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 wonder if she would post out her lemon drizzle cakes ?

How can any of us help? Good idea from Cara.

MuserOwl is correct. This is like the Troubles.

It reeks. Women (some on here) have already been physically injured. It's Troubles type MO, and illegal. UK citizens will end up being killed due to the actions of trans-genderists. Their track record for violence is already laid out in the open.

This is why it's important for these extortion actions to be recorded/reported to the UK government.

Anonymously or otherwise.
It is home grown terrorism.

Funding is being raised through these actions. One person here. One person there. The "fund me accounts are never accountable ones".

@CaraDuneRedux that's an interesting idea. I don't know Anna at all but seeing as the TRAs have shared her email address on every social media platform you could email her to ask.

She has responded to the TRAs btw. A very long, slightly emotional response but still fair and reasonable in my opinion:

www.happymaki.co.uk/blog

I’m a local and I hadn’t heard about this.

Sometimes I love my city, sometimes I’m ashamed of it and this is one of those times. Along with the worst abuse of women of any WPUK meeting and a police force and council who enable said abuse. I sometimes wonder why, I think because it’s a city that is so cool about gay rights and has always been accepting, it automatically links trans ideology to that without acknowledging any possible clashes. That and it’s a small city with two universities.

Regardless of how mad her beliefs might be, as a business owner she is entirely within her rights to choose what goes in her window.

I think choosing to see a small business fold in this climate, make people unemployed and prevent charity to a worthy cause says a lot. A mastectomy for your own wants is more important than feeding children.

The selfishness and bullying involved here is pretty staggering.

Seems extremely clear what has happened here. The trans person who requested a fundraiser is already pals with some of the staff (hence the organising around that person and the links to their fundraiser on the staff statement.)

Staff knew about Anna's spiritual beliefs. Which means the begging bowl TRA almost certainly knew in advance what response they'd get when they asked to put the poster up.

I'd bet good money that disgruntled staff set the owner up on purpose. Combining an opportunity to bully their boss with a great victimhood set piece for the begging bowl TRA to leverage.

The arrogance of these bloody ppl!! Why don’t they just go for the full shaving her head in the street & leading her through the city to be pelted with mud??

People are allowed to say no to you you over entitled whiny fucking toddlers!! Not everyone is this entire world revolves around you!!

Genderism as well as obviously being sexist, homophobic, and misogynistic is racist and classist.

But well, well. Welcome Ms Corona and Mr Brexit to bring young genderist quickly up to speed with Social and social reality.

@Collidascope

What's funny is that for the most part, religions in the UK don't try to convert people in this, erm, direct way. It's more a matter of them being open to people who want to join. We used to (pre-covid) get a few Jehovah's Witnesses on the doorstep. I'd tell them I wasn't religious, they'd ask why and if they could leave a booklet, and I'd agree mainly because the pictures are hilarious. The conversation was always friendly and polite. It never turned nasty.

I don't know if the intolerance and zealotry of the trans activists is due to the newness of it as a fairly mainstream (and the insecurity of that), or the fact that it's planted so much in the battles of social media (again with the insecurity of being told by your "allies" how much everyone hates you, and the trendiness of it), or if it's because it's been transported wholesale from the US where evangelism is a big deal.

haha, at my school they used to hold 'Christian Rock' concerts and wheel out their coolest leather jacketed, floppy haired Christians for recruitment purposes. Most of the girls would sign up and be devoutly Christian for about two weeks until they got bored.

Those were the days. No death threats, no mass harassment campaigns.

I’ve emailed Anna to express my support and I feel that those of us who agree with her on here should also do so. I can’t bear bloody bullies and feel that she needs to know that many, many people support her right to run her business in her own way. Don’t let the bastards grind you down Anna

The owner should have protection under the 2010 Equalities Act due to her sex and religious beliefs.

Horrible horrible people, trying to destroy a local ethical gift economy/exchange business. Just awful.

Kantastic

Are those staff members who have money enough in this climate now back in the bosom of the bank of mum and dad?

Or are they going to claim Universal Credit?

My heart is bleeding for them either way

What a load of backstabbers though.

Just when you think TRA's can't go any lower, they surprise you in a really bad way.
Groups of people trying to totally destroy another's livelihood.

Why would any self-respecting business put a begging poster from someone they don’t know who is asking for plastic surgery in their window? Maybe the bully should get a job and save up for the surgery. I thought it was free on the NHS anyhow?

There's definitely an element of sexism here too. Would a man have received the same level of vitriol for expressing an opinion? I doubt it.

I like this part of Anna's response. She seems like a decent woman. Slightly batshit but decent.

Why has literal madness occurred in restaurant where drama is not commonplace? All it takes is one opinion that a group or community doesn’t agree with and people will go to great lengths to either force you to change or face having yourself and your business outed. Why do these people feel this is justified, how is this approach ever going to bring about positive change, and how in this scenario am I the one being labelled as intolerant? If we have any hope in moving forwards as a population, we have to be able to speak honestly, vulnerably and directly about how we feel, what we believe and what we know about certain topics.

Yes.

I'd say she'd be best put in the path of some good business mentors who'll assist her.

Employ some good non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic staff.

It is absolutely first and foremost a sexist attack if the owner is female.

So the letter from Henry was in February?

And Henry had been in since to purchase food?

Could it be that the group of friends met up for a catch up recently with Henry and complained and Henry told them about the letter? Either way, it is putting Henry's crowdfunder out there. It has had plenty of action over the past few days and is not far from the target.

The crowd funder is nearly there too.

www.happymaki.co.uk/blog

Having read her blog post I retract my earlier quip infering she's part of a cult. She sounds fab- supercool and level headed and the menu is divine.

I wish her the best and hope this shit storm blows over soon.

I like this part of Anna's response. She seems like a decent woman. Slightly batshit but decent.

Too decent to be able to cope with these people unfortunately. Not that it's easy for anyone to deal with them, but they wouldn't have had leverage on her if she hadn't naively tried to be honest and open.

Does anyone else wonder if they were inspired by the wokists across the Atlantic? Of course in places like Portland the demands that businesses pay tribute are backed up by men in black with baseball bats... shit. I'd like to hope this happening is a one-off and not something that's going to escalate in bad ways but I don't think 2020 works like that.

@PurpleHoodie

Kantastic

Are those staff members who have money enough in this climate now back in the bosom of the bank of mum and dad?

Or are they going to claim Universal Credit?

My heart is bleeding for them either way

They walked out of a job so they won't be eligible. Saying they left because their boss refused to be threatened, won't cut it.