1st Amendment Dead: Christian Hair Stylist Punished by State for Saying She Wouldn't Serve Trans Clients
Well, this is indeed a new one: Merely saying that you won’t serve clients who identify as transgender is enough for you to have your freedom of speech tossed to the wind by a state.
Meet Christine Geiger. Back in 2023, the owner of Studio 8 Hair Lab in Traverse City, Michigan, threw down the gauntlet against a law that bans businesses from discriminating against customers.
She never actually discriminated against anyone, mind you, but merely exercised her First Amendment right of free speech by saying that there was no inherent protection conferred by identifying yourself as transgender or nonbinary, and that Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan Democrats were engaged in a war against free speech.
Three years later, Whitmer and the Michigan Democrats proved that by ruling that Geiger and her hair salon broke state law.
The original post from Geiger went thusly: “If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman please seek services at a local pet groomer. 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,’” the post continued, adding they were doing this in spite of 2023 legislation that added “sexual orientation and gender identity or expression” under the 1977 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
“This is America; free speech. This small business has the right to refuse services,” she continued. “Kiss my A**, Governor Whitmer,” Geiger wrote.
NEW: Traverse City hair salon violated civil rights law for Facebook posts shunning transgender patrons, state agency sayshttps://t.co/mbnSE656GS
via @DNBethLeBlanc & @detroitnews
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) July 29, 2026
Well, apparently not. According to The Detroit News, three years of investigation found that merely posting this to Facebook was in violation of state law.
“Respondent’s posts had a harmful and detrimental impact on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly in Grand Traverse County,” the Monday order from the Michigan Civil Rights Commission read.
“This ruling sets the precedent that no business can publicly discriminate without consequence, whether it occurs face-to-face or over social media,” Michigan Civil Rights Commission Chair Luke Londo said after the decision.
Geiger has to remove the social media posts, put up new language that affirms that she will give everyone equal treatment, undergo diversity training, and pay the complainants’ attorneys fees and other associated costs.
This is in spite of the fact that, as the Daily Mail noted, none of this actually led to anyone being turned away from the salon.
The posts sparked widespread backlash and prompted more than 20 complaints to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights between July and November 2023.
Three of those complaints, filed by people who saw the posts online, became the basis of the case against Studio 8.
None of the three had attempted to book an appointment or been refused service at the salon.
But Michigan law does not require someone to be personally turned away before a business can be found responsible for discriminatory advertising.
So in short, no one was inconvenienced or turned away. They were just offended by words on a screen.
Traverse City is in a metropolitan area with over 150,000 residents, which means there are plenty of places you can go and get your hair cut, should you so choose. Instead, because of one Facebook post, suddenly pixels on a screen are illegal.
Could this have been said with more grace? Sure, of course. Was this also the basis for a lawsuit? Do transgender and homosexual rights fall under a different category than other rights when it comes to state anti-discrimination laws because holy books are insanely clear on this matter? Given Michigan’s large Islamic population, is anyone trying to test how Muslim-run salons deal with the same issues?
The answer to all of those questions is “no,” in 72-point bolded, italicized, underlined font.
“Speech is not an act of discrimination,” David Delaney, an attorney for Studio 8, said in a statement.
“This case involves pure speech. No individual was denied a public service. At the hearing, Studio 8 was not allowed to defend itself with the U.S. Constitution.”
There are further appeals, and this case is likely to advance to higher levels, but that’s pretty much the perfect summation.
Leftists want control. That’s it: Control of who you worship, what you eat, where you go, what you say, what you read, how you raise your children, how you act, how you mow your lawn, how you cook your food — the list is endless.
There’s nothing in life that they don’t want to completely control. They want us to accept rule by the deranged and perverted, and they bring out the torches and pitchforks when we exercise our God-given rights as Americans. If this is allowed to pass muster, almost anything will.
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