Tweet
I received an update from National Car Rental with a return call today. My call to them Saturday was the first their public relations people heard of it — which really isn’t surprising as the facility at the Little Rock, Arkansas, is a franchise.
But, spokesperson Christie Conrad added this:
We’re going to look into this; this kind of behavior is not tolerated.
It was very clear to me that National Car Rental’s national office was not pleased to hear this story at all, and the way Ms. Conrad said — and repeated multiple times — the “is not tolerated” statement in the phone call sounded like National Car Rental meant that in all capital letters, with three exclamation points to boot.
If — or really “when” — National Car Rental verifies the veracity of Sarah Vestal being harassed and threatened, It’ll be interesting to see what happens to this franchise.
But for a first response, the “is not tolerated” statement was expressed strongly, clearly, and apparently very sincerely — kudos to National Car Rental’s national office on this first response.
~~~~~
Related:
* Blend Exclusive – National Car Rental Employee To Trans Customer: “Screwed-Up Man Faggot”
14 Comments
thanks for the update Autumn,and my thoughts will be with you and Angie’s family tomorrow.
Please help us educate at the law school in Little Rock!I first want to thank Pam’s House Blend for giving this matter attention, no one should have to experience what Sarah Vestal experienced in Little Rock. Those responsible for this criminal activity should be held accountable and punished.
I grew up and live in Little Rock. Before I graduate from law school here this May, I will be speaking at a program sponsored by our LGBT student group Bowen Lambda. It is called called “Transgender People and The Law” and is scheduled for on Monday, April 27, at noon. To save space in this comment, see our blog post for program details: http://bowenlambda.org/blog/20…
I have a request to all of you here. I wonder if some of you might like to contribute in a small way to our program by submitting your comments or thoughts on this experience and why it is important to continue educating people about the challenges that we as an LGBTQ community face everyday. I will read a few to our audience, and will print out all of them and include them in the handout materials for the program.
Also, if you read the details of our program from the link I gave above, and you have suggestions for things to cover, or how to make more of a positive impact on our audience (law students, law faculty, staff, and guests) we welcome the input. Our speakers include a law student (me), a law professor, a female transsexual, and a mental health professional.
While others pursue the investigation and hopefully hold the offenders accountable for their actions, we can use this experience as a way to help educate people about the need for protections against discrimination, like comprehensive legislation for hate crimes and employment discrimination.
Regards,
Mike Lauro
President, Bowen Lambda
UALR Bowen School of Law
mvlauro@ualr.edu
Thanks so much to Sarah for standing up!We really owe a debt of gratitude to Sarah and people like her. Many people wouldn’t want to have a confrontation or follow through with a complaint. Just think how many homophobic employees get away with this kind of garbage every day. But because Sarah had the courage to follow-up and be persistent about calling these bigots on their behavior, we might see some real change. We are blessed to have people like Sarah in our community.
Ditto from the other side of Washington Stateon both counts.
good to hear, Autumn.
Some stories from a TS support site.From D. in Colorado, not far from Greeley
And from C.
That’s what violence against Transgendered people means. The attacks that don’t make the papers. The crimes with no suspects.
I think I live in a world that’s really different from this……but I know, in reality, I don’t. For those of us who don’t pass for “normal” with respect to gender presentation, if you’re in a safe environment, you’re good when you’re in that safe environment, but you can easily find yourself in really bad situations without warning.
I think about the case of Tyra Hunter whom fire officials stopped treating in an emergency to make jokes about the fact that she was TS.
A few years ago, I was traveling on a mountain road in central Western VT (for those of you who know the area, it’s rte 17, on Mad River Glen). I was close to the peak, only going about 20mph, because it was so windy and twisty, etc, when a pair of motorcycles came around the curve going too fast. One ran into the front of my vehicle, throwing his passenger from the car. My car (a rental) was damaged beyond the ability to drive any further, and his bike was totaled as well.
I didn’t think anything about it. I got out of the car and started running towards the woman who was thrown from the bike to make sure she was okay. She was seriously injured, but conscious and talkative. The other two men with her were really nice about the whole thing, extremely apologetic, making sure I was okay, etc.
It was a bad experience, much worse for them than for me, but I sometimes think… what if they had just been worse people? What if they had been homophobic? In that region, there’s a decent sized bigot population. I was lucky in the sense that none of the people I dealt with were of that mindset, but it was really just dumb luck. I had that encounter with people with a conscience who took responsibility for their mistake and didn’t use bigotry as an excuse to do otherwise. But one bad attitude on the part of someone in control in a situation can turn it very dangerous.
So yeah, I feel mostly safe. I live and work in places that are pretty respectful of my rights. But, in reality, I know on a certain level that I’m just one bad experience away from encountering the wrong person in the wrong place and time.
Sarah is LovelyAfter my grave concern for Sarah’s safety and my contacting her to let her know all her personal information was on display in the original thread here, we began a conversation.
Since we both live in San Francisco we got together for drinks. It was really nice to meet her and make a new friend.
I am so glad things are moving forward on this and at the very least I hope that homophobic, potentially dangerous, National Car Rental employee is terminated.
I’m so gladto hear this news today. Please keep us updated.
I’d be glad to helpMike, I agree that this is an excellent opportunity to educate faculty and students at UALR about the challenges that trans people face in Little Rock and elsewhere. As a trans woman and attorney, I’d be happy to assist with your “Transgender People and the Law” program, and I suspect Sarah would too. I’ll send you an email off list about how we can help. If you don’t see it soon, check your spam filter.
I’ll admit that after I read the first posting,I was inclined to assume the worst about National. How refreshing that they seem to be taking this seriously and aren’t handing us the usual corporate/political “we’re sorry if anyone was offended” BS. It seems there’s at least one company that has risen above that and has the integrity not to try and pass incidents like this off as “glitches.” I really needed to hear news like this, this week.
Thanks for the coverage, Autumn.
I always think of Tyra Hunter, too.What happened to Ms. Hunter haunts me more than most stories, because I find it especially horrifying to think of emergency medical personnel doing such a thing.
Me too.
Car Rental Is the National Car Rental got anything at the Middle East for Israeli rentals?
national offices handling Car Rental in Israel with pro departments?