In a decision issued Oct. 29, 2026, British Columbia’s human rights tribunal ordered LifeLabs to pay $32,000 for discriminating against transgender and non-binary patients.
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In its decision issued Oct. 29, 2026, British Columbia’s human rights tribunal ruled that LifeLabs and its subsidiary Excelleris Technologies discriminated against transgender and non-binary patients and ordered the company to pay $32,000 in damages, along with other costs.
The tribunal found that the providers misgendered and outed three patients at clinics in Vancouver and Burnaby in 2019. Its decision said a non-binary person was told they had to choose either male or female to receive lab services and was outed to other patients when required to discuss their gender identity in a public space.
The tribunal also found that one transgender patient was unable to update their gender marker on medical records, and that another was misgendered on lab reports. It said that patient opted out of necessary cancer screening to avoid being misgendered again.
In the decision, tribunal member Theressa Etmanski said LifeLabs must update its policies and staff training around gender identity and make private spaces available to transgender and non-binary patients to discuss their identity. Etmanski added that while information about a patient’s sex may be medically relevant to laboratory services, there is “no evidence before me to support that the standard is medically necessary or justified.”
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