 Now, Geiger wants to make clear that she has no problem with LGBT members of the community, it's specifically the transgenders, queers and pronouns that she says she takes issue with. It's been less than two weeks since the Supreme Court legalized discrimination against LGBTQ plus people for creative businesses, and a bigoted salon owner from Michigan is already taking advantage of that decision. As the Kansas City Star explains, the owner of a Michigan hair salon said she is refusing service to some members of the LGBTQ plus community. Christine Geiger, who owns Studio 8 Hair Lab in Traverse City, said in a Facebook post she is exercising her free speech by only allowing certain customers, quote, if a human identifies as anything other than a man or woman, please seek services at a local pet groomer, the hair salon owner said, you are not welcome at this salon, period. The Facebook page was later deleted and the salon's Instagram was set to private. In the biography for the business on Instagram, the owner says it does not cater to woke ideologies. The post came days after the US Supreme Court ruled 63 that under the First Amendment, a web designer could refuse to make a website for same-sex marriages based on her religious beliefs. In March, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Now the legislation that Governor Whitmer signed in March that the article just referenced is the state essentially codifying a decision from the state Supreme Court to expand the state's Elliott Larson Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ plus people. But we'll get to that in a moment here. But basically, getting back to Christine Geiger, her mentioning the First Amendment and her right to discriminate under the First Amendment, I think that is a clear reference to the Supreme Court's decision that legalized just that. And this is exactly what many of us expected to happen. If discrimination is limited to creative businesses, if it's supposedly so narrow, then the question is, what constitutes a creative business? And that's something that Gorsuch in his majority opinion did not define. So the question is, if a hairstylist refuses to serve a trans woman on grounds that giving her a feminine hairstyle is like tantamount to endorsing her trans identity and thus tantamount to pro-trans speech that she disagrees with, can that stylist declare that service as compelled speech and discriminate? Well, I mean, it's hard to say for sure, but based on the guidelines established by the Supreme Court, it does seem like that is permissible or at least it's reasonable to deduce that that is permissible. Now, the stylist was a review bombed on Yelp and in response to one of the reviewers, she offered some clarifications about her position and I think that she believes this is going to make her look like less of an asshole, but it does not. So she writes, LGBT are more than welcome. However, the rest of it is not something I support. This stance was taken to ensure that clients have the best experience and I am admitting that since I am not willing to play the pronoun game or cater to requests outside of what I perceive as normal, this probably isn't the best option for that type of client. There are over 800 licensed stylists in that county. There are plenty of salons and stylists willing to cater to what I will not. Very curious. She says that she's not gonna play the pronoun game, but in that entire paragraph, she used pronouns multiple times by saying, I am not going to play the pronoun game. You are playing the pronoun game, Christine, and this justification is embarrassing. So she's admitting that she is only a little bit hateful, right? Or she's selective in her hatred. She doesn't hate all LGBTQ plus people, just some of them. I think that she honestly believes that that makes her look better. But imagine if somebody said, look, I don't hate all non-white people, just some of them. It'd be pretty obvious what's happening, right? That person is clearly racist. Furthermore, how does denying service to clients who state their pronouns improve the service for other clients? That doesn't really make sense, right? Is your base of clients that transphobic? I mean, what if other customers don't wanna be around Jewish customers and they're anti-Semitic? Are you going to remove the Jewish customers to improve the experience of the anti-Semitic clients that you have? See, this is why opening the door to discrimination is wrong. Because you allow for these types of situations where innocent people are discriminated against for just trying to live their lives. Now in a deleted Facebook post that was shared by a local page in that area, Christine reiterated many of the same points, but added some additional thoughts. She says, I have no issues with LGB. It's the TQ plus that I'm not going to support. For those that don't know what the plus is for, it's MAP, Minor Attracted Person, AKA Pedophile. Now further down, she says, conservatives need to acclimate these woke individuals to their new reality. Conservatives have had enough of their ideologies being projected onto us. We use to just let them be. Most of us kept our opinions to ourselves. I mean, why look for unnecessary conflict, right? Well, the other side used this against us. They mistook our silence for weakness and look where it got us. It is very evident that this person lives in a bigoted bubble. So in her view, allowing queer people to live their lives has supposedly opened the door to societal acceptance of pedophiles. That's what she's saying essentially, but who accepts pedophiles? I mean, she's saying that, but there's no evidence for this claim. There's no evidence that queer people have embraced MAPs. And that's because we have not. I can assure you that is not part of the LGBTQ plus community. Rather than doing a quick Google search, however, to learn that the plus references intersex people, asexual people, non-binary people, pansexual people, she assumed that it means pedophiles, but it does not. So she's basing discrimination on her stupidity, on her misinformed views about the LGBTQ plus community. But I mean, it's dumber than that, right? Because she's not even explicitly saying that trans people are pedophiles. She's just simply saying incorrectly so that the plus signifies pedophilia. So if the T just means T and the plus means pedophiles and you don't actually think that trans people are pedophiles, then really what this boils down to is that she just doesn't like trans and non-binary people and she wants to discriminate against them. She can try to attach other justifications that make her seem more reasonable to it, but at the end of the day, this is discrimination. Pure and simple. And she's probably always felt this way, but because of the Supreme Court, she now feels bold enough to implement this policy and explicitly say trans people are not welcome in this establishment. Now prior to that Supreme Court decision, this was illegal in her stay, but not for the reason she thinks. So let's go to her original post. This is a little bit redundant because we already read what she said in the article, but basically in her original post where she announced that her business would be discriminating. So she says that she'll be discriminating, regardless of Michigan House Bill 4474. Now that is in reference to a law that passed Michigan's House in June, and what that would do is it would expand the state's Ethnic Intimidation Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Now the Ethnic Intimidation Act essentially makes racist harassment and intimidation a hate crime, right, so it makes it a more serious offense. And the expansion to queer people would legally classify intentional and repeated misgendering of trans people as a hate crime as well. Now she told a local news outlet that her decision to discriminate was in response to that bill, which has not yet become a law, but that's a response, so let's watch. Nine in 10 news reached out to the owner, Christine Geiger, and she told us she's taking a stand against being forced to use preferred pronouns, such as they, them, he, him, and she, her. And she says it's in reference to recent legislation that passed the state house that would make it a felony for people to intimidate or threaten others by disrespecting their gender identity, for example, by deliberately misgendering them. Geiger says the legislation goes too far on infringing her rights. Now that bill is not yet a law, and whether or not she knows that is beside the point. And I'm assuming that she was worried about that law due to the fearmongering surrounding that particular law in the same way we saw people like Jordan Peterson, fearmonger over Canada's C-16 bill. And there were these hyperbolic claims that if that law, or if that bill became a law, then it would lead to people going to jail for misgendering trans people, but that didn't happen. Zero people have been arrested since that became law. And this, if it passes, is pretty similar, but I mean, we're talking about repeated targeted harassment. If you are terrorizing this community and misgendering them intentionally, then that is tantamount to a hate crime. Like if you just make a mistake and you misgender someone, so long as you're not repeatedly doing it and harassing them and doing it to be malicious, you're gonna be fine. But I mean, I'm assuming that this is something that she was worried about because of fearmongering and misinformation. But regardless of whatever the state law is currently, you know, it doesn't matter because she's very much aware at least that the Supreme Court recently legalized discrimination in a more narrow sense, which does undo progress that the state made just last year. So I think that that requires more explanation because in 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court expanded the state's Elliott Larson Civil Rights Act referenced earlier, and that now includes LGBTQ plus people. It protects them from discrimination in employment and housing. And that is what technically made it illegal to discriminate in the state of Michigan. But because of the Supreme Court's decision, well, now that law has a massive exception. As Rose White of MLive explains, a US Supreme Court decision last month created an exclusion in anti-discrimination laws around the country. The decision struck a chord as expanding gay rights have faced pushback from conservative Christians. But it also, Trump's Michigan's recently expanded Elliott Larson Civil Rights Act that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination. The Michigan Supreme Court last year issued a ruling in the opposite direction of the Supreme Court when it decided sexual orientation is covered by the state's civil rights law that abandons discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodations. But there is now an exception for free speech. Now, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said this in response to the Supreme Court's decision. Quote, this holding has no impact on Michigan's Elliott Larson Civil Rights Act when it is applied to protect against discrimination in the provision of public accommodations that do not constitute speech. And so the reason why HB4474 is relevant once again is because it would theoretically close the exception created by the Supreme Court. But if that were to become law, that would automatically conflict with the Supreme Court's decision and it would trigger legal challenges immediately. So she still has quite a bit of time to discriminate. Right before this is revisited and I don't assume that the makeup of the Supreme Court is going to change anytime soon. So even if in her state, they say, no, you actually can't discriminate when it comes to this limited area. Well, I mean, she's still gonna have the ability to do that. But regardless of where Christine thinks that she can derive this authority from, she's not gonna be the last person to do it. Like this is gonna become a more common phenomenon. This is only the beginning because when you open the door to discrimination, bigots are going to discriminate. And I'm assuming that we're going to see the word creative and how it applies to businesses, get stretched and completely bastardized as more bigots try to legally justify explicit discrimination. And it's just, it's depressing, right? It's really sad to see, but it's exactly what we expected. The Supreme Court try to allow discrimination in a narrow sense, but you can't really do that. You can't, you just, when you open the door to that, it's very difficult when there's a lot of gray area that hasn't been defined by the Supreme Court. So who is and isn't in a creative business is a subway sandwich artist's part of a creative business. Is somebody who details your car part of a creative business that can discriminate against queer people? We don't know, but we're going to learn because I'm assuming that these cases are going to continue to pop up and they will be challenged legally. And this is just something that didn't need to happen. But because the Supreme Court decided that discrimination should be permitted, well, now it's happening.