Transgender activist Jessica Yaniv has filed another human rights complaint against a Canadian beauty salon after workers refused to wax Yaniv’s male genitalia.
The latest complaint comes against She Point Beauty Studio, which offers Brazilian bikini waxes and leg waxes. The salon is run by East Indian women who are part of the Sikh religion. They rejected Yaniv’s request for waxes based on religious and cultural reasons, according to the Justice Centre, which is defending the women.
“Women have a constitutional right not to be compelled to touch biological males in an intimate or highly personal manner if they are not comfortable doing so,” Jay Cameron, an attorney with the Justice Centre, said in a Tuesday statement. “Like male genital waxing, our client does not offer male leg waxing services to the public, and we intend to vigorously defend against this targeted harassment on behalf of our client.”
Yaniv lost the last complaints against beauty salons in October and was forced to pay out thousands to the women listed in the suits. The court found that Yaniv had “engaged in improper conduct” in filing the complaints.
The activist has a history of targeting immigrant populations and making derogatory comments about Indian women.
“We have a lot of immigrants here who gawk and judge and aren’t exactly the cleanest people,” Yaniv said in a recent tweet. “They’re also verbally and physically abusive, that’s one main reason why I joined a girls gym, cause I DON’T want issues with these people, nor do I want anything to do with them in anyway, shape or form. They lie about shit, they’ll do anything to support their own kind and make things miserable for everyone else.”
In the October ruling, the judgment cited Yaniv’s “racial animus” as one of the reasons for dismissing the human rights complaint.
“Yaniv has a grievance against certain ethnic and cultural groups in the lower mainland of BC which she perceives are failing to assimilate effectively into what she considers ‘Canadian’ culture,” the court ruling stated. “These complaints are one way in which she is attempting to make this point and punish members of these groups.”
In December, Yaniv threatened to file a human rights complaint against a gynecologist office that refused her service.
