Brighton TRAs bullying female small business owner

[SapphosRock]

Urgh. This is happening in my home town and it’s shit.

Happy Maki is a small, vegan cafe and takeaway. It’s a very ethical business. All about sustainability and green energy. They plant a tree and feed a child for each wrap made. It’s a gift economy and the food is free with a suggested donation. All very hippy. You get the idea.

A FTM trans person approached the female owner of Happy Maki and asked for support in fundraising for their top surgery. I believe they wanted a poster in the window asking for money. The owner refused. When pressed the owner said it was against her religious beliefs - she is a follower of the Divine Truth which admittedly sounds a bit ‘out there’ but not entirely unexpected given the nature of her business.

Anyway the TRAs have really gone to town and are posting in every Brighton based Facebook group, Instagram and Twitter accusing the owner of Transphobia and calling for her to apologise:

twitter.com/makiunhappy/status/1314261939833446400?s=21

They seem to be getting a lot of support and gaining a lot of traction too with many saying they are now going to boycott the business.

I’m upset about this for a lot of reasons. Obviously the female owner being bullied and harassed in this way and them encouraging people to email her. The lovely takeaway losing business. It’s also pretty tone deaf to attack the hospitality sector in the midst of a global pandemic for not supporting one individual’s elective, life changing surgery.

Anyway, the reason I’m posting here is in solidarity with the owner Anna. And if any of you lovely lot are nearby then consider getting a Happy Maki takeaway. The food is delicious and I’m sure they could do with some support right now.

www.happymaki.co.uk

I was on a Nice Day Out at a Craft sale when I got spontaneously handed a leaflet by an alternative therapist, which detailled how awful people with my disability are to live with and how we could be cured with her treatment for the low, low price of £35 per treatment.

One wonders how I survived.

@Quaagars

Just read that statement linked. Why did she need to go into all that? Why not just say no thank you, and that you already give to charity or whatever, just like people usually do when approached by people charity collecting? You don't usually go into a spiel about why you think they're wrong and don't believe in their charity!

Do you actually think that individual simply asked if they could put the poster up and would have accepted a simple “no”? Nothing less than an explanation would have satisfied them and she knew that. I think this young woman is fantastically brave, because she didn’t lie, even though she knew they’d get their knickers in a twist.

She then write her further explanation because the bully, misogynistic arseholes wouldn’t stop harassing her. But you know bloody rightly they won’t stop until she shows total capitulation, even if they know she’s lying to keep them happy.

Imagine being so full of self righteous venom, that you demand that someone goes against their own religion/beliefs, in order to pacify you. What kind of twisted individual would demand that?

Oh I don't know Quaagars. Maybe she just wanted to invoke a pile on for shits and giggles? But now you point it out yes she was totally asking for it

@Quaagars

Just read that statement linked. Why did she need to go into all that? Why not just say no thank you, and that you already give to charity or whatever, just like people usually do when approached by people charity collecting? You don't usually go into a spiel about why you think they're wrong and don't believe in their charity!

She explained why in her statement:

I feel if I hadn’t provided a reason as to why the answer was no, I would have later been called out as hiding the truth, but because I did provide a reason some are labelling this as abusive, invalidating and a hate crime.

But you know that already because you've read it.

Are people wanting others to pay for their elective surgery known as 'charities' now?

It wasn't a charity, it was someone's crowd funder for their own benefit.

Charity is raising money for others.

Now, some crowd funding for one's own interests is understandable, other crowd funding for one's own interests is just blatant money grabbing, some is somewhere in between the two, but in none of these cases is it a "charity."

And even if it was a charity, not everyone is obliged to be on board with the aims of every charity. The infamous "Christmas shoebox with a side-order of unwanted evangelism" charity (which I won't name because every time someone does a thread on here about them, MNHQ get threatened with legal action) is not one I would ever tolerate putting up posters for anywhere I had control over!

I guess not many of you have any experiences of putting up with the rants of an offensive bigoted boss and not feeling like you can say anything because you might get sacked.

You are on a board with women with long careers. Maybe you might want to read that back and see just how likely it is that we have not endured a great deal more because we are female. And no, not only could we not say anything without losing our jobs, but likely our complaint would be ignored.

but someone wanting their charity supporting

was it a charity? or just for money to be spent on themselves?

@Quaagars

The owner has also theorized that bisexuality only exists as a result of unresolved trauma

Yeah, she's entitled to her beliefs, but someone wanting their charity supporting surely doesn't need all that - why not just a thanks but no thanks?

I think there's a massive naivety on her part. But the point is that this doesn't justify the witch hunt and threats to her business. She is entitled to refuse to display this poster and as others pointed out at the beginning of this thread, this is intimidation.

@Quaagars

Cross posted with butterer OK, fair enough but still, come on, as I said, entitled to beliefs but if those beliefs are bigoted ones people aren't always going to agree with you.

Well I don’t agree that people can change sex, so does that mean I can harass their business and demand that they agree with my point of view? Can I put a poster up in their business, in order to raise money for the church of the Divine Truth? What if I contact pink news and ask to put an advert for the church of the Divine Truth in their online publishing? Do you think they’ll agree.

She's 'banging on' now. What else have you got in the box marked Troublesome Women Speak jj? I'll bet there's a 'strident' in there if you have a good rummage.

NB I would like to be clear that I am sure jj doesn't come here for a 'good rummage'.

@Cocothefirst

Good for the owner.

And a hearty welcome to Hartnell who's come to tell us all how to speak.

I recently name changed. Nice attempt at troll hunting though.

@Winesalot

I guess not many of you have any experiences of putting up with the rants of an offensive bigoted boss and not feeling like you can say anything because you might get sacked.

You are on a board with women with long careers. Maybe you might want to read that back and see just how likely it is that we have not endured a great deal more because we are female. And no, not only could we not say anything without losing our jobs, but likely our complaint would be ignored.

Yes, that's spectacularly tone deaf even by the standards of TRAs.

As for speaking out, as one of my friends said (having won a sex discrimination claim but then been blackballed by every other employer in the area) you win the battle, but you lose the war.

Or then there's another friend who got sacked the day she announced she was pregnant. She won the unfair dismissal claim (but for pregnancy dismissals, the payout is capped, so unscrupulous employers just factor it into their overheads) but she never got another job in that sector either.

@PurpleHoodie

Best to start a list of the new gangsters demanding money with menaces/inciting extortion.

Scotland Yard.
GCHQ.
MET Police.
Brighton and Hove Police.
The Home Office.

This is home grown terrorism.

Home grown terrorism?! Over-reaction, much?! You make it sound like they're physically and violently extorting money which if you read the statement nobody has done that at all. The statement even says that they don't agree with "cancelling", but think would like her to know how wrong it is to say bisexuality is due to unresolved trauma, to educate people more (Not brainwash before anyone starts, as I said people are entitled to their beliefs but education is better than cancelling people as then hopefully homophobia/biphobia etc would be less

@Quaagars

Cross posted with butterer OK, fair enough but still, come on, as I said, entitled to beliefs but if those beliefs are bigoted ones people aren't always going to agree with you.

Can you give an example of a bigoted belief? Is TWAW a bigoted belief? I think you could easily say that all religious and quasi religious beliefs are bigoted if someone refuses to change them or listen to alternative beliefs from someone who has the aim of converting them to a different belief system.

@Feefifo9

They mention the biphobia in the first paragraph of their statement and several other times throughout it. It is clear this grievance is about more than just the letter.

I'm an unmarried single mother.

I have friends (yes, they are still friends, they are in other respects very dear and lovely people) who, due to their evangelical Christian beliefs, think I will go to hell for this.

Funnily enough we just don't talk about it. I don't rush around trying to bankrupt their business as a result of their beliefs.

She seems a nice lady doing good job. Just running a cafe

Then she is being extorted by a stranger 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Jeez

cara

One of my friends is a very devote Jehovah’s Witness

Ive lost track of the things we cant talk about 😀

We’ve had to agree to disagree about A LOT!

@Winesalot

I guess not many of you have any experiences of putting up with the rants of an offensive bigoted boss and not feeling like you can say anything because you might get sacked.

You are on a board with women with long careers. Maybe you might want to read that back and see just how likely it is that we have not endured a great deal more because we are female. And no, not only could we not say anything without losing our jobs, but likely our complaint would be ignored.

Well forgive me if that was insensistive but I presumed since people were so quick to believe the bosses version of events over 10 of their workers than I assumed few had been in the position of the workers and perhaps didn't realise bosses routinely lie about workplace disputes.

Someone mentioned the RFU. In fact, it is my opinion, by ignoring the details made available by World Rugby, the RFU may be regarded by some as choosing to actively endanger the health and maybe potentially even the very of lives of female rugby players. If anything happened, everyone knows they made their decision in full knowledge of the risks made public by World Rugby. Way beyond the line of deliberately deciding to treat women unfairly in sport. Never mind being uncomfortable. That is a whole other level of pandering to bat shittery. My belief is that they could be accused of potentially making human sacrifices to bat shittery. Very sportsman like of them.

Anyone who thinks a person who simply states her beliefs (that they don't agree with) is dreadful, must be aghast that some beliefs have to be pandered to such an extent that I am forced to lie when I have to pretend someone is the opposite to their sex. If I don't engage in a big fat lie, a humungous untruth, a falsehood, then I am reported for writing the truth. And, the truth is not allowed. That is bat shittery holding the truth hostage.

Whatever that person believes in, she doesn't endanger people or force people to lie. In fact, she alleges that the way she very honestly ran the gov't furlough scheme was not liked by some employees.

Also, it is my belief that it is insulting to even equate someone asking other people to fund elective cosmetic surgery to real charitable causes.

In fact, she alleges that the way she very honestly ran the gov't furlough scheme was not liked by some employees

Aaahhhh, is that on her blog?

It's what you do, innit.

I am somewhat to the right of Richard Dawkins in terms of militant atheism. I have religious friends and always have done. I don't ask them why they don't want to donate to me running a marathon for humanism charities or whatever, but if I did, I would only have myself to blame when they told me.

jj your scenario involves a recurring pattern of obnoxious behaviour, an attempt to address that pattern of behaviour appropriately through a complaints process, apparently no attempt to remedy the problem abehaviour till legal measures were invoked, and a retaliatory dismissal for raising the complaint. HTH.