British Columbia's human rights tribunal has ordered a private laboratory provider to pay $32,000 in damages, along with other costs, for discriminating against transgender and non-binary patients.
The tribunal found that LifeLabs and its subsidiary Excelleris Technologies misgendered and outed three patients at clinics in Vancouver and Burnaby in 2019.
The decision says a non-binary person was told they had to choose either male or female to receive lab services. The same patient was outed to others by being required to discuss their gender identity in a public space.
One transgender patient was unable to update their gender marker on medical records. Another was misgendered on lab reports and opted out of necessary cancer screening to avoid being misgendered again.
Tribunal member Theressa Etmanski ordered LifeLabs to update its policies and staff training around gender identity. The company must also make private spaces available to transgender and non-binary patients to discuss their identity.
In the decision issued Oct. 29, 2026, Etmanski wrote: « Information about a patient's sex may be medically relevant in the provision of laboratory services. However, I wish to be clear that there is no evidence before me to support that the standard is medically necessary or justified. »
The tribunal heard from one expert last year who said gender-diverse people face barriers in accessing health care, and that misgendering can be a « significant source of distress ».
The ruling concerns services delivered through LifeLabs clinics, where patients routinely provide sex and gender information in the course of receiving laboratory tests. The tribunal's findings focused on how that information was recorded, displayed and requested from patients, rather than on the accuracy of laboratory results.
The three complainants were treated at clinics in two Metro Vancouver communities, and the decision addresses their experiences separately. In each case the tribunal considered how staff handled a patient's gender identity at the point of service and in the records that followed.
The $32,000 award covers damages, and the tribunal also ordered LifeLabs and Excelleris to pay other costs arising from the complaints. The amount is intended to compensate the patients for the harm the tribunal found they suffered.
The order to revise policies and training means LifeLabs must change how its staff are instructed to record patient sex and gender, and how they respond when a patient's identity is in question. The requirement for private spaces is intended to prevent patients from being identified as transgender or non-binary in front of others.
The decision is a finding by a provincial human rights tribunal that applies to services provided in British Columbia. It sets out what the tribunal considers required of a laboratory provider serving patients in the province, and it makes clear that a medical standard requiring sex to be recorded must be justified on evidence.
The Canadian Press first reported the ruling on Nov. 8, 2026. The decision itself was issued on Oct. 29, 2026, a little more than a week earlier, and the tribunal's reasoning is set out in full in that document.