A transgender woman named Jessica Yaniv has lost a court case after she attempted to sue beauticians for refusing to wax her scrotum.
Yaniv, who identifies as a woman, but still has male sex organs, lost her landmark discrimination case in a Canadian court, and now, a British Columbia tribunal of human rights is claiming that she has attempted to manipulate anti-discrimination legislation to punish minorities she has deemed hostile to LGBT rights.
The controversy began after Yaniv sent a number of Facebook messages to several home-based beauticians in the Vancouver area, requesting that they perform a Brazilian wax on her genitals.
After some of the beauticians refused - arguing that they should not be forced to touch male genitals if they don't want to, or on religious grounds - Yaniv then filed a number of complaints against them, seeking an apology, $3,000, and a statement from the tribunal prohibiting the refusal of waxing services based on transphobia.
One such aesthetician was forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of the legal fees. However, the verdict the court returned was that: "Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax."
Watch this interview with a trans woman who wants to sue a railway for misgendering her:Per The Daily Telegraph, tribunal member Devyn Cousineau wrote: "I find that Ms Yaniv’s predominant motive in filing her waxing complaints is not to prevent or remedy alleged discrimination, but to target small businesses for personal financial gains."
Cousineau added: "In many of these complaints, she is also motivated to punish racialized and immigrant women based on her perception that certain ethnic groups … are ‘taking over’ and advancing an agenda hostile to the interests of LGBTQ+ people."
As a result of this ruling, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ordered Yaniv to pay $2,000 to each of the three aestheticians represented.
