Trans woman who alleged discrimination after beauticians refused to wax her male genitalia loses court battle
A Canadian court ruled Tuesday in favor of multiple beauticians who refused to provide a bikini wax to a transgender model.
Jessica Yaniv, who was born male, had accused three women of "discrimination" when they declined to give her testicles a "Brazilian wax".
Yaniv had complained against five Vancouver estheticians, claiming that they had discriminated against her on separate occasions when she requested the treatment from them, according to KOMO News.
The women reportedly insisted in court that they only offer the particular service to their female clients and were not trained to wax men. Reports state that several estheticians cited religious reasons for not doing so, claiming they were uncomfortable waxing a man.
Their defense lawyer, Jay Cameron, while talking to the outlet, said: "No woman should be compelled to touch male genitals against her will, irrespective of how the owner of the genitals identifies."
The court, while announcing its decision against Yaniv on Tuesday, said that she had "filed complaints for improper purposes."
The deciding official in the quasi-judicial British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal said: "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. There are differences between waxing the genitals of a person with a vulva and a person with a penis and scrotum."
The Canadian official presiding the case, however, minimized the danger to the country's pro-transgender laws by suggesting that women may need to provide sexually intimate service to male bodies too if they have been trained for the task.
There were many human rights lawyers who sided with Yaniv, saying that a person offering waxing services to women cannot discriminate between cisgender and transgender women.
“I agree generally with [the transgender plaintiff] Ms. [Jessica] Yaniv that a person who customarily offers women the service of waxing their arms or legs cannot discriminate between cisgender and transgender women absent a bona fide reasonable justification,” said Devyn Cousineau, a human rights lawyer said.