Judge Rules Against Florida Gay Nude Resort in Woman's Discrimination Case

A Florida judge has ruled in favor of a woman who filed a discrimination complaint against a gay men's resort in Key West with clothing-optional areas, Australian newspaper the Star Observer reported.

"Thirty-eight-year-old Amina Chaudhry, a cisgender woman who said she is part of the LGBTQI community, filed the complaint claiming she was unable to stay at New Orleans House," the newspaper recounted.

"In February, the Commission on Human Relations said that there was 'no reasonable cause' to rule that the report had violated civil rights laws in Florida," the account noted, but "Chaudhry appealed against the verdict."

Her appeal met greater success than the original complaint: "Administrative Law Judge Brittany Finkbeiner in an order on June 30, said that New Orleans House 'engaged in unlawful discrimination' when they did not accept her booking to stay at the resort in July 2022," the article relayed.

The New Orleans House website tells visitors that the resort "allows anyone to stay at the resort but restricts access to the male-only clothing optional areas at the venue," the newspaper added.

The resort's website lists "a clothing-optional sundeck, pool, 15-man jacuzzi, [and] gym" among its offerings.

Lawyer Russell Cormican said the judge's order amounted to an invasion of privacy of the men who stay at New Orleans House and make use of its clothing-optional areas.

"There's areas of the hotel that are set aside for men to be nude," the Star Observer quoted the attorney as saying. "I mean, it's like if I showed up at LA Fitness and as a man, I insisted on standing in the women's dressing room."

But that might not be the final word.

"The case will now go back to the commission, which does not have to accept Judge Finkbeiner's order," the Star Observer noted.

New Orleans House is the second gay male resort Chaudhry has filed a complaint against. As previously reported, she also filed a complaint against clothing-optional resort Island House Key West.

"The resort's owners and attorneys claim they do rent separate apartment units to women," Keys Weekly reported last April, "but they don't allow that specific woman to stay there because she was disruptive and combative during an annual fundraising event that welcomes women at the resort for a cocktail party around the pool."

The news report said that Chaudhry had attended an event at the start of Pride at the resort in 2021 and again in 2022. In 2021, Chaudhry claims, she tried to book a room at the resort as the party was winding down. At that point, accounts diverge: Chaudhry claims she was denied a room because she's a woman; the resort maintains that all its accommodations had been booked due to Pride.

In 2022, Chaudhry returned to the Pride event, but brought leaflets decrying the discrimination she had allegedly faced. The leaflets, local news outlet WLRN said, were "printed with legal definitions of discrimination at 'places of public accommodation.'"

"The flier's headline is, 'Want gender equity at Key West Pride?'" the WLRN article added.

"She was distributing fliers uninvited, engaging people in a diatribe about her view on the Island House," attorney Wayne LaRue Smith, who represents the resort, told WLRN. The management had her removed by uniformed police who were working the event as paid security.

Smith denied that the resort has any sort of discriminatory policy in place against female guests.

"For 20 years, there's an ongoing record of women staying on the premises," the attorney said – though he acknowledged, "It absolutely targets its advertising to men."

But, he added, "We don't have a 'gaydar' detector at the door."