This is untenable. This is unacceptable.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it is time for good people to make things right.
Earlier this week, a Seattle federal judge forced a Korean-owned spa in Washington state to alter their policy which restricted patrons to biological women only.
Three years ago, Haven Wilvich (pictured, above) applied for a membership at the Olympus Spa but had been denied on the basis that he had not undergone “gender reassignment” surgeries and his penis was fully intact. Their policy limited potential clients to “biological women” only. There is a reason for that.
You see, the Olympus Spa is a Korean-style health and wellness facility. More specifically, it operates in the Korean tradition of jjimjilbang. They require nudity in some areas. In defense of their policy, the store informed the Washington State Human Rights Commission:
“We firmly believe it is essential for the safety, legal protection, and well-being of our customers and employees that we maintain adherence to this adaptation of a females-only rule.”
Two weeks later, the WSHRC ruled that the spa had violated Washington anti-discrimination law. In their ruling, the regulators noted the policy, “denies services to transgender women who have not had surgery … because their physical appearance is not ‘consistent’ with the traditional understanding of biological women.”
The spa filed suit, but a Washington District Court dismissed the suit this week. They cited the state’s anti-discrimination law along with federal statutes calling for Equal Protection Under the Law. The spa now has 30 days to change their policy.
For his part, (yes, “his”) Wilvich seem right proud of himself for forcing the rest of the planet to confirm to his views. Born Caleb Richmond, Wilvich identifies as a “non-binary transgender woman.” And judging by the IG message below, he has a pretty dim view of actual women.
The very same civil rights legal mechanisms that we created to end Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination are now being used to force a nude women's spa to allow someone with male genitals who "identifies as a woman" to share intimate spaces with naked girls. That is unacceptable.
We are supposed to have laws on our side to provide these most basic of protections. There are spaces we have created where women do not have to concern themselves with the presence of men. Women (and many men) fought hard to establish these spaces. Now, men (and some women) want to take them away---or render them meaningless.
Five years ago, if you had mentioned the possibility of this scenario while discussing trans policy you would have been laughed out of the room as a hyperbolic loon. Today, it is reality. Despite the fact that a vast majority of women say they are uncomfortable with men in their bathrooms and other such places, the value of their feelings is dismissed. All this while the feelings of a small handful of mentally disturbed men are considered absolute, final and enforcable.
This is very simple. Prisons, sports, locker rooms, dressing areas, etc...are all segregated based on SEX. Your GENDER is irrelevant when it comes to accessing these spaces. Or at least that is the way humanity operated until very, very recently.
The larger LGBTQ effort has been poisoned by an undercurrent of radical gender theorists that will brook NO apostasy. That I need to make the case that women and girls have a reasonable expectation of not having to deal with men in sensitive spaces we have created for them is outlandish.
The LGBTQ community members and supporters that I know are aghast at this bastardization of their message. This is NOT what the Gay Rights movement is about. This is the same type of monstrosity they have been fighting for decades.
Some will be uncomfortable with the steps we must take. I understand. I take no joy in it either. But the alternative of sitting on our hands is not an option.
To be blunt, if I have to physically intervene to prevent my wife or daughter from having to share an intimate space with a deranged man, I will do it. I’ve got some age on me now and no longer have the 1,030-pound powerlift that I once did, but I will do my best nonetheless.
This madness WILL stop. By hook or by crook.