It is so strange how religion only comes up when it's about being awful and bigoted towards other people. Never when it's about preserving human dignity.
It's a traditional Korean spa, where it is sex segregated and spa goers walk around naked. It's a Korean cultural tradition and mocking it is frankly bigoted.
The spa's lawyer must have thought the religious angle was a winning strategy. It wasn't. In the end, the spa just wanted to keep p-nises out of the women's space. I frankly agreed with that. If you kept your pre-transition junk, good for you. I don't want to see it, and a vast majority of American voters agree with that.
This transgender absolutism is killing us. This, and literally a handful of post-puberty transgender athletes who insist on competing with claims that it's fair when the performance data clearly suggests otherwise. It's driving off allies in droves. Our support is plummeting.
We are careening headlong toward a national ban on transitioning, and the clerical detransition of 1.6 million transgender people. That has already started. All because one transwoman wanted to flash her junk in a spa and a couple kids decided they HAD to play sports.
The way you wrote that trivializes the difficulty of "transitioning" to the neovagina, the expense for that matter. I never understand that. Surgery is not a game. I'm not even trans and I know that because I've had two fairly serious incisions in recent years, you may not want to see someone's penis but frankly that's a you problem, people need to deal with these juvenile reactions to things. "A vast majority of American voters" shouldn't be able to marginalize and oppress a minority. We should resist the trend toward that with everything we have, and I'm choosing to do that in part by not ceding ground to TERFs and phobes.
the trans athletes performance data does not “clearly suggest otherwise” bud. the effects of estrogen and hormone blockers change the biology and physiological qualities of trans women in particular, even post-puberty. any advantage they may gain from AMAB development has equal or greater drawbacks from HRT.
i’m sorry, i’m not here to debate the one-offs. show me a spreadsheet demonstrating the complete annihilation of cis women’s achievements across sports of every modality and then i’ll assess the source materials. there are examples of women and men in all sports that would have advantages over one another if they “switched” - and sports are inherently “unfair” because every body is different: what matters for athletes is the ways they compensate for their inherent (relative) weaknesses to attain their goals and “win”
I will also say that the Williams Institute report on the effects of HRT on trans athlete performance is a prime example of sketchy statistical analysis. It takes between two and standard deviations between subject groups for the two populations to show a significant difference. With that kind of analysis, it might be a challenge to show statistically significant difference between cisgender men and cisgender women athletes.
I never said that a handful of trans athletes was going to annihilate women's sports. There are only a half a dozen or so female trans athletes and all of the NCAA, so the sport will survive. The trans community in general however may not.
What the participation of trans athletes is doing is turning otherwise sympathetic Americans against the transgender community. Years ago, public sympathy towards transgender people was increasing. That trend has reversed, and as we've seen, has been driving elections against us.
In the end, this could result in the detransition of all 1.6 million of us. All for a half a dozen kids playing a sport. It was a stupid hill to die on. I hope it's worth it
Let's be clear - it is not the participation of trans athletes that is "turning sympathetic Americans against the transgender community" - its Trump rhetoric, and the machinations of Project 2025, Christian Nationalists, and the ilk (JK Rowling for one) that have permeated our cultural fabric like a virus. Trans athletes (the few that are present and compete) have been here long before becoming this new target. And interesting that you noted only female trans athletes....I stand that it is important to fight for transgender people (and all transgender athletes) because they are only the snag in the screen.
This is a good example of why I do not believe in any kind of “religious exemption.” Any person could claim any “sincerely held religious belief” to fit their own narrative or fears. Religion does not, nor should it, bestow any special privileges on anyone.
My sincerely held religious beliefs could be that people of a certain height cannot be in public places without a 90 year old female escort. Now that’s ridiculous!
And surely christians have no corner on truth, kindness, nor morality.
I know this spa, I have a lot of friends that have gone in the past. The spa forbids you to wear any bathing suit bottoms of any kind. I have never gone bc I have my own issues with being fully nude and they literally won't let you cover up. I am in support of allowing all trans women in no matter what. I always found their rules of mandating full nudity really fucking weird.
The bravery it takes to be heard. The woman could have chosen to leave, not share her experience and potentially other women would experience the same hate filled rejection. An old bumper sticker said it best. Silence = Death. Applause for this woman and the bravery she has exhibited.
I find it puzzling but curiously intriguing that the spa's definition of "biological sex" extends to post-SRS trans women (while being silent on trans men with or without their SRS). We can certainly point and laugh that it proves the incoherence of biological sex without gender as a meaningful characteristic to gatekeep with. Yet I find myself with a little pity for them. They've tied themselves in knots between ideology and a curious dress policy and ended up making themselves look silly. I find myself thinking it is a case study in the best way to kill the gender critical crusade though: make it absurd. People fear looking stupid far more than they fear looking monstrous.
True, but when you normalize shit like this it spreads. Before you know it, it stops being relegated to the most Hitlerite bigots and starts becoming common business sense. It needs to be stopped at this stage.
Religion has the unique ability to mutate into whatever a “religious” person says it is. Citing it is therefore a major tool of fascists looking for “alternative” truths to make themselves look moral.
Bibles certainly don’t help much. In one verse they say to love your neighbor as yourself. They have laws against all but heterosexual sex. In two other places they give rules about how to keep slaves. Before and during the US Civil War, slave masters including Robert E. Lee cited it as the reason to keep people in bondage. Korans don’t help much either. Non-Muslims are supposed to be subject to a special tax. Non-Muslims who aren’t “People of the Book” (Jews, Christians and sometimes Hindus) are supposed to be executed. “Devout” Buddhists in Myanmar have evicted Muslim Rohingyas from their country. All of the above advertise themselves as “Religions of peace.” Of course, they are all vigorously promoted by some sect or other that denies the other sect really exists.
I attend church not as a member for that kind of reason, philosophical differences that would be too challenging to reconcile, they're decent people, I respect what they do, but I can't put my signature on discrimination.
This is why we’re losing nationally. Forcing Cisgender women to see penises is a red line for everyone outside the trans community. Why would anyone want to do that? This is not the way. We lose allies with this shit. We don’t know the employees maybe they were sexual assault victims. Go somewhere else
My "red line" is marginalizing people because they refuse to destroy the flesh God gave them. Having an exception for "post-op" trans women basically says that if you're OK with the way your body is you're a sex predator, in reality it's trans women regardless of their transition types who are the vulnerable potential victims, in male spaces. If people don't want themselves or their children seeing penises, they can move to another planet where no one has them, or something, FFS, I can't deal with these excuses, a flaccid penis is not threatening anyone, God forbid these people ever had to work in medicine or something. If they're sensitive they need to learn to control it, not project it into a big rule that treats a minority as a menace.
Well said Veronica. We are also losing nationally because of the insistence that a handful of women who transitioned post-puberty be allowed to compete with cis women in athletic events. The claim is that the transwomen have no advantage, while the data clearly, CLEARLY suggests otherwise. We are destroying our alliances with this.
This is really interesting. I have been kicked out of a korean-style spa before that claimed, on their website, to allow people to use the facilities designated for people based on their government issued ID. When challenged about this, they told me, and not quite so many words, that it was because I had not yet had bottom surgery.
It's a bit more complicated than that though. There are real issues with women having PTSD that's triggered by seeing a p-nis. There's also strong cultural norms around genital exposure in gendered areas when others can see those genitals. I would love for that to not be a thing, but that's a long way off.
This is not a black and white issue given that the spa does allow post-op trans women.
I also agree that trans women weren’t really discriminated against, because post-op trans women were allowed. Like it or not, many moderate cis females aren’t comfortable with someone in intimate spaces having the genitalia of the opposite gender. Legal recognition of transition, in fact, used to be based on SRS surgery, in order to assure that cis people could be comfortable with newly reassigned trans people in private/intimate spaces. Like it or not, the failure to recognize cis people’s discomfort with opposite genitalia in intimate spaces - and the insistence of civil rights based solely on “gender identity” rather than anatomic sex - is one source of the huge backlash being experienced by trans people today.
so we are gonna argue biological essentialism, access to medical care, and also try to understand why someone would even undergo bottom surgery to begin with.. Got it. All while ignoring the fact that this actual spa doesn't allow you to cover your genitals even if you wanted to. Perfect.
This is a spa where people are naked (mandated actually), womens genitals come in all sizes and shapes. But good to know women will have to prove their biology for y'all.
Also what's so fucked up about all these comments is how many of you probably don't even go to these places but have all kinds of theoretical opinions about how you *might* feel in the presence of a trans woman... I'm so disappointed.
There is a bit of a difference between a penis and the variety of vaginas. Vaginas generally don’t sexually assault. The person could have gone to another spa where you could remain dressed.
so an expensive, risky surgery with a long, painful/uncomfortable recovery time, which is no longer covered by medicaid, and which many women simply don't feel the need to undertake, is to be the defining criterion of what makes someone a "real" woman? only women with access to this option get to have full civil rights?
It's obviously *not* a choice, when people are born with them. Trivializing bottom surgery is truly bizarre, sadistic stuff. People are free to choose to do it, but it's certainly going to give a lot if not most pause.
Nobody is trivializing bottom surgery. The choice to have it is truly an individual one. I've known trans women and men who have, and those who haven't. Either way, the women are no or or less women, and the men, men. They should be afforded access to appropriate sex-segregated places: the women in women's saces, and the men, men's.
What it does mean for those who opt not to, is that they should be be more diligent about keeping their private parts private. Frankly thats simply good practice for anyone. Modesty is dignified and a virtue. For the space that's the subject of the case in the article, modesty is expected to be shed by the patrons.
That shouldn't be criticized or belittled. It's a cultural thing. That, though, would put it out of reach of non- op trans people. to be honest, it's out of reach for most Americans like me, whose modesty is less easily shed.
That clearly segregates non-op trans women uniquely, discriminates against and marginalizes them, if this place literally doesn't allow covering down there, girl cock must be included. I wouldn't budge when they purport to serve the public.
This ruling will teach the fascists to rephrase their lawsuits. If they sue to exclude penises from women-only intimate spaces, they will undoubtedly win such a case, as this is a reasonable expectation. But attacking trans people specifically, simply for existing, and using "freedom of speech" Constitutional Rights language should LOSE in court all day every day. We saw this same kind of bigotry cloaked in "free speech" to keep Black people separate from white spaces.
Religion when it means that seeing a dick is going to kill you is more like being a dummy. FFS, they've never seen someone naked who wasn't their spouse?! Ever? They're the weirdo, not the trans woman with her intact genitalia.
It is so strange how religion only comes up when it's about being awful and bigoted towards other people. Never when it's about preserving human dignity.
Yeah, I must have missed the part of the Bible where Jesus said "be a big piece of shit to people different than you."
It's a traditional Korean spa, where it is sex segregated and spa goers walk around naked. It's a Korean cultural tradition and mocking it is frankly bigoted.
The spa's lawyer must have thought the religious angle was a winning strategy. It wasn't. In the end, the spa just wanted to keep p-nises out of the women's space. I frankly agreed with that. If you kept your pre-transition junk, good for you. I don't want to see it, and a vast majority of American voters agree with that.
This transgender absolutism is killing us. This, and literally a handful of post-puberty transgender athletes who insist on competing with claims that it's fair when the performance data clearly suggests otherwise. It's driving off allies in droves. Our support is plummeting.
We are careening headlong toward a national ban on transitioning, and the clerical detransition of 1.6 million transgender people. That has already started. All because one transwoman wanted to flash her junk in a spa and a couple kids decided they HAD to play sports.
The way you wrote that trivializes the difficulty of "transitioning" to the neovagina, the expense for that matter. I never understand that. Surgery is not a game. I'm not even trans and I know that because I've had two fairly serious incisions in recent years, you may not want to see someone's penis but frankly that's a you problem, people need to deal with these juvenile reactions to things. "A vast majority of American voters" shouldn't be able to marginalize and oppress a minority. We should resist the trend toward that with everything we have, and I'm choosing to do that in part by not ceding ground to TERFs and phobes.
the trans athletes performance data does not “clearly suggest otherwise” bud. the effects of estrogen and hormone blockers change the biology and physiological qualities of trans women in particular, even post-puberty. any advantage they may gain from AMAB development has equal or greater drawbacks from HRT.
Lia Thomas went from a mid-500's ranking in the freestyle (men's) to near the top ranking among women post transition. That is a clear advantage.
i’m sorry, i’m not here to debate the one-offs. show me a spreadsheet demonstrating the complete annihilation of cis women’s achievements across sports of every modality and then i’ll assess the source materials. there are examples of women and men in all sports that would have advantages over one another if they “switched” - and sports are inherently “unfair” because every body is different: what matters for athletes is the ways they compensate for their inherent (relative) weaknesses to attain their goals and “win”
I will also say that the Williams Institute report on the effects of HRT on trans athlete performance is a prime example of sketchy statistical analysis. It takes between two and standard deviations between subject groups for the two populations to show a significant difference. With that kind of analysis, it might be a challenge to show statistically significant difference between cisgender men and cisgender women athletes.
I never said that a handful of trans athletes was going to annihilate women's sports. There are only a half a dozen or so female trans athletes and all of the NCAA, so the sport will survive. The trans community in general however may not.
What the participation of trans athletes is doing is turning otherwise sympathetic Americans against the transgender community. Years ago, public sympathy towards transgender people was increasing. That trend has reversed, and as we've seen, has been driving elections against us.
In the end, this could result in the detransition of all 1.6 million of us. All for a half a dozen kids playing a sport. It was a stupid hill to die on. I hope it's worth it
Let's be clear - it is not the participation of trans athletes that is "turning sympathetic Americans against the transgender community" - its Trump rhetoric, and the machinations of Project 2025, Christian Nationalists, and the ilk (JK Rowling for one) that have permeated our cultural fabric like a virus. Trans athletes (the few that are present and compete) have been here long before becoming this new target. And interesting that you noted only female trans athletes....I stand that it is important to fight for transgender people (and all transgender athletes) because they are only the snag in the screen.
This is a good example of why I do not believe in any kind of “religious exemption.” Any person could claim any “sincerely held religious belief” to fit their own narrative or fears. Religion does not, nor should it, bestow any special privileges on anyone.
My sincerely held religious beliefs could be that people of a certain height cannot be in public places without a 90 year old female escort. Now that’s ridiculous!
And surely christians have no corner on truth, kindness, nor morality.
I know this spa, I have a lot of friends that have gone in the past. The spa forbids you to wear any bathing suit bottoms of any kind. I have never gone bc I have my own issues with being fully nude and they literally won't let you cover up. I am in support of allowing all trans women in no matter what. I always found their rules of mandating full nudity really fucking weird.
Once again a company who is opened to the public tries to use religion as basis for discrimination - Will it ever stop
The bravery it takes to be heard. The woman could have chosen to leave, not share her experience and potentially other women would experience the same hate filled rejection. An old bumper sticker said it best. Silence = Death. Applause for this woman and the bravery she has exhibited.
I find it puzzling but curiously intriguing that the spa's definition of "biological sex" extends to post-SRS trans women (while being silent on trans men with or without their SRS). We can certainly point and laugh that it proves the incoherence of biological sex without gender as a meaningful characteristic to gatekeep with. Yet I find myself with a little pity for them. They've tied themselves in knots between ideology and a curious dress policy and ended up making themselves look silly. I find myself thinking it is a case study in the best way to kill the gender critical crusade though: make it absurd. People fear looking stupid far more than they fear looking monstrous.
Bigots don't deserve any pity from anyone about their bigotry
Obviously it's important to enforce non-discrimination law, but it's not like I would want to go to a business with owners this bigoted, anyway.
True, but when you normalize shit like this it spreads. Before you know it, it stops being relegated to the most Hitlerite bigots and starts becoming common business sense. It needs to be stopped at this stage.
Oh yes, I absolutely agree the principle is important! I just mean that I personally wouldn't want to go there even if I could.
I'm already conflicted enough about the fact that the owner of my town's one and only gay bar is rumored to have voted Republican.
Religion has the unique ability to mutate into whatever a “religious” person says it is. Citing it is therefore a major tool of fascists looking for “alternative” truths to make themselves look moral.
Bibles certainly don’t help much. In one verse they say to love your neighbor as yourself. They have laws against all but heterosexual sex. In two other places they give rules about how to keep slaves. Before and during the US Civil War, slave masters including Robert E. Lee cited it as the reason to keep people in bondage. Korans don’t help much either. Non-Muslims are supposed to be subject to a special tax. Non-Muslims who aren’t “People of the Book” (Jews, Christians and sometimes Hindus) are supposed to be executed. “Devout” Buddhists in Myanmar have evicted Muslim Rohingyas from their country. All of the above advertise themselves as “Religions of peace.” Of course, they are all vigorously promoted by some sect or other that denies the other sect really exists.
I attend church not as a member for that kind of reason, philosophical differences that would be too challenging to reconcile, they're decent people, I respect what they do, but I can't put my signature on discrimination.
This is why we’re losing nationally. Forcing Cisgender women to see penises is a red line for everyone outside the trans community. Why would anyone want to do that? This is not the way. We lose allies with this shit. We don’t know the employees maybe they were sexual assault victims. Go somewhere else
My "red line" is marginalizing people because they refuse to destroy the flesh God gave them. Having an exception for "post-op" trans women basically says that if you're OK with the way your body is you're a sex predator, in reality it's trans women regardless of their transition types who are the vulnerable potential victims, in male spaces. If people don't want themselves or their children seeing penises, they can move to another planet where no one has them, or something, FFS, I can't deal with these excuses, a flaccid penis is not threatening anyone, God forbid these people ever had to work in medicine or something. If they're sensitive they need to learn to control it, not project it into a big rule that treats a minority as a menace.
Well said Veronica. We are also losing nationally because of the insistence that a handful of women who transitioned post-puberty be allowed to compete with cis women in athletic events. The claim is that the transwomen have no advantage, while the data clearly, CLEARLY suggests otherwise. We are destroying our alliances with this.
no it does not. so many millions more cis athletes are winning over the couple dozen notable trans ones. come on!
This is really interesting. I have been kicked out of a korean-style spa before that claimed, on their website, to allow people to use the facilities designated for people based on their government issued ID. When challenged about this, they told me, and not quite so many words, that it was because I had not yet had bottom surgery.
From what I read, it wasn't a "trans ban." Trans women were welcome. It was an exposed p-nis ban, which frankly I'm in favor of.
So you support trans women being discrimtated against if they haven't had bottom surgry?!
It's a bit more complicated than that though. There are real issues with women having PTSD that's triggered by seeing a p-nis. There's also strong cultural norms around genital exposure in gendered areas when others can see those genitals. I would love for that to not be a thing, but that's a long way off.
This is not a black and white issue given that the spa does allow post-op trans women.
I also agree that trans women weren’t really discriminated against, because post-op trans women were allowed. Like it or not, many moderate cis females aren’t comfortable with someone in intimate spaces having the genitalia of the opposite gender. Legal recognition of transition, in fact, used to be based on SRS surgery, in order to assure that cis people could be comfortable with newly reassigned trans people in private/intimate spaces. Like it or not, the failure to recognize cis people’s discomfort with opposite genitalia in intimate spaces - and the insistence of civil rights based solely on “gender identity” rather than anatomic sex - is one source of the huge backlash being experienced by trans people today.
so we are gonna argue biological essentialism, access to medical care, and also try to understand why someone would even undergo bottom surgery to begin with.. Got it. All while ignoring the fact that this actual spa doesn't allow you to cover your genitals even if you wanted to. Perfect.
This is a spa where people are naked (mandated actually), womens genitals come in all sizes and shapes. But good to know women will have to prove their biology for y'all.
Also what's so fucked up about all these comments is how many of you probably don't even go to these places but have all kinds of theoretical opinions about how you *might* feel in the presence of a trans woman... I'm so disappointed.
There is a bit of a difference between a penis and the variety of vaginas. Vaginas generally don’t sexually assault. The person could have gone to another spa where you could remain dressed.
so an expensive, risky surgery with a long, painful/uncomfortable recovery time, which is no longer covered by medicaid, and which many women simply don't feel the need to undertake, is to be the defining criterion of what makes someone a "real" woman? only women with access to this option get to have full civil rights?
nah.
The right to expose someone to your penis that doesn’t want to be exposed to it?
I don't feel that it is discrimination. Having a p-nis is not an immutable characteristic. It's really a choice.
It's obviously *not* a choice, when people are born with them. Trivializing bottom surgery is truly bizarre, sadistic stuff. People are free to choose to do it, but it's certainly going to give a lot if not most pause.
Nobody is trivializing bottom surgery. The choice to have it is truly an individual one. I've known trans women and men who have, and those who haven't. Either way, the women are no or or less women, and the men, men. They should be afforded access to appropriate sex-segregated places: the women in women's saces, and the men, men's.
What it does mean for those who opt not to, is that they should be be more diligent about keeping their private parts private. Frankly thats simply good practice for anyone. Modesty is dignified and a virtue. For the space that's the subject of the case in the article, modesty is expected to be shed by the patrons.
That shouldn't be criticized or belittled. It's a cultural thing. That, though, would put it out of reach of non- op trans people. to be honest, it's out of reach for most Americans like me, whose modesty is less easily shed.
That clearly segregates non-op trans women uniquely, discriminates against and marginalizes them, if this place literally doesn't allow covering down there, girl cock must be included. I wouldn't budge when they purport to serve the public.
This ruling will teach the fascists to rephrase their lawsuits. If they sue to exclude penises from women-only intimate spaces, they will undoubtedly win such a case, as this is a reasonable expectation. But attacking trans people specifically, simply for existing, and using "freedom of speech" Constitutional Rights language should LOSE in court all day every day. We saw this same kind of bigotry cloaked in "free speech" to keep Black people separate from white spaces.
Religion when it means that seeing a dick is going to kill you is more like being a dummy. FFS, they've never seen someone naked who wasn't their spouse?! Ever? They're the weirdo, not the trans woman with her intact genitalia.