ORLANDO, FLA. (WSVN) - A popular grocery store is saying sorry after one employee in Central Florida refused to write the word “trans” on a cake.
Yasmin Flasterstein, the co-founder and executive director of the Orlando-based nonprofit Peer Support Space, said she was flabbergasted by what the employee at a Publix supermarket in Orlando claimed was a company policy. The customer is calling it a hurtful choice.
“It just kinda felt like they were saying, ‘Trans people aren’t people,’ and it was extremely hurtful,” she said.
Flasterstein never imagined she and her trans co-worker would face push back after asking a Publix Bakery clerk to write “Trans people deserve joy” on a sheet cake, April 26.
“He looked a little bit confused, so I said, ‘T-R-A-N-S, trans people,'” she said. “I thought maybe he just didn’t hear me, but I didn’t really think anything of it.”
That was when, Flasterstein said, the clerk walked away and came back with the manager.
“The bakery manager had come and told them that they could not write ‘Trans people deserve joy’ on the cake because it was taking a political stance, and corporate wouldn’t allow it,” she said.
Instead, Flastertein said, the manager offered to write “People deserve joy,” and that Flasterstein herself write “Trans” on the blank space at the top.
“She seemed really emotional about it, and I really believed that it was corporate policy and out of her hands,” said Flasterstein.
Flasterstein reached out to Publix, and both the company and the store manager have since apologized.
In an email thread, the company said the employees should have fulfilled her request. The company’s policy, according to an email, only requests that statements are free of copyright and trademark, supports a charitable cause, are factual, and they’re positive.
The store manager also told Flasterstein, “I am genuinely disappointed that our team let you down. The message you requested written on your cake is one that we definitely could have written. Any message that is of a positive nature is allowed, and yours certainly was.”
But Flasterstein is not satisfied.
“For me, the apology doesn’t feel sincere at this point,” she said.
Flasterstein said she wants Publix’s policy to be more clear so this doesn’t happen again.
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