The current cultural climate has become more and more unaccepting of those who are considered different, and in this case, the transgender population took another ding when a beautician refused to provide services the clinic typically offers to everyone who walks through their doors. Jessica Yaniv walked into a beauty salon, hoping to receive a Brazilian bikini was, but instead, the 32-year old transgender has turned away because the clinician wasn’t sure how to wax male genitals. The LGBTQ community doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, and yet, they are subject to it on a daily basis. What happened at this particular beauty clinic screams of discrimination, and although they claimed this wasn’t so, Yaniv decided to take them to court anyways and prove that their dismissal of her receiving a bikini wax was discrimination. Apparently, though, the beauticians let Yaniv know they weren’t trained in waxing male genitals and didn’t know how to do so, which didn’t stop Yaniv from pushing through with her court case.

The beauty clinic suggested to Yaniv that she find a place where the clinicians were trained in waxing male genitals and who could offer her the type of service she was seeking. These words fell on deaf ears for Yaniv, who left the clinic in such a state that she immediately filed a lawsuit, asking for $15,000 in damages from each of the businesses that had to close their doors in Vancouver as a result of the incident. Because Yaniv’s complaints proved to be extremely powerful and the first ever for beauticians in this Canadian region, two of the beauty providers who offered bikini waxes went out of business. Yaniv had initially sought a much larger sum of $500,000, however, the courts found that amount to be a tad too exorbitant for such a case. She was very confident that her case was a done deal, but unfortunately, the British Human Rights Tribunal Council found that her motives weren’t consistent with their code, and instead asked her to pay $6000 for her poor conduct towards the beauty clinic.

In the end, the court found her intentions and actions were unjustified and in poor taste, which is why she lost the case. The Tribunal felt that its human rights legislation does not ask a beauty service provider to wax a specific type of genitals that they’re not properly trained for, and furthermore, have not consented to based on their own personal reasons. In the complaint, Yaniv also described the beauty clinics as being racially biased towards Asian communities who don’t have a vested interest in the LGBTQ community, therefore their motives are “taking over” as she so directly implied. The court disagreed and found Yaniv to be self-serving, argumentative, adding to racial discrimination, and only caring about her personal financial gain. Even though she lost the case after much cross-examination in court, Yaniv has vowed not to give up the fight for transgender rights and lesbians in general.