They Came Back to Protest The Sports Bra. They Never Made It Inside.
After The Sports Bra asked guests wearing transphobic shirts to leave the previous week, Tommy Allen and his transphobic friends made the bar their next target. They arrived to protest, only to be outnumbered, pushed away, and eventually driven into a nearby Fred Meyer while police protected them.
On Friday, September 11, a small group of far-right transphobes returned to The Sports Bra in Northeast Portland, this time to protest the bar itself. Their demonstration was organized in response to the previous weekend, when staff at The Sports Bra asked a group wearing transphobic shirts to cover them or leave. Rather than reconsider why a women’s sports bar might object to clothing designed to demean or exclude trans people, this group decided to attempt to protest at the bar and make the business the target of a public demonstration. They arrived expecting a confrontation. What they found instead was a community that had already shown up.
Antifascists and supporters of The Sports Bra arrived before Tommy Allen and his group, taking up space inside and directly in front of the business. Throughout the evening, the bar remained busy, with the patio and interior consistently filled and people continuing to come and go. At least 35 antifascist protesters were present, alongside dozens of ordinary patrons who kept the business open and occupied. The far-right group, by comparison, numbered roughly seven or eight people. The Sports Bra itself later said that more than 30 counter-protesters came to support the business.
The symbolism was difficult to miss. The people who had returned to protest a business for refusing to tolerate transphobic messaging could not get into that business. They never made it through the doors. Instead, they were pushed farther away from the bar as the crowd around them grew. A passerby even threw dog shit at Tommy Allen during the confrontation while walking their dog. Whatever spectacle the group had hoped to create outside The Sports Bra was quickly overwhelmed by something much less useful to a livestreamer looking for content: a community that simply refused to give them the space.
The confrontation eventually moved several blocks away from The Sports Bra. At least one person was bear-maced during the movement away from the bar. The transphobic group ultimately got pushed toward the nearby Fred Meyer, where members of the group went inside and began asking staff to call the police for protection. This was not the scene of a group successfully taking over a business or forcing its way into an event. It was a small group that had been unable to establish itself at the place it came to protest, retreating into a grocery store while asking police to intervene on its behalf.
First picture- Tommy Allen and his little group of transphobes hiding inside Fred Meyer
By this point, Portland police were already nearby. At approximately 6:40 p.m., officers could be seen sitting around the corner from Fred Meyer. By approximately 6:54 p.m., PPB had arrived at the grocery store, where officers remained alongside the far-right demonstrators in vehicles and on foot. The police presence would become particularly notable not because officers arrested anyone, but because they remained with the group even as chemical irritants were deployed against other people nearby.
The first person I encountered after being maced was across the street from the bar. A second person was later sprayed after walking out of the store. He had been shopping and had verbally confronted the group outside. When I helped him afterward, he told me that he had been at Fred Meyer to buy “pork chops and a water filter.” It was an almost absurdly mundane detail in the middle of a confrontation that had supposedly been organized as a political demonstration. Someone had gone grocery shopping and walked out into a group of people who had followed their political grievance into the parking lot.
Small group of transphobes standing outside of Fred Meyer
There was another instance of mace later, when Melissa Berntsen, who livestreams under the name NicoOregon, deployed it during the confrontation. In the chaos, much of the spray appeared to hit members of her own bigoted group. Berntsen is not new to using chemical irritants against people at political events. In June, she was charged in Washington County with unlawful use of mace, harassment, and bias crime. Stumptown Research Collective documented her spraying multiple people at Hillsboro Pride. The collective reported that three charges were filed against her following those incidents.
A release agreement in that case also restricts Berntsen's use of mace. Yet on Friday, she was again seen deploying it during a confrontation, including directly in front of Portland police. The significance is not simply that one person used pepper spray more than once. It is that police remained present while people were being sprayed and no arrests were made. This detail shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it yes another example of Portland police protecting the far-right. PPB later said officers investigated two reports involving irritant spray but did not believe they had probable cause to make arrests.
That official account leaves out the experience of the people who were actually standing there. From the perspective of those on the ground, the police response was not experienced as neutral de-escalation. Officers remained close to Allen and his group while chemical irritants were deployed. Eventually, the far-right demonstrators were escorted away from the area with police alongside them. The same people who had come to provoke a confrontation outside a community business ended the night with a police presence effectively providing them protection as they left.
This is where the familiar language of “both sides” begins to obscure what actually happened. There were indeed opposing groups present, and people on both sides exchanged words. But that does not make every action interchangeable. One group came to demonstrate against a business because it had enforced a policy against exclusionary and demeaning transphobic messaging. The other group showed up to defend the community and make sure the people targeting it could not simply take over the space. Chemical irritants were then repeatedly used away from the bar, including against people who were not part of the demonstration at all. The response from police was to monitor the scene and ultimately facilitate the safe departure of the people who had brought the hatred and the mace.
The Sports Bra has been clear about why it asked the original group to leave, and it did not back down after Friday's demonstration. In a statement issued after the protest, the bar said it stood by its decision and with its community, reiterating that people of every identity and background are welcome but that messages or conduct that exclude or demean others are not permitted inside the business. The bar specifically reaffirmed its support for trans girls and trans women and said Friday's demonstration did not change its commitment to being a place where people who have historically been excluded can feel safe and welcome.
That commitment was visible inside the bar itself. After the confrontation had largely moved away from The Sports Bra, I went inside and spoke with multiple staff members. They were in good spirits, and they had been surrounded by support throughout the evening. The bar had remained full while the protesters were pushed farther and farther away. The people the demonstration was supposedly meant to intimidate had not been driven out. They were still there, eating, drinking, watching sports, talking to one another, and filling the space the protesters had come to target.
That may ultimately be the most important part of what happened Friday. Tommy Allen and his allies came to The Sports Bra because the business had refused to make room for transphobia. They returned expecting that decision to become a spectacle they could exploit. Instead, they found the bar surrounded by people willing to defend it, were prevented from establishing themselves at the entrance, and never made it inside. Their demonstration moved away from the business, into a grocery store, and eventually into a situation where they were asking police and private security for protection.
They came back to demand that The Sports Bra make room for them. The community made sure they didn't get to decide what that space would become.
As of writing this, the same group of transphobes has put out a call for another protest at the bar on September 20th, urging their far-right supporters that they need more numbers this time. Something tells us that the Portland community will once again have this covered.
Read this article for some background information:
Alissa Azar
