Sometimes that's the case, but 100% of the time? There's never any reason to establish someone's identity?
Well, the primary issue is that commercial business aren't establishing anyone's identity. The minimum wage worker at the movie theater or the grocery store are just looking at a name or a date on the laminated plastic card they're handed. They aren't even keeping a record of it after the glance; it's an inconvenient show for "normal" people at best.
But the people I grew up with
aren't "normal" and have had all sorts of trouble getting or maintaining a State ID, which itself is functionally just a substitute for carrying other forms of identification anyway. And there aren't really any scenarios in which one can validate their identity using
just their State ID, sometimes not even with the State itself. You basically always need multiple forms of identification - Social Security Number, proof of address, something with your picture - for things like that, and the State ID is either an option or a requirement
on top (see: bank accounts).
For this incident in particular - why is the State ID required? Why did they not ask for their account number? Or why was the AMC card itself insufficient, assuming the AMC account can't have multiple cards? Or can it? IDK. If it
can, why? Why are they inviting the possibility of people getting reduced fee tickets they don't "qualify" for? I mean clearly it's a big fucking deal if they gotta check State IDs and make sure every T and I in a person's name is identical, right? Why did they not just ask to see the credit/debit card that paid for the account? I mean, fuck, their own internal system should be capable of confirming that the subscription and the point of sale ticket were from the same card to begin with. Or did the person pay in cash for the ticket? ...But then they should've been given that cash back, instead of receiving store credit, right?
There are so many possible ways to go about this and none of them involve outside resources. The company got money, that's all that they should be concerned with. Everything else is just bullshit, y'know? The fact that it was a trans person is immaterial; this shouldn't happen to anyone, for any reason, period. But it does, and not just in this situation.
Yeah, some people find it difficult to get one, but I don't see any way a movie theatre would benefit from intentionally excluding those people. Probably they're mostly too broke to go to the movies anyway.
It's a lot more likely the theatre is struggling financially and has incompetent management that thinks people abusing the passes is somehow the cause of their financial woes.
But, you just described the problem - systemic oppression. Which is, by default, not
actively malicious... until you run into it.
The business benefits by not having dirty poors within their establishment; by maintaining a level of "decorum" so that their well-to-do patrons feel safe and welcome in. It doesn't matter that the poor man has enough money to buy a ticket after saving up some money, he's not actually welcome and should know his place and station. Modern society likes to dress up their pig, but things have not really changed much from the days of full racial segregation - we merely hide it a little better, accept it as the reasonable lay of the land because the Rule of Law is just and sensible or some shit like that.
Consider, for a moment, what kind of clientele is primarily excluded from an establishment that doesn't handle cash and is done exclusively through cards. And, perhaps, not even
just cards, but cards with chips or contactless functionality - stuff that, you know, maybe begins to show up in poorer areas a bit slower and later. And is probably too high-brow for (most types of) pre-paid debit or gift cards. It's not a coincidence; it's everywhere. "It's convenient" only really applies if you're part of the in group. In fact, the opposite is always jarring - I actually had to go to an ATM to withdraw a $20 bill for my emissions test a couple years back because the business they were
cash only. It was
kind of annoying actually... but then I thought about it and got annoyed at myself instead. Now I just keep four $10 bills in the glove compartment.
IMO the real problem in this situation is that it's such a hardship for that woman to get an ID with a name she feels comfortable using that she hasn't done so already. The theater is being dumb and carelessly harming people, but asking for ID isn't some generally horrible act. I personally had no idea changing your name was so difficult and expensive until this conversation, so I imagine the vast majority of people don't know it either.
Yeah, but changing your name isn't the only way the State IDs suck - and doesn't suck just for trans folk. State IDs are de facto political at this point; Voter Suppression laws
need State IDs to be as difficult and annoying and obnoxious to obtain as humanly possible. You cannot, for example, get a State ID if you don't have a place of residence. If you're homeless you don't have a place of residence, but just because you're homeless doesn't mean you aren't staying somewhere. Right? But you cannot, for example, use the address of a shelter in order to obtain a State ID - and you can't apply to rent an apartment without a State ID.
Or, if you've been in jail/prison for a bit, your State ID has most likely been lost or otherwise expired - you're now free, but you may temporarily be without an address. So no State ID for you. And a State ID is
required to open a bank account, and more and more businesses only want to do direct deposit and not have physical paychecks, and of course you need the State ID to apply for various types of government benefits - Food Stamps, Section 8, Medicaid.
So lots and lots of people are
ostensibly at risk of being excluded by practices like this. But, obviously, you're right that the core issue is that getting the ID to begin with - and making quick and easy edits and adjustments afterwards - is the biggest and most central problem. Capital simultaneously wants to undermine government and be wholly dependent upon it for all of its dumb systems and loopholes and shortcuts. The more you dig into it, or think about it, the less sense anything makes.
AMC isn't in my area, but half the time when I go to Regal, there isn't even anybody making sure you have a ticket at all. Even if there is, it's usually trivial to get past them without showing a ticket. I wonder if all of AMC is so anal about it or if it's one rogue dipshit manager.
It's been the same at my hometown Regal since I was a kid, yeah. Teens theater hopping all day on the weekend, employees and security never gave a fuck. They'd even give you a refund for the ticket you bought if you left the movie ~10 minutes before the end, and had bought popcorn or something, just to save everyone the hassle. Plus, again, concessions > tickets. If you're there all day you're definitely gonna be hitting that concession stand, and it's not like - especially these days - the theater is losing money because you're taking someone's seat. The last couple of movies I've gone to see with my partner and her family were ~25% capacity,
max.
- deserves to have their jaw shattered on the spot. That's some low-level goon given a tiny amount of authority and going to town on it, even before considering any potential for bigotry. Ain't nobody got time for that; people in this country routinely get gunned down for less. I'd consider it doing them a favor before they spout off to the wrong person. 
