UK pub giant Wetherspoon's says it has no policy banning suffragette and 'adult human female' tops after woman says she had to undress in Belfast branch to try and get served

It comes after a woman was refused service in the Belfast branch for wearing a t-shirt bearing the purple, white, and green colours of the historic suffragette movement.

She says she then took her top off in an attempt to be served.

Wetherspoons said that, after an initial refusal, the duty manager over-ruled the decision and decided she should be served after all.

‘LET WOMEN SPEAK’ RALLY

The woman in question had been frequenting the bar after a city centre rally on Sunday called "Let Women Speak".

At the rally, speakers voiced their objections to the demands of the transgender movement, as regards how they affect women.

In particular, they reject the idea that men who "self-identify" as women should be allowed into female toilets, changing rooms, and sports.

They also oppose the removal of words like "woman" and "mother" from medical literature and advertising, where they are currently being replaced by phrases like "people with a cervix" and "birthing people, to satisfy transgender campaigners who say that men and "non-binary people" also have periods and give birth.

(Non-binary is a separate category from intersex people, who physically have both male and female sex characteristics; instead, non-binary means someone who claims to be part of a hitherto-unknown gender such as "two-spirit", "gender queer" or "gender fluid").

As well as the purple, white, and green colours, the t-shirt worn by the woman in Wetherspoon's also bore the words: Women Won't Wheesht.

This is the name of a Scottish campaign group opposed to Nicola Sturgeon's recent decision to make it easier for people to switch gender on their official documents.

‘YOU CAN’T WEAR THAT TOP… SO I JUST TOOK IT OFF’

In a video taken shortly after the incident, the woman says a bartender in Wetherspoons told her to "cover up my top" while she ordered a burger.

She picked up a bar menu to cover her top, but was told that wasn't enough.

"You have to not be wearing that top because it's offensive," the woman said she was told by a member of bar staff.

"So I just took it off. And the bartender has just told me to put it back on."

Another popular type of t-shirt among those attending the rally were ones saying: "Woman: adult human female".

This commonly-used dictionary definition has been dubbed "hate speech" by some trans activists, because it excludes males.

There were reports that another bar elsewhere in the city on Sunday had refused service to people because they were wearing a similar kind of t-shirt.

Asked about the incident in its premises on Sunday, Wetherspoon’s – which runs over 800 pubs in the UK – said: "A customer who we believe had attended an earlier rally in the city was asked to cover her T-shirt at the bar before being served.

"We confirm that the request was withdrawn by the pub’s duty manager as soon as the circumstances of the refusal had been established.

"We understand the customer was then served.”

The News Letter responded: "Thanks... but I want to be clear if [Wetherspoons] has a policy on this stuff. So is it the case that there's no prohibition on people wearing suffragette colours or 'adult human female' tops?"

The reply came: "There is no policy."

Shortly thereafter another statement came through from Wetherspoon's legal department re-inforcing the earlier one.

It said: "Wetherspoon does not have a policy with regards to specific statements or slogans on t-shirts.

"But, as stated in the company’s website customer FAQs, the majority of our pubs are family environments so we ask our customers to dress appropriately and in a way which would not cause offence to the public.

"In respect of this particular incident, the duty manager did not consider that the t-shirt worn by the customer concerned was offensive, hence the request that she cover it up was withdrawn."

COMMISSION: WE GOT NO COMPLAINTS

The Equality Commission – which represented Gareth Lee in his several-years-long court fight against Ashers bakery – told the News Letter: “We are aware from our social media channels of two incidents following the 'Let Women Speak' event in Belfast city centre on Sunday and we can confirm that we have not received any calls for advice.

"Anyone who believes they may have experienced potential discrimination can come to the Commission for confidential advice.”

All this comes a couple of weeks after English craft beer firm Cloudwater stopped supplying The Errigle Inn in south Belfast because customers had held a screening of the film "Adult Human Female” in the pub.

The boss of Cloudwater was quoted by the BBC as saying he wants to see a "kind, considerate and loving society" and condemned people "sowing division between groups of under-protected women, intent on blurring the lines between free speech and hate speech".

The News Letter has been basically alone in covering transgender matters in Northern Ireland in recent years (with the exception of Stephen Nolan’s podcast series). Here’s a small sample:

• Drag queen storytime – VIDEO: Libraries Northern Ireland praises practice of drag performers reading to children

• Politicians praise new Scottish gender-switch law and call for Northern Ireland to mimic it

• Director of group hired to train PSNI dubbed police ‘racist oppressor pigs who deserve the wall’

• Transgenderism: Major Irish teaching union under fire from Jordan Peterson over video encouraging teachers to help pupils switch gender - watch the video and judge for yourself

• Criminalising conversion therapy: Northern Ireland must avoid – not mimic – Canada’s new law says transgender writer

• Use transgender pronouns or face possible dismissal: new guidelines for NI’s 23,000 civil servants

• Belfast Pride 2022 organisers ‘may have broken law by seeking to bar transgender critics from parade’