A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling effectively bans women-only spas from operating. The judge who wrote the opinion for the court initially compared the rule restricting use of the facility to women as the equivalent to a “whites only policy.”
Olympus Spa, a Korean women-only facility in Lynnwood and Tacoma, enforced a policy restricting entry to “biological women,” excluding men and preoperative transgender women (those who have not had so-called “gender-confirmation surgery”). The Washington State Human Rights Commission responded with an enforcement action, alleging that this policy violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on “sexual orientation,” defined by state law to include “gender expression or identity.”
The spa did not challenge the statute’s language or claim that its conduct was outside the statute’s definition of discrimination. Instead, it argued that enforcing WLAD against its policy violated the First Amendment rights of the spa’s owners and patrons—specifically, their rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, and free association.
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According to the spa, the policy is based on the owner’s Christian values that demand “modesty as between the sexes” and that “a male and female should not ordinarily be in each other’s presence while in the nude unless married to each other.” The spa attracts deeply religious customers. It also has employees who “refuse to perform massages or body scrubs on naked men.”
But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told the deeply religious owner that she’d have to set aside her religious views to accommodate a biological male who presents as a woman.
Why did the Ninth Circuit side against Olympus Spa?
Judge Margaret McKeown, writing for the majority, dismissed the complaint, arguing Olympus Spa’s policy constituted discrimination based on gender identity and therefore fell within the scope of WLAD.
The court argued that enforcing WLAD didn’t unconstitutionally burden the spa’s First Amendment rights, since the law is “neutral” and “generally applicable,” and any restriction on speech or religion is “incidental.”
Because Olympus Spa is a business open to the public, the court said it doesn’t get special First Amendment protections for “intimate” or “expressive” associations. The court basically declared that the spa owner’s religious views being pushed aside should be seen as a minor inconvenience compared to the needs of transgender clients.
According to the ruling, “eliminating discrimination on the basis of sex and transgender status is a legitimate government purpose.”
Erasing women
Once again, women lose, and radical gender ideology wins.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling is yet another devastating blow to religious freedom and common sense courtesy of left-wing ideologues who seek to redefine gender for political points. Though the Radical Left will pretend that safeguarding women’s privacy is now bigotry, it shouldn’t stop people from courageously pushing back against the gender extremism.
Neither the WLAD, nor the ruling, is about “inclusion”—it’s about erasing women’s spaces. It’s about telling religious Americans, especially immigrants and minorities, that their beliefs are not just unwelcome, but illegal. The ruling says the feelings of a biological male trump the rights of every woman who seeks a safe space to relax, or simply to exist away from men. The Radical Left’s gender dogma comes before your religion and your right to privacy in Washington and in other irredeemably blue states.
This ruling represents a judicial assault on women, on faith, and on the basic freedoms women once took for granted. Women deserve better. Washington deserves better. And the courts ought to be ashamed. We can only hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to the rescue.
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