A homophobic woman in Miami, FL harasses a lesbian couple and accuses them of touching children.
The incident occurred on 6 March at a Starbucks on the junction of Coral Way and 27th Avenue in Miami, Florida whilst couple Cassie Urry and Lorrin Skrbec were grabbing coffee. They filmed it, and shared what happened online.
Cassie Urry and Lorrin Skrbec were grabbing coffee before their cruise vacation on March 6 at the Starbucks off Coral Way and 27th Avenue when the verbal attack happened.
“It was a lot, like, I’ve never had anyone speak to me that way,” Skrbec said. “So it was extremely surprising.”
“We just tried to stay calm because there was no point in escalating with her,” Urry said. The pair had gone into the coffee shop prior to boarding a cruise ship when they noticed the unidentified woman making racist and offensive comments to other customers.
Urry explained the woman had been saying people of colour were a “product of the devil” and the Asian community “brought COVID over here to kill all of our people”, before turning her attention to the lesbian couple.
Skrbec stepped in to ask her not to speak to people in that way and the woman turned her abusive tirade on the pair.
The woman challenges the younger woman filming to report her. She asks her, “Do you know who I work for? Do you know who I am?”
When she responds, “No. Nobody knows who you are,” the angry customer shoots back, “Well I’m not gonna tell you.”
The woman is then led away by a manager. Staff apologize to the subjects of her hatred for the incident taking place.
The two, who define their relationship as a queer relationship, said the unidentified woman was spewing offensive and racist comments toward other minorities, including Black and Asian customers.
“And that’s when I spoke up and was like, that’s not OK, don’t talk to people that way. It’s extremely inappropriate,” Skrbec said.
That’s when the couple said the woman turned on them with the homophobic remarks, saying lesbians “touch children” and are “all evil.”
Online, viewers dubbed her, “The green goblin” and “Homophobic Hannah”. Others said that although her place of work and identity may currently be unknown, it was unlikely to stay that way.
“‘Do you know who I work for?’ No lady but we’re going to find out,” was one well-liked comment on TikTok.
Others expressed gratitude that the staff intervened.
“The eruption of ‘nooo’ from the staff,” heartened one viewer.
The video has enjoyed over a million views on Twitter.
Some people suggested Florida’s consistent war against LGBTQ+ rights and protests against drag queens was leading to more attacks like this.
Florida passed its notorious ‘Don’t Say Gay’ education bill last year. New legislation in the state, entitled the “Protection of Children” bill, targets hotels and restaurants that allow minors to view “adult entertainment”. It also threatens to potentially send parents to jail for up to a year if they take kids to drag shows. It doesn’t mention ‘drag’ by name but mentions “the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts” among its definition of “adult” entertainment, so we all know what it’s talking about.
