The "F--k Yoga" button had to go before Transit Police would allow Jean Wharf to board a SkyTrain home.
The 21-year-old barista was stopped at Nanaimo Station for fare evasion on a January night. When Wharf returned to the westbound platform after purchasing a ticket, the same officer asked her to remove the anti-yoga pin. She said no, and was yanked by the arm off the train.
"This wasn't about the fare," Wharf told QMI. "This wasn't about the pin. This was about an exercise of power and I'm not going to be anybody's rag doll to throw around."
Wharf found no satisfaction when the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner rejected her grievance against the officer, as the body found he acted within TransLink policy, which prevents the use of obnoxious behaviour or language on public transit.
"You have a lot of people in many cases are confined or who are captive, they can't get off a moving bus or a moving SkyTrain, and they are people of many values," explained TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie. "Where possible, we like to provide an environment that's mutually respectful."
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has taken up Wharf's fight by filing a policy complaint with the OPCC against Transit Police.
"The difficulty is she wasn't using it in standing up and shouting," said BCCLA president Robert Holmes. "If you're going to draw lines, why do you draw them there and not somewhere else?"
He argued TransLink's policy on foul language is subject to freedom of speech provisions granted under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and should be overturned.
Wharf sees the issue as a matter of respect.
"I can totally respect their authority if they respect me," she said. "Just because I'm young, I'm a punk, because I'm one way, it doesn't give them any right to treat me like that. They have to start treating us like people and not like criminals.