Brazil: Man Sues Waxing Salon for Refusing Service

Notícia em português, aqui.

A Brazilian man who says he is “trans” and adopted the name Kim Flores Carlos, has filed a lawsuit against a waxing salon, which refused to serve him last year. Carlos booked a waxing appointment at Millanea Instituto de Depilação with the owner, Isabel Martins da Silva, by telephone.

But, when Carlos came to the salon for his appointment, they turned him down for being male. He recorded the interaction with an esthetician and with the owner, and uploaded it to his TikTok. It is said that he later removed the video from his account, but the video ended up on YouTube and went viral, with thousands of likes and shares.

Carlos also left a one star review about the salon on Google, saying that they refused to attend to him because he is a “transwoman.” He said the staff informed him that they don’t service trans people and don’t know how to “work” with his body. “They have no qualifications or work ethics about ‘diverse bodies.’ All the waxing clinics I went to strived for my comfort and well-being and offered a humanized service. Shame on this salon!”

On December 13, 2022, Carlos filed a lawsuit online (Special Civil Court) against the waxing salon, demanding compensation for “moral damages.” The salon was given 15 days to respond, and is seeking legal advice.

According to Ms Silva, the man gave a female name, “Kim,” when he booked the waxing appointment. When he arrived at the salon on June 11, 2022, Silva took him to a private room and called the female esthetician who was going to attend to him. But the esthetician came back to the reception minutes later, saying that the client was a man who was only wearing male briefs, with full male genitalia (testicles and penis) and had an erection.

“That’s when I asked her to tell him that we didn’t do waxing on males,” said Isabel. She says that when the esthetician went back to the room where Carlos was, he started recording the interaction, first with an esthetician and then with Isabel at the reception.

In the video, Carlos can be heard telling the unnamed esthetician “I am a trans person, is this an issue? It isn't, is it?” The esthetician who was assigned to attend to him that day is seen saying “We only do women here.” The man then says that “In this case, I am a woman.” He asks the esthetician if she’s had experience with “trans people” and she informs him that she never attended trans people. “We don’t have anything against trans people,” she says, “we just don’t do it (waxing on male genitalia),” but told him she was going to take the issue up to the owner of the salon.

At this point, Carlos became angry and admonished the esthetician for not being trained in “all types of bodies.” Next, he was heard saying he is very upset because he has “never seen a waxing salon which doesn’t work with several types of bodies.” Further, he told the esthetician that they should have “specialized a little more” to attend to “all kinds of people,” questioning her: “Where is it written we don’t attend people with x or y genitals?’”

When the esthetician tells Carlos that the salon doesn’t wax men, he is heard saying “Then you have to put a sign saying ‘we only wax pussies.’” But Isabel told 4W that they have a sign at the salon’s entrance saying “No entry for men.”

The next woman in his video is Isabel herself. “You can see me in the video saying to him that we don’t wax male genitalia because the estheticians at my salon are not trained for that,” Isabel told 4W. The man says to the owner that it’s “embarrassing” for him to book an appointment and hear that they “only wax women.”

Carlos is heard saying to Isabel: “I wax for years, my [pubic hair] is very thin, I take hormones, what makes me different from other people? Is it my genitals? But, why do (my genitals) matter?”

This is not the first time a salon specialized in female waxing has refused to serve men who say they are trans. In Canada, Jonathan (who calls himself Jessica) Yaniv filed lawsuits with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in 2018 against at least 15 beauty salons after they refused the service to him for being male. The next year, after a judge found Yaniv “deceptive,” targeting “small businesses for financial gain,” the case was dismissed.

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