A federal judge compared a female-only entrance policy for a Washington state-based spa to a “whites-only” policy at a hearing on Monday.
Judge M. Margaret McKeown, a Clinton appointee who sits on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, drew a parallel between Olympus Spa, a Korean spa whose services are restricted to biological women, and businesses discriminating against patrons on the basis of race.
“If you have a law that says ‘White applicants only,’ this is ‘biological women entrance only.’ It seems to me they’re quite parallel there,” McKeown said before a three-member panel of the 9th Circuit. “And you can’t have ‘White people only’ come into my restaurant, and then you say, ‘Well, no, we have a religious, spiritual nature to our restaurant, and when you get there, we serve you special food.’ This seems quite different.”
Olympus Spa is a women-only spa because of its Korean body scrub services, which require nudity. As such, its admission policy restricts biological men from entering the facility.
“It is the spa’s position that the women sharing in this cultural and spiritual experience have associational and free exercise rights,” the spa’s counsel, Kevin Snider of the conservative Pacific Justice Institute, argued on Monday.
In 2020, Washington’s Human Rights Commission filed a complaint of discrimination against the spa after a transgender-identifying man was denied access to its services. The commission determined that Olympus Spa had violated Washington’s Law Against Discrimination, which bars places of public accommodation from restricting customers on the basis of their gender identity. A federal judge subsequently dismissed the spa’s lawsuit in response. The spa argued that the commission was violating its religious, associational, and free speech rights (the owners of the spa are Christian).
Olympus Spa is now appealing the dismissal and saying that Washington’s anti-discrimination laws on public accommodations hamper its constitutional rights. The 9th Circuit Court is overseeing the appeal.
McKeown’s comments come the same week House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., barred biological men from women’s single-sex facilities on the House side of the U.S. Capitol complex, arguing that “women deserve women’s-only spaces.” This was in response to Rep.-elect Sarah McBride’s election as the first transgender-identifying lawmaker to the U.S. House.
When asked about the lawsuit, Meg Kilgannon, a senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand, “It’s time to stop this dangerous charade. Transwomen are men, and they don’t belong in women’s locker rooms, bathrooms, prison cells, or any other woman-only space. Insisting on ‘inclusion’ as a cover is an abusive, demeaning bullying tactic.”