Two years after being dismissed from a Starbucks store in Apex, North Carolina, a devout Christian and former barista is talking to far-right media about being let go for accusations of “homophobia.”
“If I see you are a man, and I call you a woman, that is lying,” said Taylor Trice regarding Starbucks policy asking employees to use customers’ preferred pronouns. pronouns. “That is identifying you as something that God did not create you to be. And it’s identifying you as something that Satan wants to identify you as, and Satan’s ultimate goal is to confuse you and deceive you about your identity.”
Last week, Trice posted to TikTok about her firing two years ago, expressing that she felt the Starbucks store’s LGBTQ+ policy didn’t align with her religious beliefs.
“I was used to Starbucks putting out their decorations and stuff during the month of June,” she said in the TikTok video, which has since been removed. “It was just that this particular year, they went a little bit beyond the rainbow, and things were starting to taste sour and not sweet.”
Soon enough, Trice was amplifying that saccharine analogy and other complaints on Fox News Digital, where she explained she started working for the coffee chain because they offered tuition assistance.
“Before working at Starbucks, I knew nothing about it except that it was considered a fancy coffee shop,” Trice said. “So I didn’t know that it was a very liberal company.”
Trice told Fox she considered a handwritten explanation of pronouns on display during Pride Month not family-friendly and claims other employees agreed.
The former barista said management was “getting very defensive” when she had “given them a warning.”
“‘You guys might want to be careful because this can be taken the wrong way,” Trice said she alerted her bosses. “‘We have families and children coming in here, and they’ll read that.'”
She added that it’s “‘probably not best for public display to have that written on the glass walls.'”
“I just felt like that didn’t need to be added to the decorations,” Trice told Fox.
Trice said the power of a “small sin” — like calling someone a pronoun that “God did not create” — can’t be underestimated.
Left unsaid was if the fired barista’s TikTok story and Fox News Digital appearance were the prelude to a lawsuit accusing Starbucks of religious discrimination — but it sure sounded like it.
“With all those factors combined, I say, respectfully, “‘Hey, I’m willing to call you by your name; I’m willing to avoid using pronouns, but it’s against my faith to lie and say that you are a woman if I know that you are a man.'”
A Starbucks spokesperson told LGBTQ Nation, “We can’t comment on this private employment matter. However, Starbucks expects all partners — employees — to abide by company policies and standards, including anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies.”
