A California GOP candidate for Congress is feeling the heat after posting a shocking video of herself accosting a person believed to identify as transgender inside a public restroom.
Jazmina Saavedra, a Republican challenger seeking to represent the 44th Congressional District, which includes part of Los Angeles County, posted the video to her Facebook page Tuesday. The roughly seven-minute clip shows Zaavedra entering a women’s restroom at a Denny’s restaurant in Los Angeles and arguing with a customer using a toilet stall.
“That guy is violating my right to use the ladies’ room here, and he’s saying he’s a lady,” Saavedra says in the clip, which can be viewed below. “Stupid guy.”
With her camera still rolling, Saavedra positions herself outside the restroom and waits for the customer to exit.
“You invaded my privacy,” she tells the customer, who makes a beeline for the restaurant’s exit. “Next time, use the men’s room! Or nobody’s room! A transgender room!”
According to her campaign website, Saavedra is a conservative who “believes in America first” and “supports President Donald Trump’s agenda for the benefit of making both a greater America and a safer America.”
Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, the Democratic incumbent whom Saavedra is challenging, said Friday on Twitter that she was “appalled” by the video.
But in an interview with ABC 7, Saavedra didn’t back down. “You cannot put together a man and a woman in the same bathroom,” she told the news station Friday. “No way.”
“This is not about gender. This is not about being gay or something,” she continued. “This is about [when] I hear a voice of a man in the ladies’ room. This is all about that.”
Denny’s said it was “extremely disturbed” by the video and believes “transgender guests and team members should be allowed to use the bathroom of the gender they identity with.”
“In this particular case, the video of this incident does not tell the full story,” the chain added in a statement to HuffPost. “Our manager was approached by a guest complaining that a man was in the women’s restroom. Once a female team member checked that no one else was in there, the manager entered. Before seeing the guest, the manager observed drug paraphernalia on the floor near the guest and asked the guest to leave based on that observation, and not on her gender identity. ... We do apologize to our transgender guest and others in the restaurant that had to endure another customer’s disrespectful behavior.”