Oh, did you think you were going to have a single day without hearing deeply traumatic stories of homophobia sweeping the nation? Nope, not in Trump’s America. This weekend, a lesbian couple in Manhattan was kicked out of an Uber for sharing a kiss in the backseat—and they’ve got the video to prove it.
On Saturday, 24-year-old Emma Pichl and her 26-year-old girlfriend Alex Iovine took an Uber into Manhattan and “pecked” on the lips, which set the driver off. He quickly pulled over and said, “You should not do that. Do not do that.”
Pichl told the New York Post, “We were sitting on opposite sides of the backseat. At one point we leaned over and pecked kiss, very fast. He started yelling at us that we were disrespectful and inappropriate and that he wants us out of his car. We were going back and forth trying to understand.”
You can see the altercation in the video, in which the driver, Ahmad El Boutari, repeatedly demands that they exit the car, but refuses to offer an explanation outside of insisting that they were “disrespectful.” He also says what they were doing was “illegal,” which the women obviously refute.
“You don’t do that here in the car. You are not allowed to do this,” he demands.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has since stepped in, slamming the driver for his bigoted behavior. “This is an open society and Uber is a platform that is available to anybody regardless of your background, your orientation, and that is sacred to us,” he explains, adding, “It’s an unfortunate circumstance and we will do everything we can for that not to repeat.”
Pichl lamented, “We were in shock. Definitely very shaken and upset. We always thought we lived in this untouchable New York City bubble where LGBTQ is so accepted.” She continued, “We never thought something like this would happen to us. It was a good lesson to show it can happen to you anywhere.”
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