A Christian baker — whose Supreme Court case gained national attention after he refused to sell a custom wedding cake to a gay couple — is back in federal court this week. But this time it’s because his shop refused to create a blue-and-pink cake for a transgender woman’s birthday.

Lawyers for the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, said in a complaint in US District Court on Tuesday the cake’s design “would have celebrated messages contrary to his religious belief that sex — the status of being male or female — is given by God, is biologically determined, is not determined by perceptions or feelings, and cannot be chosen or changed.”

Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips contends the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religious exercise give business owners like him an exemption to state nondiscrimination laws — and he argues LGBT people have become “emboldened” by the previous lawsuit against him and waged a campaign of harassment.

The case began June 26, 2017 — the same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear the wedding cake case — when Autumn Scardina, a lawyer in Denver, called Masterpiece Cakeshop with her own cake order. (It’s unclear from the complaint whether Scardina was aware of the high-profile case when she called Masterpiece Cakeshop for her own order. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“They asked what I wanted the cake to look like, and I explained I was celebrating my birthday on July 6, 2017, and that it would also be the 7th year of my transition from male to female,” says a complaint Scardina filed last summer with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. “When I explained I am a transexual and that I wanted my birthday cake to celebrate my transition by having a blue exterior and a pink interior, they told me they will not make the cake based on their religious beliefs.”

“The woman on the phone told me they do not make cakes celebrating gender changes,” her complaint continued. “The woman on the phone did not object to my request for a birthday cake until I told her I was celebrating my transition from male to female. I believe other people who request birthday cakes get to select the color and theme of the cake.”

“I was stunned,” Scardina added in her complaint, saying the woman at the bakery hung up the phone.

The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, known as CADA, bans places of public accommodation — such as shops and restaurants — from discriminating against customers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As such, the commission found probable cause on June 28, 2018, that Phillips broke the law when he declined to make a cake for the transgender woman.



“A claim of discriminatory denial of full and equal enjoyment of a place of public accommodation has been established,” the commission found, noting that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Masterpiece wedding cake case found Colorado can indeed protect gay people from discrimination.