A Christian woman is speaking out following her termination from Starbucks in 2022. As Taylor Trice tells it, management wasn’t too happy when she expressed doubts about the coffee shop’s Pride Month displays.
Taylor Trice, also dubbed @edbl22 on TikTok, took to the platform earlier this week to tell the story behind termination from a Starbucks location in Apex, N.C. The young Christian woman claims she was let go after two years because of her “Christian conservative values,” which disagreed with the cafe’s preferred pronoun policy during Pride Month in June.
“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,” Trice said in the TikTok video, which has accumulated over 300,000 views.
On TikTok, Trice pointed out the Starbucks’ preferred pronoun policy. As a Christian, the former employee refused to go against her faith. She said she would be lying if she called a woman a man or a man a woman.
“I’m willing to call you by your name. I’m willing to avoid using the pronouns you don’t want me to use, but it’s against my faith to lie and say… someone is a woman if they’re a man or if someone is a man if they’re a woman.”
The Christian Tiktoker also noted that management got “very defensive” when she raised concerns about a glass wall display near the cash register. The content listed descriptions of different sexual orientations, but Trice didn’t think they needed to be added to the decorations.
“I had given them a warning saying like you guys might want to be careful because this can be taken the wrong way,” Trice said. “We have families and children coming in here, and they’ll read that, and it’s just…probably not best for public display to have that written on the glass walls.”
In the aftermath, the Apex store management team informed the Christian woman that someone had complained about her. Her termination seemingly followed thereafter.
“‘Oh, I just feel like she is not comfortable with my identity,’ which I do not understand because I would talk to everyone there all the time,” Trice recalled the confrontation to Fox News. “I was never making insults towards them or anything.”
“I’m hoping that people from the LGBT community can understand that we’re not against you loving someone. It’s all about just remaining within the order that God set in place,” the Christian woman.
In a 2022 letter to Starbucks partners, Dennis Brockman, chief global inclusion and diversity officer, ensured the company’s commitment to “creating a safe, brave place where you are valued. That includes your right to self-identify in your own way and to be addressed by your preferred or chosen name and pronouns.”
What do you think about the story behind this termination?
