Transgender Man Suing Barber Shop Who Told Him They Don't Serve Women
U.S. Army sergeant Kendall Oliver (who is a transgender man and goes by the pronoun "they") says they went into a barbershop to get a haircut and were told the barbershop wouldn't cut their hair because they don't offer haircuts to "women," The Guardian reports.
Richard Hernandez, who owns the barbershop, didn't dispute what Oliver claims happened, but also didn't seem aware that Hernandez identified as a transgender man (though Oliver says they did try to explain that to him and he wouldn't listen).
Hernandez said this isn't an issue about LGBT rights, and that the barbershop "simply [doesn't] cut women's hair. It's a traditional men's barbershop." Hernandez says he doesn't cut women's hair because he's a member of the Church of God, and cutting a woman's hair is a "violation" that would take away her "glory."
Gregory Lipper, senior litigation counsel with Americans United for Separation of Church and State (which has supported many LGBT couples in suits against businesses that claim their religious beliefs allow them to ban LGBT customers), reached out to Oliver after he saw their story in the news and says of the case, "We know from the civil rights movement that there's a deep stigma to being told, 'We don't serve your kind here.'"
California also has a law in place that keeps businesses from discriminating based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, and Lipper says this is a clear case of that, no matter which way you look at it. He says, "Whether I don't want to cut the hair of women or of people who identify as men, but I deem to be too feminine, however you spin it, this is a clear refusal to cut hair based on sex or gender or perhaps both."
