They just can’t tell the truth, no matter how obvious it becomes.
Person charged with indecent exposure at LA spa after viral Instagram video
“Person” ffs! When what he indecently exposed was a penis.
Charges filed two months after woman’s claims about Wi Spa sparked anti-trans protests
They can call the woman a woman, but they can’t call the man a man.
Los Angeles authorities have charged a 52-year-old with indecent exposure at a popular Korean spa that was the subject of a viral Instagram post earlier this summer.
A 52-year-old what?
The LA police department (LAPD) announced late on Thursday that it had put out an arrest warrant for Darren Merager, who is now facing five felony counts of indecent exposure at Wi Spa in the Koreatown neighborhood. The charges, filed on Monday, come two months after a viral Instagram video from a woman who filmed herself confronting Wi Spa staff about seeing a “man” naked in front of women and girls in the women’s section of the facility.
Because he was a “”man”” no matter how many scare-quotes you deploy. It’s not the woman who told Wi staff about the man who is in the wrong here.
In the 24 June video, another patron suggested the individual might be a trans woman, and the woman filming herself responded with transphobic language, denying that trans women exist.
She didn’t “deny that trans women exist,” she denied that penis-exposing guy is a woman.
The LAPD investigated and found enough evidence to charge the man with indecent exposure.
It was not immediately clear if Merager had an attorney, and Merager’s gender identity was also unclear; an LAPD spokesperson said the department could not immediately comment on the suspect’s gender identity, and the Guardian’s attempts to reach Merager on Thursday were unsuccessful. The prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
Why are these two Guardian reporters in such a sweat about the flasher’s “gender identity”? Why are they so brutally indifferent to the impact of what he did on a bunch of women?
The original allegations about what happened at the spa were quickly distorted online, leading to widespread misinformation and online abuse against trans women who spoke out and engaged in counter protests.
Blah blah blah trans trans trans, just ignore those whiny women saying things.
Tamara Lave, a University of Miami law professor and former public defender in California, said that prosecutors in indecent exposure cases have to prove a defendant not only “willfully exposed” themselves in front of others, but that the person did so with the intention of arousing themselves or sexually offending another individual.
“If somebody goes into a spa and sits naked in the tub, and all they are trying to do is relax, the fact that they are naked in public is not enough for them to be guilty of a crime,” she said, adding that she is concerned about the ramifications for trans rights. “The prosecutor has a duty to make clear that this is about one individual’s conduct, not about a class of people’s conduct.”
Trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans
There are 5 more paragraphs of transtranstranstrans. Not a word about women’s privacy or safety. The “reporters” are Lois Beckett and Sam Levin in Los Angeles. I’m sure they sincerely identify as reporters.
Comments
36 responses to “Person charged”
Good thing he made it obvious by displaying his chub for all – including minors – to see. So that’s that question settled, right?
Because whatever they say about the women involved, nothing will happen. But if they shit on TiMs (or are even perceived/ accused of doing so), they will be on the receiving end of a stern tweet from Owen Jones.
Just for starters.
Fixed that for them. (Evidently they didn’t get the memo about the “preferred term”.)
#3 – Gotcha Maroon – a hysterectomy is a fairly common operation. How do you know those beings had uteri?
They forgot to refer to the “Anti-Trans” protests as “far right.” I think they have some explaining to do.
Hmm, good catch, KB. How about “possessors or former possessors of uteri”?
“genetically disposed to have had uteri whether expressed or not due to environmental or other factors” persons.
Good one. That would leave a mark, if they heard it and they had any sense.
The Latin plural of “uterus” is “uterūs” (with long u, but normal Latin orthography doesn’t distinguish long and short vowels, so it’s spelled just like the singular).
The English plural is “uteruses”.
Just saying.
@GW – if uterus is a normal first declension noun (masculine) why does it have the plural “uterus”? with the long u.
However I agree that it’s daft to use non-English plurals for what have become English words. In my defence, it’s not common to think of uteruses in the plural – a being with a uterus normally only has one.
Mea culpa. I’m not a Latin speaker (or reader), and I don’t normally care to follow the patterns of other languages when I’m writing or speaking English (unless it’s one of the few other languages I know–I’m nothing if not inconsistent). I originally went with “uteruses”, but my browser marked it with the red dotted underline of death, so I tried “uteri” and the red disappeared. I also did a quick Google search for the plural of uterus, and the first hit, from Merriam-Webster, gave both “uteri” and “uteruses”. I decided to stick with uteri because it sounded more pretentious, and so fit the thrust of my comment.
But yeah, I agree with KB here–“it’s daft to use non-English plurals for what have become English words.”
There’s another declension in which the nominative ends in -us but the plural is different from the
firstsecond declension – I think “fructus” is one of the nouns in that one. I remember hating that declension on sight when learning (semi-learning) Latin in school, because YET ANOTHER set of complications to memorize. I hated Latin then, though I rather like it now. Anyway I think I’ll here write an unwritten rule that nobody gets to correct anybody’s Latin because ffs.Yes it’s the fourth, the bastard.
Case Singular Plural
nominative -us -ūs
genitive -ūs -uum
dative -uī -ibus
accusative -um -ūs
ablative -ū -ibus
vocative -us -ūs
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_fourth_declension
So every site I’ve found (including my favorite, the Online Etymological Dictionary) has “uteri” as the Latin plural of uterus. One example: https://latin.cactus2000.de/noun/shownoun_en.php?n=uterus
As I said, I’ve never studied Latin (and Ophelia’s comments are one reason I’m not tempted; I had enough trouble with German (Turkish, on the other hand, was a delight)), so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of these sites, but the OED is generally trustworthy.
Ok so online source says “uterus” is second declension, so yes plural is uteri.
So GW your correction was incorrect, and haven’t I already asked you to dial down your hobby of Latin pedantry? Bad enough when it’s correct but when it’s not…sheesh…
I recognize those names. They’re not reporters, they’re propagandists.
And thanks for the hyperlinks, O. Sam sure looks like a
womantrans man. I guess it’s too much to ask the Most Oppressed™️ to report news objectively.I know very little about Latin, but I think GW is correct or close to it, based on what I see in various sources, including this one:
https://latin.cactus2000.de/noun/shownoun_en.php?n=uterus
Regardless, the call to dial down the pedantry seems appropriate.
Heh heh reading on I see you’ve already pointed all that out about Beckett and Levin. (Not My Fault: I almost always read B&W in chronological order!)
They should just devote their meager talents to polemicism and stop playing reporters.
Also,, while I agree that using Latin plurals in English is cumbersome and best avoided, and I would say “uteruses”, the Wikipedia article uses “uteri” throughout. Not that Wikipedia is authoritative, of course. But GW is in good company. Well, company of some sort.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uterus?wprov=sfla1
Sackbut @ 18 – that source says it’s uteri in the plural, which is what I said @ 15, correcting GW who pointlessly corrected What a Maroon @ 3.
Mind you uteri is the nominative plural, so it’s probably different in the genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative, which it could be since there were adjectives. (See why I hated Latin?)
Anyway GW is the one who corrected and got it wrong while What a Maroon got it right in the first place so WaM is the one who’s in good company.
(Some Latin plurals have made it all the way into English – data for example. Nom. sing.=datum.)
Sackbut (with apologies to Ophelia for continuing the pedantry),
Both of your sources have “uteri” as the plural, which is what KB and I used. In fact, your first source is the same one I provided in comment 14.
Two posts crossed in the night (well, it’s night on the east coast).
Thanks for the kind words, Ophelia.
Always a pleasure.
Romani ite domum!
https://youtu.be/0lczHvB3Y9s
Huh. When I saw this post had quite a lot of comments, I did not anticipate a twenty-something part discussion about the ins and outs of Latin grammar. What a fun surprise!
Mea culpa! Second declension, not first.
I very much liked Latin and its complex grammar, so different from English.
A poem that runs through the 2nd and 3rd declensions (masculine).
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo—
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:—
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motor_Bus
I like Latin and its complexity now, but I was a callow youth when I was a youth and didn’t like it a bit.
Fun fact: the word “bus” is the dative plural ending of “omnis”. The original French phrase was “voiture omnibus”—“carriage for all”.
Furthermore the word “bus” is the shortened version of the original “omnibus.” I think I’ve even mentioned that here before. It is a very fun fact, really. “Bus”=”for everyone.” For a few years (or decades?) people talked of taking the omnibus; the short form was a late arrival.
I’ve used “bi” to refer to buses, tongue-in-cheek.
I’ve found it amusing that the (incorrect) generalization of singular *us and plural *i degenerates to singular “us” (but that’s plural!) and plural “I” (but that’s singular!).
The horse drawn omnibuses were dreadful things for the horses who would die in about four years, so taxing was the work.
CatWhisperer: Nobody expects the
Spanish InquisitionGrammar Pedants!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8n4MfhjUc
I stand corrected. I remember incorrectly that it was fourth declension.
More to the point – could you please not correct people’s Latin, at least not when they’re speaking English.