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

This bit is superb

The owner still hasn’t responded to the individual’s email, which was sent 5 days ago asking how she would take accountability and learn and grow from the situation

What, she has resisted re-education?! Somebody call the Thought Police!!

These people in their woke, reality-denying bubble who honestly can’t get their heads around the fact that they can’t actually bend everyone around them and reality itself to their will. Hilarious if there weren’t so many people in positions of power actually listening to them.

Not being funny or owt' LaVita but I want £400 for teeth whitening and £4500 for a boob job.

Put a poster up in your house windows to fundraisers for me. If you don't I'll come an spray paint "slag n whatevs'phobe" on your house and smash your windows in*

*I'll expect the same judgement (and prison time) as these extortionists at court.

Oh and when I was on twitter I would have been called a terf so I don't subscribe to the TWAW mantra and I do believe in sex based rights..

Sure you do, Hartnell, sure.

@HartnellAvenue

This. This right here is why MN is accused of being transphobic. You brush off her absolute batshit crazy cultish "religion" which was only started in 2007 by saying "it's a bit out there" and you think that her acting directly discriminating on the grounds of someone's gender identity is OK. Because its a transman who wanted to put the poster up in a cafe window in the most LGBTQ friendly city in Britain asking for support from random people for top surgery.

The cafe owner didn't say "no because I don't allow posters". Unbelievable the things some posters here will shrug off. Oh and when I was on twitter I would have been called a terf so I don't subscribe to the TWAW mantra and I do believe in sex based rights... but you and she are in the wrong here.

If a Christian shop owner refused to display an advert requesting money to help build a Mosque, that would be her right. Same with a Muslim owner who refused to put up a poster asking for donations to help build a church.

If the Christian owner refused to serve a Muslim customer, or vice versa, that would be a problem.

Do you think that vegetarian shop owners should have to display ads for leather products if they don't want to? Should a person who is against the decriminalization of cannabis be forced to put up a poster calling for the law to be changed?

A Jehovah's Witness shop owner is even under no obligation to put up posters requesting money for a blood transfusion for a dying child. That doesn't mean the Jehovah's Witness has a phobia or hatred of dying children, for goodness sake.

Good for the owner.

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

*typo's.

And what talking said.

What Edge said.

Plus.

We can fucking well do without home grown terrorism in the time of Covid-19.

Take note GCHQ.

As Mumsnetters are aware 'No' is a complete sentence so I agree the owner could have just said no.

I wonder how much she was pressed / bullied into explaining herself.

@HartnellAvenue

This. This right here is why MN is accused of being transphobic. You brush off her absolute batshit crazy cultish "religion" which was only started in 2007 by saying "it's a bit out there" and you think that her acting directly discriminating on the grounds of someone's gender identity is OK. Because its a transman who wanted to put the poster up in a cafe window in the most LGBTQ friendly city in Britain asking for support from random people for top surgery.

The cafe owner didn't say "no because I don't allow posters". Unbelievable the things some posters here will shrug off. Oh and when I was on twitter I would have been called a terf so I don't subscribe to the TWAW mantra and I do believe in sex based rights... but you and she are in the wrong here.

Here's why I fundamentally disagree with you.

Imagine, for instance, a local cafe owner was happy to put up posters for the local women's shelter, for women's aid, for various other feminist causes, but refused to put up a poster for a charity which funded NI women in need of expenses to travel to mainland UK for abortions, because the cafe owner was a Catholic.

I disagree totally with the hypotheical owner's position on abortion, but I would totally back their right not to be forced to advertise something they fundamentally disagreed with.

This is what the NI cake ruling established. You can't refuse people a service you would provide to others (e.g. making a wedding cake for a gay couple if you would make one for a straight couple). But you cannot be coerced into providing a service (icing political slogans onto cakes) which is at odds with your beliefs.

And in any case, in this instance there's not even a suggestion that the cafe owner is taking money for displaying posters, so it's not even a service.

(I am guessing the cafe owner has deeply held moral objections to helping someone remove healthy body tissue - an objection which I share).

@HartnellAvenue by the looks of things she can't say 'I don't allow posters' because she supports a charity - so I assume she has a poster up advertising that.

So then what? She supports one charity so she has to have another poster in her window for something she doesn't support?

The charity she supports is directly related to her type of business - it's raising cash/awareness to feed people and she owns a cafe.

She's within her rights to believe what she does and, whether you like her beliefs or not, she didn't come up with a lame excuse about 'I don't have any posters in my windows'. Because that would have come back to bite her as soon as she put up any poster from any other organisation.

She owns her business. She can put (or not put) any poster she wants on her walls or in her windows as long as it's not against the law. Saying 'I don't want to put a poster up because I don't approve' isn't refusing custom. It's just saying I won't help you raise money. If she'd have put a poster up outlining her objections that would have been an entirely different thing.

Business owners don't have to support every charity case that decides to rear his or her head.

All they've taught her is to lie in future - they still won't get their bloody poster up though!

Is the food good? Does she deliver?

I might have to make a trip into Brighton at some point.

PurpleHoodie it's really really good and on Uber Eats.

I recommend the fully loaded 😋

@Cocothefirst

IMO no religion is as batshit as the cult of gender.

I was just about to say the same thing.

Not putting up a poster for a go fund me style account is totally up to her. It sounds like the issue is about what she said about why she wouldn’t put it up. What exactly did she say when asked why she wouldn’t? I can’t find that anywhere. If she had, for example, said something I found really offensive about race or sexuality I might boycott the place (I know she didn’t.) I don’t think this is necessarily as simple as won’t put up poster = boycott.

We're heading down there in the school holidays. I may pop in for lunch.

Nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with her ideals. I just detest bullies (whatever they look like).

Out of my Uber delivery range; but close enough for a drive out n takeaway range.

Interesting they chose a small independent cafe to ask. I imagine they'd have got a big fat no for the request to put a poster in the window at Costas, Starbucks, Holland and barrett, Germany other places and possibly not even questioned it.

Like pp say it would be transphobic if she didnt let them in the cafe, or provided an inferior service based on gender, but she simply didnt want a poster in the window.
And why are all the staff alleged grievances being aired off the back of this - that's an entirely separate issue and has nothing to with the matter originally raised?

Germany = and many!!

She did not refuse service to someone based on their transgender identity, she refused to put a go fund me poster. The fact that this has stayed as a witch hunt and not become a legal case is telling.
She hasn't done anything wrong.
I happen to think her religious beliefs are so out there they are practically in orbit. But no business is under any obligation to display a poster.
The first 2/3 of her website statement are really interesting, especially how she doubted herself and felt like she was being 'mean' for asserting herself.

I saw this on the restaurant’s twitter feed

Happy Maki

Something inspiring - Anna Breytenbach is an animal communicator. Being connected to nature and to animals' thoughts, she’s able to send and receive messages. Follow her on Insta (@animalspiritadventures) or FB to keep up with her amazing work.

#govegan

My dog is obsessed with cheese so I think she might offend vegan sensibilities.

Fiz Furlough ending is playing a bit part in people being made redundant/losing their jobs (not necessarily in this case). Some people might be fronting their jobs losses and making a big political "flouncy" show of things.

Wow. This what used to happen to shop owners in northern ireland.

The food looks lovely.

Funny, that about ten years ago the woke brigade were all about ‘respecting people’s deeply held religious beliefs’. Now? Fuck ‘em.
I wonder where the bandwagon will trundle off to next? Place your bets, ladies!

I have to agree with HartnellAvenue. The Divine Truth's views on transpeople would definitely come under the label transphobic. If this is what she believes and it is her religion though, you are not going to change her mind, so I don't see any point in waging a campaign against her except for pure spite. There are nutters everywhere, best off stepping around them. And no, I won't be supporting Anna, with her judgy as fuck, crackpot religion, just like I wouldn't be supporting a business run by evangelical Christians or any other religion that discriminates against others for whatever reason. I don't care how many hungry kids you feed, if you discriminate, you're not about love! And I would be considered as TERF as fuck!