Can you affirm my gender at 3 p.m. Tuesday?
Pink News rushes to the defense of J Yaniv:
Jessica Yaniv says she has received huge backlash from journalists and on social media for asking salons to give her a Brazilian wax as a trans woman, with some calling it “sexual assault.”
Is that true? For asking? Not for suing when turned down? Can it really be called “asking” when the response to “no” is a lawsuit? Looks more like demanding, to me.
Although there has been a focus on Yaniv’s requests for a Brazilian wax, she told PinkNews that the coverage “has not been fair nor accurate,” and that she was in fact requesting many different services which would be “gender-affirming” for her.
And we can be completely confident that Yaniv is telling the truth? Based on what?
Also, since when is “gender affirmation” a service that salons are required to provide? Why can’t Yaniv affirm his own goddam gender?
She said: “I reached out starting in March 2018 to businesses advertising over Facebook Marketplace gender-affirming care services like facials, haircuts, manicures, pedicures, head massage, full-body waxing, Brazilian waxing, arm waxing, leg waxing, and was refused service.”
Because it’s not possible to feel like a laydee without facials, haircuts, manicures, pedicures, head massage, full-body waxing, Brazilian waxing, arm waxing, and leg waxing? But then why be trans at all?
Yaniv provided PinkNews with screenshots of her conversation with one of the salons she has filed a complaint against.
The person from the salon said (spelling corrected for clarity): “Sorry I’m not trying to be rude or anything it’s just that I don’t feel comfortable doing this and I know you have the right it’s just that you’re a man into a lady but you’re still a man right but into a lady.”
And? Pink seems to think that’s very damning but it isn’t. Male bodies are male bodies.
In recordings heard by PinkNews, one salon told Yaniv when she enquired about the price of a wax, that she was a “fucking bastard,” and that she was “mentally sick” and that if she called again they would give her number to the police.
Could that be because Yaniv was harassing and threatening the salon?
Yaniv told PinkNews: “These are basic services that I am requesting as a transgendered person. There is no excuse nor reason that I should be denied service.”
Basic? What does he mean basic? They seem pretty extra, to me.
Yaniv said: “Trans people need these services! We’re like any other woman out there.
“To deny us these rights is denying our existence.”
No, it is not. It may be contradicting your claims about yourselves, but that’s not the same thing as denying your existence.
Pink News doesn’t give a rat’s ass about women, does it.
I guess Pink News didn’t look too closely at his tampon insertion consultation service, or his “Hey kids, come out to my leave-your-parents-and-guardians-at-hometopless swim session” application. Or if they did, then…wow.
Those recordings don’t resemble the ones played at the recent hearings. Are these new ones JY is lining up for his inevitable next round of litigation?
The “gender affirming” bit is key. It seems to be what all of these fights are about, or at least most of them.
Yaniv wants these spas to give her treatments that will supposedly “affirm” her in her gender. (I’m more than a little suspicious that this is Yaniv’s only or even her main motive, but let that go for now.)
Trans women athletes want to compete with cis women because it will “affirm” their gender to be in the “women’s” event. (Again, I’m being charitable and assuming that they’re not motivated by a desire to win awards and scholarships.)
Same for arguments about having birth certificates changed — it seems to be about getting the state, or other people or businesses, to “affirm” their gender.
And… is that an appropriate thing to ask? I think other civil rights movements have wisely focused on concrete, meaningful rights that directly affect people’s lives: the right to employment, housing, legal benefits of marriage, and so on. In fact, in the gay marriage debate, it was the anti-SSM side that insisted that the liberals were gonna make you renounce your religious views about homosexuality and swear fealty to our new gay overlords. Marriage equality advocates generally kept the focus on “no, we just want the same rights as everyone else. You can think our marriage is stupid or immoral or illegitimate in your eyes or God’s, just as we have opinions about some straight people’s marriages. Just give us the damn legal rights.”
Purely as a matter of public persuasion, I think it’s a big ask to demand that the state, or people generally, certify that someone’s perceived gender identity equals their gender. I also suspect that it would be a poor legal strategy, as it opens up some possible First Amendment (in the U.S.) implications regarding compelled speech and religious freedom.
In my view no, it absolutely is not an appropriate thing to ask, and not just for tactical reasons, either. It’s just plain not appropriate in general. Why? Because it’s SO fucking narcissistic. Life isn’t like that! And shouldn’t be! Nobody is here to “affirm” the anything of a bunch of strangers. We need to be fair, we need to be polite and decent, we need to help when help is needed (if we can) – we need to refrain from bullying, persecuting, oppressing. We do NOT need to affirm anyone’s identity. It’s not a reasonable request, let alone demand, and it never has been.
[…] a comment by Screechy Monkey on Can you affirm my gender at 3 p.m. […]
Did… did Yaniv just suggest that transwomen will die if they don’t get manicures?
I don’t think so, I think he’s just repeating the usual non-recognition of special bespoke idenniny=denying muh existence claim.
Yaniv is failing to mention that when services were offered to him, he didn’t take them up on it. He was looking for immigrant women who would say no so he could file a complaint against them. He wants $15000 for his pain and suffering from the woman who testified she is suffering from deep depression over all this.
He was told by the Member of the tribunal not to file any more complaints until the current ones are dealt with. He announced at the last session he had filed another one.
He’s a nasty piece of work.
Pink News have chosen their hill to die on.
One other thing about this “gender affirming” suggestion – you only need things “affirmed” that you are unsure about. I don’t need my sex confirmed because I damned well know what it is. I have no insecurities about it. If someone calls me a man, I just blink in confusion, and assume the dude is a moron. Or very short sighted. Or trying being deliberately rude (trying, because it’s so stupid an insult that it wouldn’t even sting).
But things I doubt about myself – that’s where I need affirmations to increase my confidence. Do I write well enough to post this essay on the internet? Does this outfit look good on me? Did I (as a student) perform that last activity to an appropriate standard? All things where I, personally, have a (justified or not) insecurity in my own abilities and judgement. That’s where I might want a kind person to pat me on the head and say “Yeah, you did good/look great/are coming on well.”**
And that’s quite telling, I think.
(**this also admits the possibility of “I think this sentence is awkward/I don’t think that is your colour/You did this bit well, but you needed to do X as well to be of an appropriate standard,” because when you ask for someone else’s judgement you don’t get to tell them what to think.)
Somehow I doubt that anyone is advertising “Gender-affirming care services” on Facebook. And if they are, I would put money on it that they are aiming those services exclusively at trans women.
Yes it’s weird. I’ve got a deep voice, I’m called Sir on the phone, I give my female name, and they switch to Madam or my name. Sometimes the person will apologise, and I’ll say, oh don’t worry, I get that a lot. I don’t feel my identity has been doubted. I think someone has made a mistake. This constant need for reassurance, like some sodding Nero having to be applauded for his lyre playing, or someone who asks you “How old do I look?” It’s ravenous insecurity.
Out of interest, how many other women out there feel they need facials, haircuts, manicures, pedicures, head massage, full-body waxing, Brazilian waxing, arm waxing, leg waxing?
I know for a fact that I have had more haircuts than my partner, and as far as I’m aware, she has never sought any of the other mentioned services.
@Paul – I don’t neglect my appearance, I get a nice hair-cut, like pretty clothes and wear a bit of make up, but no, I’ve never had any of the rest. Most women I know don’t either. So much of transgender is a gross parody of the silliest, vainest part of femininity.
@KBPlayer: Indeed. Yaniv’s assertion that using any of these services makes him “like any other woman” is such transparent nonsense that I’m a bit surprised that no-one else has mentioned it.
I think even one is too many if the word is need. There are a number of women out there who do feel they need these things (I don’t think I personally know any). Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump come to mind, along with the Kardashians and probably most of the females in Hollywood who know they are being judged first on appearance. They don’t need it to affirm their gender, but to meet a rigid beauty standard that is ridiculous and demeaning (both to those who do all this work to meet it and those of us who choose to live without it, hence not meeting the standard).
An excellent point.
But I think there’s an element of power here, too. I think part of Yaniv’s performance is to get people (immigrant women specifically in this case) to submit to his will, to make them agree he is a woman, and that his penis is a lady penis. There’s the whole “making women touch his penis” thing, too. You know, good old-fashion sexual assault, which given, his track record, is likely a big motivation. I think that much is a simple money grab; he’s actively looking for businesses to refuse him service, going for those least likely or able to resist. Reading goinglikeelsie’s transcripts of the tribunal proceedings shows that Yaniv is all over the map in his claims, particularly regarding his own anatomy. He has male genitals. He has both male and female, claiming that he’s “intersex”. He wouldn’t last too long on the stand in an actual courtroom against a good lawyer. It also sounds like much of what he says is just parroting tansactivist talking points, expecting them to be taken at face value.
There are a surprising number of institutions and individuals who do accept these talking points, nodding along saying “Yes, 2+2=5.” I don’t know how much is actual understanding and agreeing, how much is fear of browbeating, and how much is from sheer laziness and apathy. But they’re all nodding, they’re all submitting. I think part of the fury against those accused of being TERFs, is that here are women who will not submit, who will not go along to get along. They must be destroyed “pour encourager les autres.”
This is something that has always angered men, whether they considered themselves women or not. It is the motivation behind the humiliation of women in so many ways, and the hunting of witches. Women were once treated by a doctor for failure to submit; are we going to see that again? I hope not.
Morgane Oger has a piece in The Globe and Mail, bemoaning that Yaniv is a poor messenger for the cause, and proposing a compromise position that maybe lets small business of the hook while requiring larger ones to have a designated male-genital-waxer on staff:
So I guess every women’s health clinic (if large enough?) will need to have someone on staff who’s qualified to treat conditions of the male reproductive system?
I find this assumption highly questionable. TRAs are inventing new rights daily, or maybe hourly, to accommodate whatever comes up.
A person may desire to get their genitals waxed, but that doesn’t make it a right. If it were a right, the government would be required to assure that you are not turned away, and that you are able to have equal access. That is why the UN has avoided calling clean water a right, because some governments don’t want to go down that lane of making sure people have clean water access.
If we can’t make clean water a right, how the hell can we call genital waxing a right?
iknklast, I’m sure “genital waxing” is in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms somewhere.
Gee, it’s too bad Oger didn’t think of this
when he pushed for municipal defunding of Vancouver Rape Relief because it serves only natal women.