by WorldTribune Staff, July 14, 2016
A 43-year-old man who said he identifies as a woman was arrested after allegedly taking photos of a woman in an Idaho Target fitting room.
Police said Sean Patrick Smith was dressed in women’s clothing when he entered the fitting room in the women’s section of the store in Ammon on July 11. Smith then began taking photos of a woman in the changing stall next to him.
“The woman was begging for help as she chased the man out the door,” a witness told East Idaho News. “She kept saying she wanted those pictures deleted.”
Police found Smith, also known as Shauna Patricia Smith, on July 12 and charged him with one felony count of voyeurism. He was booked into the Bonneville County Jail.
Target announced in April that “transgender team members and guests” were welcome “to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”
Meanwhile, Albany’s men’s basketball teams has said it won’t play the Duke Blue Devils in a game scheduled for Nov. 12 as part of the Hall of Fame Tipoff tournament because of the North Carolina state law that impacts LGBT people.
Holly Liapis, spokeswoman for the State University of New York system that includes Albany, says the game won’t be played because of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order banning publicly funded, non-essential travel to North Carolina.
Liapis said SUNY and its campuses continue to support Gov. Cuomo “on taking this stand.”
Greg Procino, vice president of basketball operations for the Hall of Fame, said in a statement that his group is working with the other schools to reschedule the on-campus games and expects to have that completed in the next week.
Duke, Cincinnati, Penn State and Rhode Island are the host schools for the on-campus rounds and are each contracted to have two home games, Procino said.
“The tournament schedule had been in place for about a year, so this was an unexpected turn of events,” Procino said.
The North Carolina law signed earlier this year by Gov. Pat McCrory – known as HB2 – requires transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates.