Utah man says he’s a woman to help get justice for men in bars, pool parties on Strip
UPDATED: Aug. 1
It was about a year ago when Steve Horner told young proprietors of the Wet Republic Ultra Pool at the MGM Grand that he had just transitioned to a woman and should be allowed to pay the woman’s price of $20 to get into the pool party.
They looked him up and down and saw no signs that the person stood before them ever had any intention of being a woman for anything other than not paying the $33 entry fee for a man.
The balding, pot-bellied, 68-year-old Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient was told to hand over his driver’s license. It identified him as a male.
According to Horner — a former talk show host and writer of self-help books — his license caused a hastily summoned general manager to triumphantly declare, “You are a man.”
Horner again said he could feel he was in the transition phase, that at that very moment he was a woman.
The general manager told the St. George, Utah, resident to get lost if he didn’t pay $33.
What did Horner do after leaving the pool area on July 10, 2015? He filed a formal complaint of discrimination with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department against the Hakkasan Group, which operates the pool.
The cops ruled that they found no discrimination.
Two months later, Horner filed another complaint against Hakkasan with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission. No longer, he wrote, should pool handlers be able to discriminate against someone when “that person’s gender expression and identity” is made clear.
He wants $150 for driving to and from a pool party he couldn’t attend because he was “discriminated against.”
The equal rights commission has yet to make a finding.
So why is Horner, who has fought for years against ladies’ night promotions in Las Vegas, Minnesota and Colorado because he found drink discounts for women discriminatory to men, now doing all he can to attack the latest version of a nondiscrimination law that took effect five years ago?
Well, to him it’s righteous retaliation, plain and simple — to show how dumb they are.
He didn’t like what happened when he filed a complaint in 2011 with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission that argued the MGM Grand, the M Resort, Rio, Hard Rock Hotel, The Mirage and Tropicana discriminated against him for not allowing him in their pool parties and clubs at the discounted women’s rate.
No, he’s not upset that it took a year for the commission to rule in his favor and he didn’t get any money out of it.
What he’s upset about is that the legislature — under pressure from resort industry lobbyists who got wind of his equal rights complaint — turned around and passed a new law in 2011, making it “not unlawful … to offer differential pricing … or special offers based on sex to promote or market the place of public accommodation.”
“That’s just nuts,” Horner said. “They made a law making legal what the equal rights commission found discriminatory. “
In 2011, the legislature also added sexual orientation as a category that can’t be discriminated against when it comes to public accommodation law. Discrimination based on gender identity or expression was prohibited.
“I identified as a woman and look where it got me,” Horner said. “Men get no breaks.”
Former State Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, who helped write the nondiscrimination law that includes transgender people, says that after people stop laughing at what Horner did at the pool, they’ll realize what’s he’s done is offensive and sad.
She said the pain transgender people feel as they struggle with their sexuality is real.
Horner argues he isn’t trying to hurt anybody.
He can’t understand why people can’t see he’s on a crusade for justice like Jesus, that he’s a civil rights warrior like Martin Luther King Jr.
He says men one day will understand discounts ensuring bars and pools have beautiful babes isn’t as important as fairness. They’ll come to appreciate that he identified as a woman only for the cause of social justice.
After all, he’s spent thousands of hours and more money than he could afford fighting for them to get fair treatment in bars and at pool parties. He’s written countless letters to lawmakers, licking stamps until his tongue felt like a Brillo pad.
“Make sure you tell people I’m not some wacko,” he said.
I’ll tell them. I’m not sure they’ll believe me.
It turns out that a number of women on the Review-Journal staff not only think he’s a wacko, but one who particularly detests women.
And he’s let them know it in a vile way.
Heidi Rinella, the Review-Journal’s food critic, said Horner emailed her and told her that all women who have breast cancer have had abortions.
“I have a sister who’s a breast cancer survivor and has endured miscarriages, so I kind of had a problem with that,” Rinella said.
I, too, have a huge problem with that.
It’s sick. That any human being can say such a thing is beyond the pale.
A number of female staffers, including columnist Jane Morrison, said he would either leave messages on their voice mail or called them names in phone calls that can’t be repeated here.
They’re disgusting.
I called Horner back Monday. I asked if he hated women.
He said he’s “grown to” because he claims they’re greedy, mean, hypocritical, and self-serving. He said he realized his hatred when he was doing single parenting in the 1990s.
A shrink might have a name for such a projection of hatred.
When I talked with Horner it was about the issues raised in this column. Those issues about discrimination, while not earth shattering, can have merit. Otherwise, the Nevada Equal Rights Commission would not have ruled in his favor.
And the legislature would not have seen fit to write new legislation.
Do I wish I had known about how Horner had treated women at the Review-Journal? You bet.
What I knew about him is that he was obsessed with men not having the same rights as women. That came across in articles in Minnesota, Colorado and Las Vegas. His disdain for women never came across as strongly as it did in the Review-Journal newsroom.
Given I’m married and have three daughters of my own, I can assure you that if I knew he was calling women what he was calling Review-Journal staffers, I would have found a way to deal with the discrimination issues differently.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Thursday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.
