so, i've been trying to avoid commenting on the jessica yaniv case, but i think the situation has gotten out of hand.

in ontario, which is not bc, the human rights code prohibits discrimination in five specific areas: employment, housing, services, unions and vocational associations and contracts. her claim is that, by being denied a brazilian wax (which i am only foggy on the actual details of) due to the existence of her male genitals, she is being discriminated against by a number of businesses on the grounds of her gender identity. further, she seems to believe that the root cause of the discrimination is religious observation, and she's probably absolutely right about it.

i think she has a strong case in principle, but it's less clear what the proper remedy is. the defense is trying to argue that she's trying to force specific employees into waxing her balls, but this is a disingenuous position. rather, what the law says in context is that the business has a duty to accommodate, which probably means that they'd have to hire employees willing to perform the service. that said, it's not particularly clear to me why a business doesn't exist to cater to the queer market, as you'd think waxing services for testicles isn't such a particularly obscure request within a particular community.

you have to pull back the layers of complexity and specificity, here, to get to the meaningful point. so, one of the things the court is going to ask is whether she had other options or not. the issue with the cake in detroit comes up, where maybe the owner was technically discriminating against the queer couple but the correct answer was to just go to another store, because there are lots of places that make cakes and you'll find one eventually. there's lots of pro-queer spaces in detroit, trust me. then, you can go on the internet and attack the business for being transphobic and hope it hurts their business. that's what i did with the works in detroit, and i won the argument at the end of the day - they've since disappeared, and i haven't had any problems since. it was a terrible place that the city got into a rut around, and the city is better off now that it's gone.

so, you should expect the court to rule that a violation occurred, but that's not the same thing as expecting them to come up with a clear solution. if she's asking for monetary compensation, it would have to be in the form of emotional damages, and it's not clear how that is defined. and, the only way they're going to order a company to hire somebody to perform the service is if there isn't another company on the market that already performs the service, which i think is doubtful. so, she might be right in principle, but her legal action is nonetheless probably ill-advised and winning the case may not come with any concrete benefits.

but, these are legal questions and the court will figure them out.

what is more concerning to me right now is that jessica appears to be being targeted by the religious right in her community, which is what she said was the root cause in the first place, and who are predictably using the police to carry out their oppression. whether you agree with her lawsuit or not, she needs solidarity and support from the broader community, right now.