Should a waxing salon have to provide Brazilians to trans women?

This story is not new, but it came up in the Economist this week. But one needs a subscription to that, so I'll post another source.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canad...lian-wax-job-withdraws-human-rights-complaint

The service provider's policy is to perform genital area waxing only to women. Providing service to men requires different training and equipment. The Economist reports that two-thirds of trans women retain their male genitalia.

Does refusal of service to a trans woman qualify as a "human rights violation?"

I would say no - not in this case anyway. It would (kinda sorta) be like taking my VW Jetta into a Ford dealership and complaining when they try to explain that the techs don't have the specific training/certification nor access to proprietary parts needed to perform the repairs. Actually the waxing would be more critical because you could potentially damage a person's body. BTW for the record having to wax anyone's "nether regions" is a flat-out disgusting job worth a six-figure annual income at a minimum.

You shouldn't be getting a brazilian if you have a cock anyway - you just end up looking like a sundial.

What kind of waxing place doesn't offer services to men at all? Trans people aside, that's discriminatory in and of itself.

Sex discrimination at beauty salons, spas, etc is pretty common in my experience. Because it involves a fair amount of nudity and intimacy with the service provider, I don't see the problem.

the one problem I'm seeing is in the last sentence...

She's seeming pretty litigious against an industry already poorly reputed for economically exploiting women.

I'm honestly kind of torn because of the level of interaction required between customer and provider here. Personal services (such as aesthetics, massage, physical training) aren't in the same realm as baking a cake, providing medical treatment, or most other goods/services.

For my construction job, we sometimes refuse jobs that we don't have the skills and/or resources to perform adequately. However, we also have the connections to refer a client to a company that can do what they want. Eventually it's in our best interest to find and retain employees that are willing and able to fill those gaps.

I don't think a cash award is appropriate so much as requiring standardization within the industry to be more inclusive/prepared.

Surely the simple solution here is to recast the issue away from gender and onto the practical realities of the task in hand? It seems the issue is (ideally) less about the person being trans and more about the anatomy in question. The salon can cater for vaginas, not penises, regardless of who they happen to be on. After all I imagine there are probably insurance issues with using the equipment in ways which weren't intended?

If the equipment and training in place isn't appropriate for that person's genitalia you either expand you business model and employ staff who are willing and able to provide that service, or you make the limitations in your capacity and the reasons for them clear.

My problem with that would be that homosexuals exist, so barring one gender wouldn't make anything less sexual.

This sums up my thoughts on it as well. When it comes to personal levels of intimacy between customer and professional, saying "I can't do that" is perfectly valid, especially if you aren't trained to handle that kind of speciality.

It's never about practicalities in these cases. It's all outrage and PC horse shit. And you're a racist sexist nazi if you see it any other way.

You do know I'm pretty left wing and a vocal advocate of trans rights?

You do know the political divide isn't between sensible people and unicorns? One can entirely marry up a genuine desire for equality with an appreciation for the practicalities involved.

I'm all for service providers extending their business to trans women (after all why would they close off an ever growing market except for bigotry?), but they need to be able to do it safely using the correct equipment

So . . . outrage and PC horse shit until it impacts an area where you claim privilege, then?

No, nuance and realism, there's no a priori reason an trans person should have any less rights than anyone else or be excluded, but as was so eloquently pointed out earlier one wouldn't take a car to be serviced by a motorbike mechanic. The decent (and profitable) way forward would be for businesses to expand the available training and equipment so as to make this possible. I'm quite happy to accept people will have different tolerances where it comes to the intimacy involved, but that doesn't preclude employing people who are prepared to provide that service, after all the issue here only really makes sense if it's about the anatomy rather than the politics.

if it can be legitimately demonstrated that the training and equipment to do the job is not practically available, I would not call it a "human rights violation"
I'm less sympathetic to the "icky penis" mentality as that's a societal issue that needs to change but still, I don't think that falls uder the regulation in question.
Possibly this person is too litigious but that shouldn't matter.


The one thing that does disturb me here is the claim that the lawyers are putting her identity at risk. It is literally dangerous to be known publicly as trans, particularly one willing to stand up for equality. If that's actually a factor here it's bullshit.

/thread.

Unless the costumer does something weird, it's not going to make any difference to a female service provider that a female customer is a lesbian.

I saw this story somewhere else, the spa did have a person with the skills and equipment to wax male genitalia. That person wasn't in that day, and the transperson was asked to come back then.

So it’s a nonissue.

I would think the actual difficulty would be to perform a brazillian on a female anatomy over the male anatomy. The male anatomy is covered in skin and you would not be getting near any area where the abrasions and injury of waxing would cause more risk to the client. Maybe the hot wax could somehow cause heat damage to the testes and reproduction, but if you are a trans woman who has taken hormones you are pretty well ending that problem anyway. Infection issues are probably a lot worse for women in those areas given the tissues and materials near the site of the waxing

Sounds to me more like an idea of the tech having an issue with touching a penis.

If it’s just an issue with training or the equipment they need to use, it’s not really an issue. They should at least recommend a salon that can or reschedule for when they can. It would be no different if you went to get your hair dyed and they had run out that particular dye.

If that is so, then there is no issue here, and it sounds like they made a good effort to accommodate her.

I guess we’re done here then. Smoke em if you got em.

Then it shouldn't matter if a male customer is straight, unless that customer does something weird as well.

Some female service providers don't want to or cannot manage men and penises. There's no avoiding anatomy. But your point about lesbians is different because homosexuality is about behavior, not anatomy.

The other issue here is that, in my reckoning, a "human rights violation" needs to involve harm of some import. Not being able to get a wax job is pretty trivial. How many judicial resources should Canadian taxpayers be expected to throw at this?

Canada can spend its tax money however it wants, the citizens can vote their leaders out of office if they don't agree with it.

There are areas of beauty and medical services which you will have issues of different body types and what are racial and gender differences. Male and female hair differ i density and thickness on many areas of the body. That does change with HRT. In the end you do need the ability to turn away clients based on certain criteria and comfort level of the tech. Ripping out thicker hair will cause different problems and more damage to the skin. There will be some bleeding and the possibility of harsher abrasions to the skin. If you need to alter the procedure and be familiar with dealing with coarser hair, and you are not you should refuse a service like this. Then again, I would say that a person who needs to be trained and certified in this sort of thing should be trained to deal with coarser and more dense hair anyway because women will differ. The skin may be different for men especially on the sex organs, and there would be medical issues on performing such a procedure on skin that has undergone surgery and may have differences because of that.

There may be medical reasons and licensing issues with this sort of procedure. The whole procedure seems a bit pointless if the trans woman is pre op. Tge purpose of the brazilian is to remove hair on lines more for a thong bikini which would be a bit revealing for a person who still had a penis, but then again it may be for bedroom purposes also.

Just from a cosmotology point of view which is less medical than a licensed hair removal tech you have reasons to refuse some services based on your lack of skill or familiarity. If you feel you cannot perform the procedure because your lack of skill or knowledge could cause damage, or because of the condition of the cient then you should direct them elsewhere. This may be an area where trans women need to seek out a specialist that is familiar with their anatomy so they are not harmed. That would be a matter for the medical field and courts to fully decide. Still, since trans women would be part of the customer base for these services perhaps it is time that the people providing these services are made familiar with the procedure as part of their licensing. a post op trans person may not be comfortable telling a tech about their status where it could matter if they feel they might be turned away or shamed. That promotes lying and the potential for injury.

Have you even bothered to read the thread at all? Literally no one is saying this.

Believe it or not, people can tell the difference between purposeful discrimination and an unintentional cultural bias. As Spot said, salons aren't working on dicks attacted to cis males all that often either.

I'm not so sure about that.

Yeah, none of that is in dispute. The question is not whether the government can, but whether it should.