Montreal salon to challenge court decision in gender-neutral hairstyling case

A Montreal salon plans to appeal after being ordered to pay a non-binary customer $500, arguing its gendered booking system is about services, not identity.

A Montreal hair salon plans to appeal a court order forcing it to pay $500 dollars to a non-binary customer who claimed the company’s booking system is discriminatory.

The co-owner of Station10, Alexis Labreque, said he’s received a lot of support from friends, strangers, and other salons around the world, ever since the story broke.

“We didn’t think it was reasonable, we came out of there with more questions than answers,” said Labreque.

Alexe Frédéric Migneault identifies as non-binary and was asked to select a male or female haircut on the salon’s site in 2023.

Station10 is a small hair salon that charges by the minute.

“The whole motto of this specific hair salon is that they charge by the minute, and so I wasn’t expecting to need to answer as to my gender,” they said.

When they called to ask for accommodation, they say they were told to just select one or the other.

According to Labreque, women’s cuts on average take longer than men’s, and choosing one or the other helps with scheduling. For other salons, he adds, it helps determine how much to charge each client.

Since the court ruling, he said he’s heard from other salons that are unsure of what steps to take going forward. He says the ruling could have implications for other aspects of the business, and could touch other industries, too.

“We discriminate in other ways,” he said. “We only take appointments online, so if you don’t have internet, unfortunately you cannot take an appointment at our salons. Well, it’s the same thing with an Uber. If we were to start making exceptions, pick up the phone, then we’d have to charge more.”

A law firm has taken on the case pro-bono and l’Association Coiffeur Quebec is raising funds to cover other costs of the appeal, which could total $10,000.

The head of the association, Stephane Roy, argues salons aren’t asking clients to identify their gender, but rather clients are being asked to choose a service.

Migneault, however, sees it differently.

“In my mind, a woman is not a service. A man is not a service. It’s a gender identity,” they said.

They hope more salons will decide to remove gender from the equation and charge by hair length and the complexity of a cut instead.

“The industry of haircutting has been using practices that are sexist in nature. Charging women more because they are women is the definition of a pink tax.”

Station10 has since added a gender-neutral option on its site.

Labreque said launching an appeal isn’t about the money; it’s about getting clarity from the courts.

“This is a political debate, a social debate, and we feel it’s unfortunate that we end up, as a small business, having to be the ones in charge of this debate.”