Jessica Yaniv as Real Life Parody
The Jessica Yaniv story is a wild ride.
The basic summary is that Yaniv is a transwoman* (I'll get why there's an asterisk later) from Vancouver BC with some notoriety. She still has male genitalia and she's known for setting up bikini wax appointments around Vancouver with provides that say they only work with women and then suing anyone who refuses to work on male genitalia for discrimination. The service providers are almost universally female and immigrants, and Yaniv has built up a consistent business of securing legal settlements from about a dozen of them for around $3000 each.
In addition, a bunch of text messages have surfaced over time from Yaniv where she appears to eagerly anticipate watching other women change in dressing rooms and asking whether vaginas will be bare. The most notorious example is where she asks whether it's ok to show a girl 10-12 years old how to insert a tampon if it's the first time happening to her. Kiwi Farms has an extensive thread with multiple screenshots.
Yaniv also appears to have some outsized influence on Twitter, being allegedly responsible for multiple bans on "gender critical" feminists. For a long time, Jessica Yaniv had "Jonathan/Jessica" in her Twitter bio, but she successfully managed to ban anyone on Twitter who "misgendered" her.
The whole affair just comes off as a parody of the CW issue. Here's a person that appears (to me at least) to be identifying as a transwoman with the explicit desire to see women undress and perhaps also gain some sexual gratification around observing tampon use, particularly among 10-12 year olds. She's also acting as her own foil for anyone who wants to oppose discrimination on the basis of genitalia by providing a caricature of how laws like it get enforced.
I think this raises a few issues regarding trans identity and discrimination. My own position is that I accept anyone's identity and use whatever pronouns they want so long as it appears to be done in good faith. Where it becomes an issue is when someone appears to be engaging in this behavior for opportunistic reasons. I'm often reminded in my social circles that we're supposed to uncritically accept anyone's gender identity, but how do you respond to issues like this? Bathrooms are a non-issue for me and I don't see a problem with having unisex facilities since each place has sufficient places for privacy. Changing rooms that don't have private stalls are a different issue, and I can't think of a consistent principle for how to be able to exclude someone who appears to be skirting the rules specifically to gain sexual gratification. Similarly, there appears to be a conflict with forcing minority women-owned business to engage in deeply personal conduct they are uncomfortable with (e.g. waxing male genitalia). The libertarian principle is to allow discrimination for any reason, but that's a non-starter in this environment. Still, I want to know whether people who are broadly in favor of anti-discrimination legislation are ok with that logical conclusion. And if not, how do they distinguish it?
What I am especially curious about is to hear from anyone who wants to defend Yaniv. The case is so egregiously objectionable that folks that would traditionally support the gender identity platform are largely silent on the issue. I want to see people bite the bullet and either explain how the Yaniv case is distinguishable or whether it's an acceptable collateral consequence of the new gender identity paradigm. You see plenty of examples in parallel situations for the latter, for example for free speech absolutists (myself included) when it comes to things like revenge porn, nazi parades, crush porn, etc. Blaire White (conservative trans woman) basically makes the same point.