The owner of a hair salon in Traverse City, Michigan, has vowed to refuse service to transgender customers, citing her First Amendment rights, following a Supreme Court ruling on denying service to LGBT clients.
"If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman please seek services at a local pet groomer," Studio 8 Hair Lab owner Christine Geiger wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post. "You are not welcome at this salon. Period. Should you request to have a particular pronoun used please note we may simply refer to you as 'hey you.'"
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The post comes nearly a week after the Supreme Court decided the case 303 Creative v. Elenis on June 30, siding 6-3 with Colorado-based website designer Lorie Smith, who said she feared punishment under the state's anti-discrimination law if she denied service to same-sex couples based on her sincere Christian beliefs.
"The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.
Several pro-LGBT advocacy groups issued statements accusing the majority of delivering a regressive ruling, siding largely with the high court's three liberals in the dissent led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class," Sotomayor wrote.
Geiger, who deleted her initial post after her statement began to go viral online, previously clarified her position to not serve transgender people in a subsequent post that was still visible as of Wednesday evening.
"I have no issues with LGB. It's the TQ+ that I'm not going to support," Geiger's comment said. "This stance was taken to insure 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."
In March, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) signed an amendment to the state's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which extends broad protections to people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is lesbian, has received several complaints related to Geiger's comments, a spokesperson for her office told the Advocate.
“The Department and the Attorney General herself are aware of the Traverse City salon proprietor’s professed intent to discriminate against Michigan residents,” press secretary Danny Wimmer said.
Following the decision in 303 Creative, Nessel released a statement advising LGBT residents in the state that the opinion would not impact LGBT people in the state and furthered that it had "no impact" on the recently amended Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
“My office will continue to fight to enforce Michigan’s [Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act] consistent with the First Amendment to protect the equal rights of all Michiganders," Nessel wrote.
Not only does the salon's statement deal with characteristics that are close to home for Nessel, but Traverse City also marks the spot where Biden administration Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg's family and his husband live when the pair aren't working in the nation's capital. Buttigieg made history in 2021 as the first openly gay member of a president's Cabinet to be confirmed by the Senate.
Smith's counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom has maintained that her victory at the Supreme Court also marked a victory for people from all walks of life, including for an "LGBT graphic designer who doesn't want to be forced to create art and promote messages that they disagree with," ADF President and lead counsel Kristen Waggoner told the Washington Examiner last November.
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The 303 Creative ruling was written narrowly as it applies to creative tasks and duties that are strictly expressive, noting that people cannot simply discriminate against people with "protected characteristics," such as members of the LGBT community.
Smith "will gladly conduct business with those having protected characteristics so long as the custom graphics and websites she is asked to create do not violate her beliefs," according to Smith's position in court records.