Transgender lady is verbally assaulted at San Francisco Cheesecake Manufacturing unit in viral TikTok video
A disturbing TikTok video has gone viral, showing the moment a transgender woman was verbally assaulted at a San Francisco restaurant.
Content creator Lilly Contino was eating with her dog at the Cheesecake Factory in Union Square in San Francisco while live-streaming a conversation with her followers when an unidentified woman began harassing her.
In the footage, the woman can be heard proudly referring to Ms. Contino as TERF — an acronym for trans exclusionary radical feminist, meaning a person who sees themselves as a feminist but is transphobic.
“You know I’m a TERF, right? Trans-eccentric radical feminist,” the woman can be heard saying off-screen.
When Ms. Contino asks if she’s a TERF, the woman doubles down and says, “I’m a TERF.”
She then asks Ms. Contino if she would like her to move away, to which Ms. Contino replies, “No, actually, you should tell me you’re a TERF.”
At this point, the woman mistakes Ms. Contino and says, “You’re a boy, right?”
She then begins to threaten Ms. Contino with physical violence.
“Don’t fuck with me, because honestly I hit it. I hit it hard,” she says.
The incident continues with the woman telling Ms. Contino not to “judge” her for being a TERF, telling her, “I get to be whoever I want to be and you get to be whoever you want to be.” “.
@lillytino_
A self-proclaimed TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) threatened me at the @cheesecake factory. I happened to be streaming at the time and captured the encounter on camera. This happened at the Union Square location in San Francisco
♬ Original sound – lillytino
She then tells Ms. Contino to “take your stupid dog, eat your damn food, and get the shit out of my life,” before saying she needs to “call you a white supremacist.”
Ms. Contino then asks to speak to the restaurant’s manager, who apologizes off-camera for the incident.
Ms. Contino shared a clip of the encounter on her TikTok platform, which has garnered 9.7 million views as of Monday morning.
The story goes on
Ms Contino explained to KPIX that the harassment first started when the woman started telling jokes and then offered to show her a surgical scar on her stomach.
When she politely declined, the woman replied, “I’ll show you if I want, son.”
“And of course, as a trans person, I’m more sensitive to gender language,” Ms. Contino said.
She said that as the incident progressed she became even more shocked and said that nothing like this had ever happened to her before.
TikTok video shows transgender woman being molested at Cheesecake Factory (TikTok/@lillytino)
She was particularly shocked, she said, since she’d moved from Georgia to the liberal city of San Francisco.
“I was just stunned. I have never been physically threatened in public. I’ve never been verbally abused in public,” she said.
“Part of it was just shock and disbelief that this was happening. I live in San Francisco for a reason. I live here because it’s a liberal city, one of the most queer-friendly cities in the world.
“That it happens in such a public place and nobody helps.”
