Transgender rights protest outside LA spa turns violent; reporter chased, thrown to ground by ‘right-wing anti-pedophile’ group Muri Assunção © Damian Dovarganes This July 4, 2021, photo, shows the exterior of the Wi Spa in Koreatown district in Los Angeles. Police declared an unlawful assembly and fired non-lethal projectiles to disperse an unruly crowd on Saturday, July 17, after a dueling protest over transgender rights at the Los Angeles spa turned violent. The protests stemmed from a video that circulated online earlier this month, in which an irate customer complained to the staff at Wi Spa that a transgender woman was in the women s section of the spa.
Dozens Arrested At Another Transgender Rights Protest At LA Spa
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MORE When Blaine Pope came across anti-mask protestors, he thought, “How do we have this kind of discussion and not want to scratch each other’s eyes out in the process? How do we talk about something that’s difficult to talk about, but do so in a respectful way?” Photo by Shutterstock.
On May 3, CSUN professor Blaine Pope picked up his 11-year old daughter from school in Santa Monica, and when they were about to head home, they passed by a small group of anti-mask protesters. At his child’s urging, Pope and his daughter engaged the protestors in a calm 20-minute conversation.
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Blaine D. Pope didn’t plan to go viral. He had just planned to go home and make a peanut butter sandwich.
But that was before the mild-mannered professor arrived at his daughter’s school in Santa Monica one afternoon this week and found a group of anti-maskers waving signs and shouting conspiracy theories at parents and students.
You know the type. Those who claim falsely that COVID-19 is “the same as the flu” and that anyone who wears a mask or agrees to get vaccinated has been “indoctrinated” by a mysterious “they.”
Most people in Pope’s position would’ve just driven away, maybe rolling down the window to shout a curse word or two in the process, but still following some internet elder’s sage advice to not feed the trolls.