Boca Raton – A gay Florida Atlantic University (FAU) student is speaking out about allegedly being turned away from borrowing a laptop because he looked too much like a woman.
Abdul Asquith said he was wearing a FAU hoodie, shorts and had his long hair pulled back when he tried to check out the laptop from the campus library for his communications class.
“[The library employee] looked at the ID and looked down at it. She said, ‘You sound, look and act like a girl and in this ID is a man, therefore I’m not giving you a laptop,” Asquith told WPTV.
He said his FAU ID was issued in 2012 and “It looked just like me.”
Asquith told WPTV he was “appalled” and “embarrassed” because the exchange happened in front of students standing behind him in line. It also happened in front of his friend Samantha Lemessy.
“Because he acts a certain way, he can’t possibly be this? It shouldn’t even be like that,” Lemessy told WPTV, adding that she thinks the school owes Asquith an apology.
He said he’s reached out to the campus diversity council to see if any action can be taken. The library did not comment on record.
