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“You cannot choose who your clientele is going to be,” she said.

I have no problem with LGBT

However, business owner Marcia Da Silva said she was not comfortable carrying out a Brazilian wax on a person with male genitalia, nor did she have the training for it. Jay Cameron, Da Silva’s lawyer and litigation manager with the Alberta-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, told the hearing that a ruling against his client would be tantamount to ordering “intimate services” against someone’s will.

The complaint heard Wednesday is one of more than a dozen filed by Yaniv, who describes herself as a digital marketing expert and LGBTQ activist. All allege she was the subject of discrimination by salons. A few complaints have been settled without hearing or withdrawn.

Yaniv also made headlines recently for engaging in a social media spat with free-speech advocate Lindsay Shepherd, in which they both made disparaging remarks about each other. Twitter subsequently banned Shepherd from the platform, but not Yaniv.

The tribunal had initially issued a publication ban shielding Yaniv’s identity, but on Wednesday Cousineau decided to lift the ban based on Yaniv’s social media presence and public advocacy.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Yaniv, who is representing herself, said she came upon a Facebook ad in spring 2018 offering a promotion for a Brazilian wax, which involves the removal of pubic hair around the groin.

Da Silva testified she had just started her home-based business after previously performing waxes on family and friends. Yaniv was the first person to respond to her ad, she said.