Gerlich said Phantom Billstickers had buckled to pressure from lobbyists with political and corporate backing that she could not match. (File photo)

A company has pulled posters commemorating women's suffrage after pressure from LBTGI youth groups who say the feminist blogger behind the poster campaign holds transgender exclusionary beliefs.

Phantom Billsticker's managing director Jamey Holloway says the company previously hung posters for Wellington writer and activist Renee Gerlich as part of women's suffrage projects. This year marks 125 years since women gained the right to vote in New Zealand.

At issue this year were complaints triggered by the tagline "suffragists worked for the female sex - stop rewriting history" that appeared on Gerlich's posters - a statement some see as denying transgender women's right to identify as women.

SUPPLIED One of Wellington activist Renee Gerlich's posters commemorating women's suffrage. The tagline has been criticised by some as promoting the rejection transgender women's right to identify as women.

Tabby Besley, national co-ordinator for InsideOUT - a group that advocates for young people of minority genders and sexualities - says the tagline displayed a subtle transphobia.

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Phantom asked InsideOUT for advice after receiving complaints about Gerlich's posters.

Her understanding was the posters were harmful to trans and gender diverse people.

"It's a platform for what we see as hate speech ... her blog is full of incredibly harmful words," Besley says.

Holloway says many posters had been ripped down around Wellington and a "large number of people" had asked the company not to poster Gerlich's campaign - but there were also calls in support of Gerlich.

Holloway says while it was not his job to "police a fight between marginalised groups" quashing anyone's right to free speech was something the company was loathe to do.

"It's an easy decision with clear hate speech or denigration, this is a lot more difficult - and I don't necessarily think I'm best placed to make the call, but someone has to," Holloway says.

Gerlich had said she would take the matter up with the Human Rights Commission - a move the company welcomes.

The core issue was not the posters themselves, but Gerlich's blog, Holloway says.

In it Gerlich criticises a lack of voices in media from gender critical feminists on gender identity, while saying the promotion of gender self-identification was constant.

Questioning trans-activism often resulted in a backlash especially the use of the label TERF - trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

"This slur is today’s 'witch' and is often accompanied by other insults as well as threats of violence, ostracism and loss of livelihood," Gerlich writes.

Gerlich claimed Phantom had responded to targeted pressure from lobbyists with political and corporate backing.

The company had taken the easiest route by "silencing the most marginalised party in the equation, and I don't see how Phantom can consider this choice to be in any way 'inclusive,'" she says.

Phantom was portraying the situation as though Gerlich was excluding people from her blog, which they had not read, while the company was being "inclusive" of people "figuring out who they are" by refusing her custom.

"This is the kind of thing George Orwell referred to as 'doublethink'."

The company should also know suffragists were also subject to backlash when they were fighting for women's rights, and to "let that help them decide how they should in good conscience respond," Gerlich says.

Toni Duder, from Rainbow Youth, says it supports Phantom's stance.