Transsexual claims restroom discrimination in central California

A transgendered Salinas, Calif., woman who was prohibited from using the women's restroom at the El As de Eros bar is claiming discrimination. Vicky Silva, who is biologically male, was told by bar owner Antonio Maciel that she couldn't use the women's restroom. "I don't want to be in a restroom full of men. They become rowdy and disrespectful," Silva said. Attorney Christopher Daley, codirector of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, has written a letter to El As de Eros asking Maciel to stop any "access to restroom problems." "The problem here is that the bar is not respecting transgendered women as women," Daley said. Maciel said he barred Silva and other transsexuals from the women's restroom after female customers complained. "We cannot discriminate against them, but they have to use the bathroom [appropriate to their sex], and that's the men's bathroom," Maciel said.