For those of you who don't know her, Rosa Lee Klaneski is a transgender woman who has played in several poker tournaments (including ladies events). Her license / passport list her as a woman.

It was brought to my attention today that Wicked Chops Poker included a picture of her in their July 1 post about dbag men who played in the WSOP ladies event. (Rosa Lee is in the bottom left photo.)




On July 1, Jen Shahade alerted WCP via Twitter to the fact that Rosa Lee identifies as a woman, and WCP responded via Twitter to thank Jen for the tip. No change was made to the WCP website at that time.

On July 2, Rise Poker (which has affiliations with Wicked Chops Poker) used that same picture of her in their "Cap-tion This" contest under the "eyebrow-raise-inducing" category.




A firestorm erupted over Twitter from multiple members of the poker community who disagreed with those posts.

Approximately 5 hours ago, Rise Poker removed the photo of Rosa Lee from their "Cap-tion This" contest and included the following statement: "Note: the original photo we had in this post was intended to draw humorous responses regarding pearl necklaces and cleavage -- and NOT to poke fun at any transgendered people. To avoid that issue we've changed the photo."

(IMO, that disclaimer is total BS CYA.)

Approximately 30 minutes ago, Wicked Chops Poker removed the photo of Rosa Lee from their dbags post with no statement or apology about its inclusion.

While I am happy to see that both sites removed the photos of Rosa Lee as used in that manner, I still found it very disheartening that those sites (1) included her in the category of dbag men who played in the ladies event and (2) effectively made (or asked other people to make) a mockery of her.

IMO, there is still a lot of misunderstanding / hatred toward our GLBT friends that needs to stop.

(Mods feel free to move to another forum if inappropriate for TWSS, but IMO the TWSS community has been more receptive to our GLBT friends than other forums may be.)

Thanks for posting this; I too was outraged by the cruelty.

I will be writing an article (not sure of the venue for publication) about men in ladies tournaments that also discusses that transgendered women should (of course) be openly accepted in Ladies tournaments.

Glad to see that so many of the women in poker (CKBWOP obv among them ) erupted in being as offended as I felt. I think that strides were made in terms of getting the sites to take down the mean posts and to let the poker world know that prejudice won't be tolerated.

Some of us men were pretty offended too.

If you didn't have a tournament where one of the main focal points is exclusion of certain people this really wouldn't be an issue.

Wrong time, wrong issue.

There is no direct relationship between the existence of Ladies-only poker tournaments and the open mocking of transgendered people.

I think it's the core issues.

Somewhere along the line it was decided that if men could not be legally prohibited from entering women's events that mocking and abusing them was the best thing to do.

Every time a man is eliminated there are cheers and the men who do enter are constantly being berated, verbally abused, and belittled both at the event and in the media coverage.

It's in this spirit of "acceptable" abuse and ridicule that Klaneski got caught up in because of her unique situation.

There shouldn't be acceptable abuse of anyone because of whatever their gender happens to be, by birth or surgery.

But there is a direct relationship between the statement "prejudice will not be tolerated" and an avowedly sexist tournament. Those guys are douches because they are spreading the hate they rightly have for men that play in a tournament to a man who self-identifies as a woman playing in that same tournament?

I know, I know. Nobody hates men. We just hate men that feel comfortable in pants. They might as well be Hitler.

I think you raise a very interesting point.

Do you think the fact that several men have played the ladies event dressed in drag (as a joke or b/c of a lost prop bet, and not because that man generally is a cross-dresser) has further complicated the issue? I think it may . . .

WCP know what they're doing and they obviously know who Rosa Lee is. Posting her picture was no mistake, it was meant to be provocative.

It's about time the WSOP had a 1k Gentleman's Event on the same day so that we don't have actual dbags playing the Ladies Event.

In my opinion there should be more restricted events. eg. 1k 7CS, 1k LH

Of course it's acceptable to abuse and ridicule people who choose to mock something, which is exactly what men playing in these events is. They are being blatantly rude, so guess what? I will return the favor. Using that as any kind of leverage in an argument that it's okay to discriminate against a trans woman is just really unfair. They are totally unrelated.

Exactly! If one identifies as a woman, and lives her daily life as a woman, then she is a woman and IMO, more than welcome in these events.

which is why....
shouldn't further complicate the issue. Dressing in drag, especially as a joke or to mock, is completely different than sexual identity. Trans people do not what they do to offend or to get special treatment. That is how they choose to live their lives. I identify as a woman and was fortunate to be born female, but not everyone was. I would hate to have to live my life feeling that my genitals did not match what was going on in my brain. You either have to choose to live in denial or deal with bigotry and hate on a daily basis.

I heard more animosity from men about her playing than women. And FWIW, I think women are some of the biggest haters out there! You should have heard the commotion made by the players when Elaine (the gorgeous tall blonde in the pink mini dress and high heels - picture on wicked chops photo dump) walked through the room.

But the women's event is such a soft field! LOL. I'm kidding. Yes, in some ways it is, but there are a lot of tough players.

Yes, ofc and didn't mean to exclude men , just was alluding to the many replies/retweets with frequent (female) TWSS posters. Your tweets really helped expose the mean situation to a lot of people.

Pez-

I think you missed my point. What I was trying to get at is that if a photographer is given the task of photographing every "guy" who played in the ladies event so somebody can publish a post and shame all the "guys" who played, whether in drag or not, but know that some "guys" will dress in drag for the event, it's possible for someone to look at Rosa Lee and confuse her for a "guy" who is dressed in drag.

While it may not be fair to women like Rosa Lee, I think a lot of people who are less enlightened about trans matters might not be able to appropriately identify her.

(Don't even get me started about issues re: the need to "identify" in the first place . . . )

Except Rosa has clearly had a breast augmentation. How can anyone think that she is a guy in drag?

This appears to be a case where both WCP & Rise Poker failed to realize that this person is transgender and not a man playing in a WSOP Ladies Only Event. I believe without question this was an honest mistake on their part.

Anyone who's been in the poker scene for 5 minutes should know Rosa Lee and her story.

I note that we already have a thread on this subject. If you or anyone else wishes to discuss it further, feel free post your comments there. The next person that decides they need to interject further on the general subject of whether there should be a separate event for women gets infracted and a vacation from 2+2 for derailing this thread.

As for the matter at hand. Anyone who has had any experience with the media knows that the media's desire to sell papers/get web views trumps any consideration of anyone's personal feelings about being exploited in most organizations. While I feel sorry for anyone having to go through this, the real responsible parties for this happening is:

Us. All of us.

The media does this because they know they'll earn money because of it because we look. If all of us stop looking and actively punished those who publish pictures of Brad and Angelina (for example) out with their kids doing something normal, then it will stop.

I commend those who are making a point of letting organizations know certain actions are unacceptable. And I know the war won't be won overnight. However, just keep in mind that when you stop by the website of some tabloid because you heard they had some juicy gossip about a celebrity, the friends of that celebrity as just as appalled by the behavior as you are now.

Honest mistake? No way.

First, you need to realize that Wicked Chops Poker and RISE Poker are sister companies, run by some of the same people. The fact that the exact same photo was used by both should be a clue to those who don't know this first hand. We are talking about a small group of people here, not a large multi-level corporation.

Looking at the context of the two posts, Wicked Chops identified Rosa Lee as a man (she was grouped with men in a post about men), while the RISE Poker caption photo identified Rosa Lee as a woman (if you believe the retraction, which focused on her breasts).

How does the same person "accidentally" identify the same photo as male in one post and female in another post the next day?

When there was a ruckus raised on Twitter about the RISE Poker caption contest, the photo was removed from that site. It was made very clear to RISE Poker that Rosa Lee was a transgendered woman, if they somehow were ignorant of that fact up until then.

Yet WickedChopsPoker.com, a website run by the same people, kept Rosa Lee's photo in a post labeled, "Dbags Who Played the Ladies Event Photo Dump."

This was no honest mistake.

They took a photo of Rosa Lee solely for the sake of making fun of her.

Yes, they were also making fun of the men who played in the Ladies Event, but they were mocking them for their actions. Rosa Lee was being mocked purely for being who she is.

Since posting the photo, the actions of Wicked Chops have been pathetic. They have only done the bare minimum they've needed to do to quiet the specific criticism received, and nothing more.

Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe Rosa plays these women's events instead of tables full of men precisely because of the kinds of rude behaviors like Wicked Chops? That she wants to avoid the rudeness about her gender? That other women maybe have been subjected to rude behavior and crude comments and simply want to play an event with other women?

Let's call a spade a spade here: these men who play the women's events do so because they think it's a "soft" field. Which is the ultimate slap in the face to ALL women poker players. Any other so-called "feminist" reasoning is bull****. It is not "feminist" to patronize women by playing Daddy and telling us what we should and shouldn't do, and taking it upon yourselves to try to ruin an event many women love. IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS AS MEN. BUTT OUT. ITS UP TO WOMEN TO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY NEED OR SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN EVENT.

Where is the outcry over the Seniors event? And the casino employees event, which also exclude certain people?

Those trying to ruin the women's event are not in any way, shape or form trying to act in women's best interests, but their own. It's malicious and mean-spirited, and this morning I read on twitter that the women's event is "farcical." How much more insulting can the poker community be toward women?

PS. And let's not forget about the extremely rude behavior by Men Nguyen toward Vanessa Selbst recently. You want a series where there is no women's event? Then the poker community needs to do exactly what it did in both of these cases by speaking out against the bad behavior, so women can play without that kind of harassment at a table full of men. That's the one encouraging thing I have seen in both of these cases. (Other players at the tables, including Michael Mizrachi, spoke up when Nguyen was out of line. Kudos to them.)

Right, but then what is the best way for you, as a woman, and for all women to go about proving those men wrong?

By feeling insulted, and bitching and moaning about it on the internet, or by playing your A game in the tournament and outplaying those men, proving to them, that you are better then they thought you were.

Actually forget about proving it to them, prove it to yourself. Go out there, play your best game, and prove to yourself, that the ladies event isn't a soft field.

Also, as an aside, I wouldn't take it so personally anyway, the majority of events at the WSOP are, in fact, pretty soft over all, filled with a lot of dead money. It's not an insult to women to assume that the majority of the entries in the ladies event are dead money, just as it isn't an insult to men to assume that the majority of entries in the Main Event are dead money.

It's mostly just the facts, regardless of gender.

As for the women in the ladies event that aren't dead money, they should be delighted if the men entering, just naturally assume they are weaker players. Any edge you can get in poker is crucial to your win rate. Being under estimated by your opponents is an edge, often times it's a huge edge.

Personally I know, if my opponents think I am weak, and dead money at the table, I am more then happy to let them go on thinking that. Why let them know the truth, and in doing so, give them more accurate info, and lose my edge?



I really don't want to ignite a whole new argument in saying this, ... although I probably will... but to be honest, women do not and have not experienced redicule and harassment on the same level that Trans individuals have. Over the past few years, I have spent a lot of time and had many close relationships with TS's, and in my personal experience, I would say, sure they may feel like a women, but it's not quite so simple as just saying, they feel like a women, so they are a women. It's not that simple for them as individuals, or for society. And saying that their treatment by society, as well as their inner battles, trials and tribulations are the same as a womans, is just not true.

My life experience tells me that Rosa Lee is not a guy in drag. My knowledge of goings on in the poker world tells me that Rosa Lee is not a guy in drag. However, there are some people in the poker community who admitted that they didn't know that she is a woman based solely on looking at the picture of her used in WCP / Rise Poker. (FWIW, those same people were outraged as soon as they became aware of the situation.)

I am not excusing WCP / Rise Poker for their actions. IMO, they knew about Rosa Lee, included the photos anyway, did not immediately remove the photo after being made aware of it (particularly in the case of WCP), and failed to appropriately apologize for it.

I don't disagree with your points, ITT666, but the bottom line is, the men entering - and the ones defending them - are disrespecting all women in poker. Why the hell would men even care? To those who want the womens event abolished (none of which have called for the seniors or employee events to be stopped btw) How, exactly, is the women's event affecting you?

Here's the perfect example of the patronizing rudeness:

(When asked about the seniors event and the casino employees event which no one seems to be bothered about)

SrslySirius Thomas Keeling
Yes, all 3 are a joke. Id probably care a bit less if the cute events didn't award bracelets.

Read that ladies - the ladies event is just..."cute." I'm guessing no one would object or try to sink the ladies event if bikini's were mandatory.

PS. Note this is someone supposed to be part of the poker media. Great support.

While I get the fact that you are a regarded poker reporter and have been reporting poker news for many years, I do not believe you are seeing the picture clearly here.

Regardless of what you think about WCP or Rise Poker, I do not believe they intended in any away to disrespect this person. I feel it was an honest mistake and not intended in the way that it unfortunately appeared. Therefore, the less said about the matter the better. IMHO. Respectfully.

I disagree. The more that is said about this, the less likely (1) it will happen again and (2) if it does happen again, people can simply claim it was a mistake.

How do you know it was an honest mistake? Did you write the post under mistaken belief?

The one thing that continues to irk me is that WCP was made aware of Rosa Lee's gender before the Rise Poker post went up (according to Twitter and blog post time stamps), and WCP did not remove Rosa Lee's picture until approximately 24 hours after they were made aware of it via Twitter.

Most ridiculous disclaimer ever. "hoping to draw humorous responses regarding pearl necklaces"? Yeah, jokes about guys coming on girls breasts is a great excuse for humiliating a transgendered player.

Aren't there already plenty of other threads about whether or not there should be Ladies Events? Isn't this thread supposed to be about an injustice that happened to Rosa?

The Ladies Event is supposed to make women feel welcome, and give them a tournament to play without any of the crap they usually have to put up with in a poker room. And during this, of all tournaments, Rosa was held up for public ridicule on two different sites controlled by the group of people.

People who have yet to apologize or even acknowledge the fact that what they did was wrong. They've only acknowledged that some people got offended -- NOT the same thing.