Segregation and Swastikas: The Rhetoric Targeting Biological Reality

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 Ninth 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 Ninth 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 Ninth 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 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."

In another related story...

Kaitlyn and Taylor, cross-country athletes at Martin Luther King High School in California, work hard at their craft. Concerned about trans-identifying males entering into sports meant for women, the girls wore t-shirts with a clear message on the front: "Save Girls' Sports." 

But allegedly, officials from the school's athletic department didn't like it. They accused the girls of creating a "hostile" environment. This is because, in their opinion, wearing a shirt that says "Save Girls' Sports" in front of someone who identifies as trans is like wearing a "swastika" in front of someone who's Jewish.

The officials ended up forcing the girls to either remove or conceal their shirts. However, the reason they wore them in the first place was in response to what they considered to be unfair treatment. Not only were they told that their shirts implied the same form of hatred as the Nazi's swastika, but they watched as a biological male who thinks he's a female secure a spot on the varsity team ­­-- despite the fact that he "didn't consistently attend practices or meet key varsity eligibility requirements." Notably, this directly impacted Taylor, as it displaced her from the spot she had on the team. This is what motivated the lawsuit against the school.

The complaint stated: "The biological male transgender athlete who displaced T.S. on the girls' varsity team had recently transferred from another local high school after breaking that school's all-time cross-country record for the girls' cross-country team." It continued, "T.S., who had held a position on the girls' Varsity Top 7 since August 2024 was removed from the girls' Varsity Top 7 to make room on the girls' Varsity Top 7 for an eleventh-grade transgender student and T.S. was relegated to the junior varsity team for one of the most important meets of the season for college recruitment."

The girls are being represented by Advocates for Faith and Freedom attorney Julianne Fleischer. The lawsuit was filed on the grounds that "there were violations of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and their Title IX protections." 

In a comment to Fox News Digital, Fleischer stated that the complaint, in part, included the Title IX violation because the school district did not provide a clear explanation for why Taylor's efforts and commitment were "overlooked." However, she also emphasized, "We're seeing more and more women and young girls speak up and challenge these policies that are allowing biological boys to join and participate in these sports. And so, there's lawsuits that are popping up all around the country."

A clear example of this is the ongoing situation with San Jose State University (SJSU) and their biologically male player. Blaire Fleming -- the name he has assumed -- plays for the SJSU women's volleyball team. But just this week, following months of an ever-intensifying controversy, [SJSU] senior setter Brooke Slusser, Spartans associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, and the Independent Council of Women's Sports led the charge in filing a lawsuit. Supported by a group of 10 women's volleyball student-athletes from four universities, the lawsuit accuses the Mountain West Conference (MWC) of violating Title IX and First Amendment Rights.

Fleming's participation has led to six teams forfeiting rather than play against a man. Allegedly, if teams continue to refuse competition, SJSU could become the conference champion in the approaching MWC tournament by default. However, the AFF attorney defending Kaitlyn and Taylor said that all the pushback makes her "hopeful" that, moving forward, "we're going to see real positive change to Title IX that actually upholds and safeguards the rights of women to participate in their sports and to be safe and to be able to compete amongst one another."

But in the meantime, teenagers like the two girls in California are facing backlash. When Kaitlyn was told her t-shirt was akin to Nazi paraphernalia, she said "it was definitely hard to hear." As she told Fox, "[W]e're by no means trying to be hateful. We're just wearing a shirt that expresses what we believe in trying to raise awareness to a situation." 

The complaint also highlighted how the trans-identifying athlete was able to wear bracelets that said "trans pride" without being told to take them off. Additionally, they noted that the school "allows other forms of social messaging" around campus, such as the LGBT pride flag.

Family Research Council's Mary Szoch is thankful for the experiences she had from her days as a Division I athlete in college. As she shared with The Washington Stand, playing against men during some of her practices helped her gain a clearer understanding of just how different men and women are when it comes to athleticism. 

"In college," she said, "I was blessed to play for a Division I national champion runner-up basketball team. Each day, our team would practice against a group of men, and most days, because of the physical advantages each of those men had, they would beat us. I was literally the last seat on the bench." But as she went on to explain, "If this were today, and one of those men identified as a woman, I wouldn't have made the team."

Szoch serves as FRC's director of the Center for Human Dignity, which for her, extends to the dignity of women when it comes to this conversation of men in women's sports. "I can't imagine the anger the girl who didn't make the team must feel -- especially knowing that the man who was given her spot doesn't consistently attend practices and didn't even meet the criteria making him eligible for the varsity team." But on top of this, Szoch noted that to then "have school officials compare wearing a shirt that says 'XX does not equal XY' [and] 'Save Girls' Sports' to a swastika is beyond belief."

She contended, "The swastika was used to represent an ideology based on the lie that some people are less valuable than others and can be treated as such. But the shirts these girls were wearing represent a basic truth that is meant to combat the lie that women can be treated unfairly. I hope these girls win their case. I hope that whoever authorized having a man on a girls' team and whoever compared those shirts to swastikas is fired."

"Every girl deserves a fair shot at being on a girls' team," Szoch concluded. "If she doesn't make it, the only reason should be because she wasn't good enough, not because she was a woman."

Originally published at The Washington Stand