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Yaniv filed most of her dozen complaints after booking appointments for Brazilian waxes with women who offer the service through Facebook. She would say she is transgender, then file a complaint when the women said they were not willing to offer this service. The BC Human Rights Code prohibits denial of service based on a person’s gender identity or expression.

In one case, Yaniv was refused service over an online message app after requesting a waxing for her “male parts,” so she wrote back to ask if the esthetician was comfortable working around the string of a tampon. The tribunal found she likely did this to make the woman, a Sikh from India who testified she was not then aware of transgender women in general, “feel uncomfortable or awkward for (Yaniv’s) own amusement or as a form of revenge.”

The ruling orders Yaniv to pay $6,000 in costs to three of her targets for “improper conduct” including using human rights law as a “weapon” for “extortion.”

It also brings to a close the bizarre public spectacle that exploded earlier this year when a publication ban was lifted on Yaniv’s identity, as she had already publicly revealed herself.

Self-identification does not erase physiological reality

That spectacle took the form of a vicious social media fight that set Yaniv, an information technology consultant with a history of aggressive and sexualized behaviour, against a determined subculture opposed to the ideology of trans acceptance in both culture and law. Several right-wing media outlets covered the case feverishly, including the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, revelling in Yaniv’s flamboyant image, her history of creepy online behaviour toward young girls, and her ceaseless self-promotion, which included entering beauty pageants for young women.