Protesters clash again outside Portland's The Sports Bra

There is a women's sports bar in Portland, Oregon called The Sports Bra, and on a Sunday afternoon it became the kind of flashpoint that tells you exactly where we are right now. Conservative protesters gathered across the street. Counterprotesters arrived to back the bar. Mace was deployed. A Fred Meyer had its windows smashed. One person was arrested. And through all of it, the bar issued a statement so clear and so plainly human that I read it twice.

Let me start with what actually happened, because the details matter. Earlier this month, a group entered The Sports Bra wearing clothing promoting the XX-XY Athletics brand, which campaigns for the removal of trans women from women's sport. Staff asked them to cover the messaging or leave. That decision, made inside a bar about what happens inside that bar, was apparently enough to bring a conservative group back to the pavement outside on two separate Sundays.

The second of those protests, on 20 September, did not stay on the pavement. Counterprotesters, including groups supporting trans rights, arrived in support of the business. What began as people shouting across a street became physical confrontations in residential neighbourhoods. One woman described helping counterprotesters who ended up in her front yard after being maced and kicked. Rocks were thrown at cars. By the time it reached a nearby grocery store, there were fist-fights and shattered windows. A witness described it as "absolute chaos." One man, Michael Duntley, was arrested in connection with the theft of a phone at a protest in late August.

None of that is good. Violence does not serve anyone well here. But I want to be equally plain about what started it, because that tends to get lost in coverage that frames two groups clashing as though they arrived at the same disagreement from symmetrical positions.

They did not. One side walked into a bar wearing clothing designed to tell trans women they do not belong in women's spaces, and then organised two consecutive protest weekends when a bar owner said: not in here. The other side showed up to say: we do not accept that in Portland. Those are not the same act presented in different colours.

The XX-XY brand's entire purpose is to campaign against the inclusion of trans women in sport. Wearing its clothing into a women's sports bar that explicitly celebrates trans women is not a neutral choice. It is a message, deliberately chosen, deliberately worn. The staff who asked those customers to cover it or leave were not suppressing opinion. They were deciding what environment they were responsible for creating, which is exactly what every business does every day.

The Sports Bra's statement is worth reading in full, because it says something that very few businesses have the clarity or the courage to say out loud. "We support and celebrate trans girls and trans women as part of the community we exist to serve." Not as a footnote. Not as a qualification. As the point. They went on: "People of every identity and background are welcome at The Sports Bra, but messages or conduct that exclude or demean others are not permitted in our space."

That is not complicated: that is a bar that has decided who it is for and what it stands for, and it has said so simply and without apology. I find that genuinely heartening, not because conflict followed but because the bar did not flinch when it did. The statement ends: "Today's demonstrations do not change our commitment to being a place where people, especially those historically excluded, can feel safe and know they belong."

Think about what that means for the trans woman who just wants to watch a game. Who wants a beer and a comfortable seat and the ordinary pleasure of being somewhere that feels like it was made with her in mind. The Sports Bra was built for her. The protests outside it were organised by people who think she should not be there. And the bar looked at all of that and said: we stand by our decision and with our community.

There is something worth protecting in that. Women's sport has been talked about almost exclusively as a problem to be managed when trans women are anywhere near it, and the conversation has been dominated by people who are not trans women and are not, frankly, the ones most affected by how it goes. A bar in Portland decided to make women's sport feel like a celebration rather than a debate, and to include trans women in that celebration without conditions. That is worth a great deal.

What happened on the street outside was ugly, and I hope it does not happen again. But the thing that caused it was a business doing something right, and I think it is important to say that clearly. The Sports Bra asked people displaying anti-trans messaging to cover it or leave. It stood by that when challenged. It said, in writing, that trans girls and trans women are part of its community. Whatever comes next, it has shown what it looks like when a place genuinely means it.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Expert and advocate for trans rights and gender diversity. She is the founder of GenderGP.