We do not have a transgender bathroom. So don’t be caught in the wrong one. Thank you, Bob.
Schonauer had joined Freedom Oklahoma executive director Troy Stevenson at the roadside restaurant earlier in the day to verify that the sign existed. They had received a tip and ultimately posted a picture of the sign on Facebook.
But at the cash register Wednesday night, Warner’s employees praised him as a kind and wonderful man.
As Warner gave his TV interview, Flower and her coworkers answered a phone that rang every few minutes. Aggravated and seemingly intoxicated voices rang out on the other end.
Waitress Deanna Schultz sighed before going to clean the restrooms at the end of her shift.
Warner’s wife, Margie, chimed in.
What Bob Warner may not understand is how his sign — and particularly its emphatic underlining — has been interpreted by Schonauer, Stevenson and the offended parties dialing his catfish barn. He explained his intention in putting the sign up in 2016 after a man rushed into a Dallas-area bathroom to question a woman’s gender.
Warner said he only has the two bathrooms and can’t add a separate bathroom to be designated for trans patrons, even though that’s something no government agency or diner has asked him to do.
Warner’s explanation may not end the irate phone calls, and it may not be accepted by some. Asked if he worried about what might happen to him owing to media coverage of his sign, Warner said no.
“God will take care of me,” he said.
Schonauer said she hoped Warner would be willing to meet and talk about the issue further, perhaps broadening the octogenarian’s perspective.
Warner said he had only heard one complaint about the sign previously, but he said others have taken pictures of it and asked for copies.
“I wouldn’t know a transgendered person if I saw one, and it wouldn’t bother me at all,” Warner said.
Warner, who opened the restaurant three years ago at age 79, said he doesn’t particularly care about being popular. When it does come to what he’d like to see happen in Oklahoma and the United States as a whole, he focused on the economy.
“I would like to see a lot of people get their jobs back and the economy go forward,” he said. Warner runs a second restaurant location in Edmond. He ran a doughnut shop years earlier.
Schonauer identified the concept of “work” as a way Oklahomans from different backgrounds find common ground.
If Schonauer and Warner ever do sit down for that beer or coffee, they might be able to swap stories about trying to help others. Schonauer served as an Oklahoma City police officer and is now about to finish a master’s in social work.
Warner, an Edmond native, has a broad work background as well.
After a pregnant pause, Warner continued.
He told the story of meeting a woman in a restaurant who now cleans his house.
Warner shook his head thinking about the woman he met about five years earlier.
Schonauer said she knows that good people can often have blind spots in their lives regarding one issue or another. She said she hoped Warner would be open to listening to her perspective.