LifeLabs Ordered by BC Tribunal to Pay $32K for Misgendering Three Patients

British Columbia’s largest medical testing provider, LifeLabs, has been ordered to pay $32,000 to three patients who identify as transgender and non-binary, saying the lab misgendered and outed them during separate visits in 2019. In her Oct. 29 decision, tribunal member Theressa Etmanski said the medical testing provider and its subsidiary Excelleris Technologies discriminated against the complainants by “misgendering” and “outing” them during separate visits at Vancouver and Burnaby locations in 2019. According to the decision document, LifeLabs staff at a Vancouver service centre misgendered Noa Moses when they “refused to accept” Moses’s non-binary gender identity and forced Moses to choose a gender marker of either male or female, saying they would not draw blood otherwise.