Adam Zivo: Trans activist Jessica Yaniv crusades against free speech
The 'prolific litigator' of unsuccessful human rights complaints is back
Transgender activist Jessica Simpson, formerly known as Jessica Yaniv, is now using the British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) to go after critics of gender ideology.
Also previously known as “Jonathan Yaniv,” Simpson has been described by courts as a “prolific litigator” and is infamous for launching unsuccessful human rights complaints and civil lawsuits.
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These complaints alleged, among other things, that referring to Simpson as a “trans-identifying male,” and amplifying third-party statements that deny the legitimacy of transgender identities, constituted discrimination and caused reputational harm, emotional distress and increased exposure to harassment. Simpson further objected to the use of terms like “self-identified,” and to being referred to with male pronouns or female pronouns placed within quotation marks.
When Fildebrandt and Kay subsequently criticized Simpson’s complaints on social media, the activist responded by filing additional BCHRT complaints accusing them of undue retaliation.
When I emailed Simpson about these complaints and their impact on media freedom, the activist responded: “freedom of expression is not absolute. Canadian law, including human rights legislation, clearly establishes that expression which rises to the level of discrimination or hate may be subject to legal constraint… Characterizing such actions as an ‘undermining’ of freedom is a misstatement of the law.”
Fildebrandt says he wasn’t surprised by the complaints.
“We’re certainly not afraid. We’ve expected this for some time, and it was greeted with a belly full of laughter,” he said in an interview with me in April over Zoom. He explained that the Western Standard’s policy is to use preferred pronouns when an individual’s transgender identity is irrelevant to the story, but that, according to him, Simpson obviously does not meet this bar and, further, the activist’s behaviour is “undeserving of respect, and therefore undeserving of accommodation.”
His response shouldn’t surprise anyone who is familiar with this character’s past behaviour.
Simpson first gained international notoriety in 2018 after filing BCHRT complaints against several immigrant-owned beauty salons that refused to provide a “Brazilian wax” of the activist’s intact male genitalia. The tribunal dismissed these complaints, however, and determined that Simpson was substantially motivated by “racial animus” and the pursuit of financial gain.
”A scrotum is different than a vulva — regardless of the gender of the person it is attached to,” said the ruling, which suggested that Simpson likely made the respondents “feel uncomfortable or awkward for her own amusement or as a form of revenge.” Although the activist was ordered to pay the respondents $2,000 each as punishment for “extortion,” two of the spas shut down due to the pressure and costs of litigation.
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In 2020, Simpson filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Canada Galaxy Pageants, a women-only beauty pageant that allowed transwomen to participate only if they had undergone a full medical transition. Simpson argued that prohibiting male genitals was discriminatory, but the case was dismissed five years later after the activist failed to file required materials despite receiving multiple extensions.
In addition to these tribunal complaints, which represent only a slice of Simpson’s legal filings, the activist has engaged in behaviour that is anti-social.
Simpson faced accusations throughout the 2010s of engaging in cyber-harassment and making sexually inappropriate comments to teenage girls, although no charges were laid. The activist also faced weapons charges in 2019 for brandishing a taser during a Youtube debate, and was charged with assaulting a Canadian journalist the following year — incidents which both resulted in convictions.
In another incident, the fire department of Langley, B.C., sent Simpson a letter in 2021 complaining that the activist had called over 30 times over the preceding two weeks to seek assistance being lifted from a bathtub. According to the letter, Simpson engaged in “inappropriate and lewd conduct” during these calls, none of which constituted a medical emergency, and would face charges if misuse of emergency services continued.
“Guess you guys don’t like trans vaginas,” wrote Simpson in a retaliatory social media post that publicized the original letter: “Just so you’re all aware, I’ll be suing the township for libel and other things.”
Then things went relatively quiet for a few years, until Simpson’s most recent round of tribunal complaints.
These complaints were filed just weeks after the BCHRT, in an unprecedented decision this February, ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for publishing what it deemed to be hate speech against the LGBTQ community. Conservative commentators worried that the decision would portend an era of tribunal-backed political censorship — a concern that Simpson’s filings have only fuelled — but, really, this is all just symptomatic of deeper institutional rot.
Unlike civil litigation, Canadian human rights tribunals rarely allow respondents who win their cases to recover legal costs from complainants. As the penalties of losing a case can be astronomical, respondents often hire legal counsel for their hearings — which can be cripplingly expensive — or pay settlements even if complaints are meritless.
Some Canadian jurisdictions, including B.C., have “anti-SLAPP” (“strategic lawsuits against public participation”) laws which quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits that stifle legitimate public debate — with litigators usually being forced to pay defendants’ legal costs. Yet, such protections do not extend to the tribunal system.
The Western Standard, Fildebrandt and Kay are all being represented pro-bono by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a registered charity that maintains an open offer to defend victims of Simpsons’ litigation. This has levelled the playing field.
Rather than ask that Simpson’s complaints be dismissed on technical grounds, all of the respondents have resolved to win their cases on their merits, so as to affirm Canadians’ rights to openly discuss, debate and criticize controversial beliefs.
In our interview, Fildebrandt characterized Simpson’s complaints as frivolous and noted that, in the BCHRT complaints against him and the Western Standard, the activist self-identified as a member of the “MMIWG2SLGBTQQIPPSAA+” community — an initialism that references missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (“MMIWG” in Canadian bureaucratic parlance).
In 2023, Simpson identified as Métis on social media. However, the activist also had also publicly shared medical records from 2019 wherein a doctor, during a medical consultation, said “your family is Ashkenazi Jewish, and apparently there are some regional cancer syndromes associated with this lineage..”
I sent Simpson an email requesting clarification: was there any evidence confirming Indigenous heritage? Had the activist previously been murdered or gone “missing” in a manner associated with the MMIWG initialism?
“I am a Métis woman. That is my identity,” responded Simpson, referring to the suggestion of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, as “false” and “speculatory.” The activist did not dispute the authenticity of the medical record I provided, but claimed that it was “incorrect” because the doctor “misinterpreted her notes,” and then seemingly claimed that one does not have to have gone missing, or been murdered, to identify as an MMIWG.
“I will not be providing documentation, genealogical records, or any form of ‘proof’ of my identity. I have no legal, ethical, or moral obligation to disclose my biological background to you, to your publication, or to any external party. This extends equally to quasi-judicial forums,” wrote Simpson, threatening me with “further legal consideration” should I repeat “demonstrably false claims regarding my identity.”
When I asked whether “quasi-judicial forums” meant the BCHRT, Simpson replied: “Respectfully, f–k off.”
While some may see Simpson’s behaviour as an indictment of the entire transgender community, it appears that the activist is unpopular there, too.
In an email to me, Laura Targownik, a transgender doctor and political commentator, explained that she has seen “very little support of Jessica’s actions from within the trans community, aside from general calls to respect her identity,” and lamented that some Canadians have the impression that the activist “is representative of the trans experience, when she is somewhat the exception.”
It would seem, then, that the BCHRT’s dysfunction threatens not only media freedom, but also the very minority groups it purportedly safeguards.
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