To borrow a phrase from Winnie the Pooh, you can never tell with bees. The bees, in this case, are the courts. You can never tell how they’ll come down. And when a women’s shelter in Anchorage refused to allow a drunk biological man who identified as a woman to sleep at their facility and roused the Woke-a-saurus, well – you can never tell.
Less clear-cut cases have fared better and worse.
The Particulars
It starts with a shelter for women who have been abused or survived rape or sex trafficking at the hands of men.
The Downtown Hope Center sued the city in 2018 when officials sought legal retribution against the charity over its refusal to allow an inebriated and injured biological man who identified as a woman to sleep at its facility alongside homeless women. The shelter referred the man to a hospital instead where he was sent in a taxi paid for by the group.
A complaint was later filed with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission and pursued by the city before a preliminary injunction in the shelter’s favor led to a settlement that forced the municipality to pay the charity $100,001 in fees. The Anchorage Assembly then opted to change a local ordinance to erase gender-exclusive shelters, which provoked the ongoing litigation.
Did you get all that?
A Drunk penis-person is provided (or at least pointed to) separate and arguably more appropriate accommodations, so the city goes after them.
Dissatisfied with that effort, the local “Equal Rights Commission” pushes the button again, and this time the city loses and has to cough up 100 grand in legal and court fees.
The city then tries to use legislative force to require the battered women’s shelter to take in “biological men,” and the shelter – which is just trying to do the right thing by battered “women” – is wrestled back into court.
I want to remind you that the goal is no longer to get them to comply. It was to drive it out of existence regardless of the negative impact on female victims of domestic abuse, rape, or sex trafficking.
Anchorage stopped caring about them when it tried to force the shelter to accept men claiming to be women to stay overnight with batter biological women. A thing that is, itself, an act of abuse against women, but they do not care.
So?
In Downtown Hope Center v. Municipality of Anchorage II, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska ruled that the shelter did not meet the definition of a place of “public accommodation,” and is therefore exempt from city rules, which otherwise would have penalized the group for so-called gender-based discrimination.
The city ordinance, as written, does not apply. And the report notes that the case is not closed. The shelter could go after the city for costs, and they should. Make them pay.
Why?
The woke lawfare-crazy city of Anchorage is not done with them yet. I can guarantee you that. If they can’t get them for violating the gender-blender standard, they’ll send other city officers (assuming they have not already) to eat out their substance.
The Left never sleeps, never gives in, and won’t give up. So make them pay when you can because this is how the culture war is waged and won.
You beat them back, but they keep coming. Just ask Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cake Shop or Melissa Klein and Sweetcakes by Melissa. Two of many.
By the way, the Downtown Hope Center is also a Soup Kitchen by day that caters to everyone. They provide valuable privately funded services to those in need regardless of age, sex, or mental health. And just because they want to protect battered and abused women who need a place to sleep, the Woke Libs in Anchorage would happily destroy it all.
