JD Wetherspoon staff refused to serve gender-critical campaigners who were celebrating the landmark Supreme Court ruling, it has emerged.
Several employees at one of the chain’s Edinburgh pubs snubbed the co-leaders of feminist group For Women Scotland, Susan Smith and Marion Calder, after recognising their faces.
Ms Calder, 54, an NHS worker, phoned a local journalist and told them, ‘you’ll never guess what’s happened here at Spoons’.
They then rang the Wetherspoon’s communications manager, who then called the branch’s manager. Ms Calder told The Times the protesting staff then left and ‘we got more drinks in’.
The trailblazing duo had taken a train back to the city and headed to the branch to raise a glass to the landmark judgment handed down by five Supreme Court justices that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Founder and chairman of Wetherspoon Sir Tim Martin described the incident as an ‘initial hiccup’.
He told The Telegraph: ‘If you win a court case, especially a Supreme Court case, you would expect to be allowed to celebrate in a pub, so glad they were able to do so – albeit after an initial hiccup.’
The Daily Mail has contacted Wetherspoon for further comment.
Labour minister Bridget Phillipson is currently delaying the publication of new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on women-only spaces after branding the proposals ‘trans-exclusive’.
The Women and Equalities Secretary has not yet signed off the draft guidance more than three months after receiving it, despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling that sex under equality law means biological sex.
The EHRC guidance was drawn up following the court’s decision in April and would require businesses and public bodies to protect single-sex spaces such as women’s lavatories, changing rooms and hospital wards.
However, in a submission to the High Court, Ms Phillipson criticised the draft guidance and made clear she does not support its approach, arguing that it would unfairly exclude transgender women.
She described the proposals as ‘trans-exclusive’ and warned that banning biological males from women’s facilities could have unintended consequences.
Ms Phillipson claimed the guidance could prevent women from taking their infant sons into swimming pool changing rooms and said there were ‘many entirely plausible exceptions’ to single-sex rules.
She also argued that the Supreme Court ruling was primarily concerned with maternity protections rather than blanket restrictions on access to women-only spaces.
Because the guidance has not been approved, hospitals, businesses and other public bodies remain without clear instructions on how to apply the ruling, with no requirement currently in force to exclude biological males from women’s spaces.
Earlier this month, Ms Calder urged Sir Keir Starmer to ‘show some leadership’ on women’s rights after a ‘problematic’ employment tribunal appeared to contradict the landmark Supreme Court ruling.
A tribunal ruled that health bosses had harassed nurse Sandie Peggie, but her other claims were dismissed and the judge said that it was lawful for a biological male to use a female changing room.
Ms Peggie’s lawyer criticised the judgment as ‘hugely problematic for women’ while women’s rights groups said that it is ‘in direct conflict’ with April’s Supreme Court ruling.
Ms Calder said the tribunal ruling was ‘very concerning’ and would put women off bringing similar cases.
She told the Mail: ‘This does go against our ruling at the Supreme Court, and it does appear that this tribunal, a low-level tribunal, was trying to rework our case, which is astonishing.’
She added: ‘The reason we took our case to the Supreme Court was to stop individuals having to take these tribunal cases, because we know the huge financial and emotional cost that comes with it.
‘We thought that this would kind of save women from having to do it. But here we are, and the cases continue.
‘Bridget Phillipson, Keir Starmer and Labour need to stand up and actually show some leadership on this, because women are actually getting harmed.’
