Beth Bourne has a type, and it’s on video.
In one clip, she’s at a hotel in Hawaii, shouting, “Are you a man pretending to be a woman?” at drag performers. Honolulu police detained her. The hotel banned her for a year.
In another, she’s in Winters, California, screaming about “breast amputations” at students aged 13 to 18. The police there blamed the kids for throwing things.
In Davis, California, she is seen as a regular at school events and protests where her language has been well documented; screaming at anyone who will listen about the bodily mutilation of genitalia. Even at school board meetings where in one instance she began to strip down to her undergarments in public to prove a point.
Notice the pattern. The target is always a space where the LGBTQ+ community or its allies are present. The weapon is always sexually graphic, degrading language. The goal is never dialogue. It is contamination. She enters a space, fills it with venom, and films the reaction.
The defense will claim this is “political speech” about a medical or social debate. This is a lie.
A debate happens in journals, hearings, or town halls. It does not happen by screaming “ARE YOU A MAN?” in a stranger’s face at a hotel, or “WHERE ARE YOUR BREASTS?!” at a child in a park. The content is secondary. The crime is the weaponization. A surgeon discussing a procedure in a clinic is practicing medicine. A stranger screaming surgical terminology at your child is committing harassment. The venue and the target transform the act from speech into assault. This is the deliberate induction of trauma as a political tactic. When you scream about bodies and mutilation at people who are not your patients, you are not making a point. You are inflicting harm.
Beth Bourne is not a rogue actor. She is a foot soldier in a coordinated campaign.
This is the playbook: identify a space deemed “contested” and render it psychologically uninhabitable. Do it by screaming the most vile, sexually graphic accusations you can muster. The goal isn’t to win an argument. It’s to force a withdrawal. To make existing in public so toxic that people retreat. Every time this happens without legal consequence, it proves the tactic is protected. It greenlights more. The law’s failure to distinguish between a political opinion shouted in a square and a predator’s performance shouted in a child’s face is what allows this campaign to thrive.
The law already has names for this: Disorderly Conduct and Child Endangerment.
Disorderly conduct is any behavior that willfully disturbs the peace. A hotel in Hawaii recognized her shouting as such. Screaming at children in a public park in Winters also qualifies. Prosecutors there chose not to see it.
Child endangerment is any act that creates a situation likely to harm a child’s physical or mental health. Deliberately creating a hostile, sexually charged environment for a child meets that definition. The harm is not a side effect. It is the entire purpose.
We are treating a repeated, targeted pattern of psychological violence as if it were a difference of opinion. We prosecute the thrown water bottle while ignoring the thrown word. We protect the right to scream “fire” and then blame the crowd (of children) for panicking.
The tools exist. The balls to do so, apparently, do not.
The message this sends is corrosive: a child’s mental safety is negotiable. An adult’s right to scream about it is not.
The change begins when we stop calling this “speech” and start calling it what it is: conduct designed to harm. The law already knows what to do with that. It just needs to remember whom it’s supposed to protect.
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It’s free speech, you might not like the message but she has her rights. The police are often present when she speaks and/or shows her political signage and have found no grounds to arrest her. That speaks volumes.
She is a bully. Her actions can be portrayed or framed as “free speech”, but she is engaged in bullying speech because she focuses her ire on individuals, including kids. If you’re in favor of protecting bullies and letting them bully people unrestricted, then just say so.
The goal is to erase transgender citizens from society completely: to take away their medical care, their identification, and their basic human rights.
It is true that the Constitution protects their rights to be bigots and to demonstrate that bigotry in public. It also protects the rights of the counter-protestors to seek to block those messages from harming those at whom they are directed.
If anyone wanted an actual conversation about these issues, that won’t be happening. But a conversation has never been the goal. “Protecting kids” has never been the goal. The goal is erasure of trans people.
“But a conversation has never been the goal. “Protecting kids” has never been the goal. The goal is erasure of trans people.”
The latter two sentences directly conflict with the first sentence.
Innocent “children”? Not that teenage mob in Winters. Though the guy who stole her sign was at least smiling/laughing as he ran off with it.
Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge how dangerous and impulsive teenagers can be has forgotten their own experiences/observations.
By the way, if “children” are going to demonstrate out in public themselves (in this case, by leaving school grounds), maybe they should expect that others might show up as well.
And cease with the “children” card (similar to the “race” card).
Let’s also cease with the “but it wasn’t about that subject”, since the ACTUAL thing they were protesting is support of illegal immigration.
It’s actually a good lesson overall, and doesn’t have to result in violence until they decide to make it that way.
I realize that this article and the other one by Robert Bulman are well-intentioned but I don’t think they are very helpful. Davis parents know who this person is by now. They also know that the only real solution at this point is to not engage – don’t give them attention. Don’t give them social media clicks. Etc, etc.
But I found these articles through Facebook. The comments on them there are filled with hateful comments from people who clearly do not live in Davis. The person in question almost always comments on them as well. Some of those people will probably make their way to this site and now the authors of these articles are in the comments here arguing with some anti-trans person from who knows where. You seriously think you are going to change that person’s mind?
So yeah, my plea as a Davis parent would be to please stop giving this person attention for the doing the same stuff they’ve been doing for years now. Especially when you’re cross-posting this stuff on Facebook – you’re literally drawing attention to Davis in the same way that this person is trying to do so. It’s what they want.
Also I read on the other article Ron O is a Woodland resident without kids. There’s like 2 or 3 other people that I always see in these comment sections that seem to fit a similar profile. I literally do no care at all what their opinion on this matter is. I also think the chances of them changing any of their opinions regarding this is about as close to zero as you can get. Spend your time how you want but to argue on the internet about an issue that affects Davis parents with non-Davis residents that don’t have kids…. I just don’t see the point in it.
“There’s like 2 or 3 other people that I always see in these comment sections that seem to fit a similar profile. I literally do no care at all what their opinion on this matter is.”
And those people should care about your opinion? Also, if you don’t care, why are you responding?
“I also think the chances of them changing any of their opinions regarding this is about as close to zero as you can get. Spend your time how you want but to argue on the internet about an issue that affects Davis parents with non-Davis residents that don’t have kids…. I just don’t see the point in it.”
You do realize that this article is primarily about what happened in Winters, right?
Also, the “2 or 3” people you’re referring to can send their kids to Davis schools without paying DJUSD parcel taxes. Though some of them may pay DJUSD parcel taxes regardless of whether or not they live in Davis.
DJUSD parcel taxes have NO relationship whatsoever with attendance in DJUSD in the first place. But the reality is that those without kids are SUBSIDIZING those who do have them. What an ungrateful, entitled bunch.
DJUSD itself is “poaching” students from other districts, for the sole purpose of avoiding “rightsizing” its system. This is likely having a negative impact on other districts, which may be experiencing declining enrollment, themselves.
Of course, there’s apparently a core group of self-righteous Davis parents (and district employees) who think that their opinion is the only one that matters, despite how the school district is actually funded and despite who can actually attend.
But the issue goes beyond Davis, as demonstrated by Anoosh and company’s interference in a school board recall in Woodland.
Then there’s the issue with the library (that anyone can use), where they attempted to ban the use of the word “men”. And you’re not concerned about that?
I also find it rather amazing regarding how others “interpret” comments that weren’t even made in the first place. I, for example, haven’t even shared my overall opinion on the issue itself to any significant degree. Except for the fact that Beth was not breaking the law when she was attacked by student protestors off-campus. (Who were apparently also on their way to escalate the attack, when they thought she was still in town per the report I’ve seen.)
My third and final comment in this article.
RO: you will bring up a plethora of side issues, non-issues, anything to avoid identifying BB as a bully and specifically an adult who bullies minors. Kids see enough of that among their own peers; but, they don’t expect it from unrelated adults: that is what makes this so weird.
Eugene, I agree with your general approach. Bullies hate being ignored. As a kid, I remember this kind of behavior and steering clear is the best advice. However, I also remember the effect of an older sibling intervening and outmatching the bully’s threat was pretty effective too. The issue really is bullying and how to address it as much or more than it is about the issue of transgender. If we were only talking about transgender issues, we could talk all day long. BB isn’t about just transgender issues, she wants to cause hurt and fear. That’s what bullies do.