsexual who filed a discrimination complaint against owner Tom Anderson.

De LaFreniere, the chairwoman of Scottsdale’s Human Relations Commission, dropped her complaint November 12th after Anderson dropped his ban on transgender patrons days earlier, according to the East Valley Tribune.

Anderson had imposed the ban a year earlier after female patrons complained of transsexuals using the women’s restroom and male patrons harassed the transgenders in the men’s bathroom.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office was investigating the complaint and Equality Arizona, a civil rights group representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, tried to help the two settle the issue and eventually set up a meeting between de LaFreniere and Anderson November 9th, according to the Arizona Republic.

At that point, although Anderson had set up a single-stall restroom that any patron could use, he was still banning de LaFreniere and she was not dropping the complaint.

After the meeting, "they did find common ground," Sam Holdren of Equality Arizona said.

"I have a better understanding of her position and she has a better understanding of mine," Anderson told the Republic. "We’ve never been about barring anybody from coming in."

After settling the dispute, Anderson invited de LaFreniere to return to his nightclub that Saturday.

She did and said, "It was like coming home."

De LaFreniere told the Republic she was glad to see the topic discussed because it’s "an issue going on around the country."

The Scottsdale City Council will have another opportunity to discuss the topic at its board meeting in early December. There is a proposal to add protections for GLBT city employees, a proposal to prohibit the city from contracting with groups that violate city anti-discrimination policies and another to pass a law banning businesses from discriminating against GLBTs, according to the East Valley Tribune.