An off-duty bartender has been convicted of a “hate” motivated crime after shoving and misgendering a trans-identified male in the washroom of a bar. On March 6, Cassandra McIntyre was found guilty of second-degree bias crime and harassment charges stemming from a 2022 confrontation with a man who identifies as a “woman.”
According to journalist Andy Ngo, McIntyre had just finished her shift at Jake’s Place, a sports bar in Portland, when she encountered far-left activist Riis Larsen, formerly Ronald A. Larsen, in the women’s washroom. Clearly startled, McIntyre told Larsen to “get out” of the intimate space.
Surveillance footage shows McIntyre lightly pushing Larsen, who identifies as a “queer demi-binary trans woman,” after he shoved another person to cut in line for the washroom.
Earlier this week, 25-year-old Larsen testified before the court, claiming that he had been cornered and misgendered by McIntyre after stepping out of the women’s bathroom.
During the confrontation, Larsen told McIntyre about his “gender identity” but said she continued to refer to him as a man. After shoving him lightly, McIntyre reportedly asked him to “get out” of the female facilities. Surveillance was able to capture the physical confrontation but did not record what McIntyre said.
Afterwards, Larsen told the jury that he paid his tab and left the bar “in tears and called 911 later that night.”
Throughout the trial, Larsen sat in the gallery and claimed he was “suffering” at the thought of the jury ruling in McIntyre’s favor, complaining of impending “transphobia” and “erasure.”
He stated: “Because that’s the essence of transphobic bias — erasure. It’s not being believed. In our system, people are innocent until they’re proven guilty, but in the real world, I was judged and sentenced within moments when Ms. McIntyre decided to harass me.”
Although one witness, R.J. Stangland, confirmed that McIntyre was referring to Larsen by the “wrong pronouns,” McIntyre told the court this was accidental. In her testimony, she confirmed that Larsen pushed another customer butting in line for the women’s bathroom, and while McIntyre admitted that she intercepted Larsen, she had no idea she was “misgendering” him.
“I wasn’t trying to misgender her — I had to look up what transgender was in the dictionary. We were just arguing over spilt milk,” said McIntyre, referring to Larsen in court using “she/her” pronouns.
Regarding the allegation that she had pushed Larsen, McIntyre explained she did not shove him but instead was “making space.”
Despite unintentionally referring to Larsen as a male, Ngo shared on X, formerly Twitter, that he reached out to District Attorney Mike Schmidt about McIntyre’s prosecution and noted that prosecutors were fixated on the alleged misgendering and continued to argue that it was a “second-degree bias crime.”
During closing arguments, Prosecutor Charlie Weiss stressed to the jury that Larsen “is scrutinized in a different way than most of us in our day-to-day lives are scrutinized,” and complained that Larsen’s gender identity made him a target.
Although she apologized before the court and vowed to refrain from going to another bar in the neighborhood so Larsen “would have a place to go without worry,” McIntyre was sentenced by Judge Christopher Marshall to “50 hours of community service and two years of probation.”
In addition to Larsen’s Instagram bio describing him as a “super average working class revolubetionary catgirl hornydoll bimboscholar polayamorous artist memequeen cuddleslut völva marxist trans carpentress,” he also has a SoundCloud where he shares original music recordings.
Three years ago, Larsen hosted a livestream on his YouTube channel, wearing a yellow dress and pigtails, where he obsesses over himself to the camera for 14 minutes, rambling about his journey as a “trans woman.”
“Um, this is me trying to figure it out, how to try to, try to figure out how to exist in a way that is pleasing to [me],” said Larsen, adding: “the pigtails are definitely helping and are good.”
