Will the Supreme Court Decide a Dispute between A Christian Family Spa and a Transgender Woman?
A few weeks ago, the Pacific Justice Institute, along with the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed an urgently important petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This petition raises the following question before the U. S. Supreme Court: Can Olympus Spa, a Christian, family-run Korean bathhouse that provides an intimate environment exclusively for women and girls, be required to admit a male who identifies as a woman?
The male in question sought to use the Spa’s communal area with nude female patrons as young as 13, and the owners—citing their female-only entrance policy—declined. The State of Washington ruled that the Spa’s policy violated its public-accommodation law by excluding patrons based on “gender expression or identity.” A sharply divided Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the Spa’s lawsuit and held the First Amendment did not protect the Korean bathhouse from fines and prosecution.
This case presents two questions:
(1) Whether applying Washington’s law to force a Christian, all-female bathhouse to admit males violates the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause or violates the spa’s right to associational freedom.
(2) Whether the spa’s policy, which differentiates based on anatomy, discriminates “based on gender identity or transgender status within the meaning of West Virginia v. B. P. J., 146 S. Ct. 2356 (2026).”
For more than two decades, Sun Lee and his family have shared their Korean heritage with the people of Washington State. They own and operate Olympus Spa, which offers traditional jjimjilbang treatments rooted in centuries of Korean culture. Specifically, the spa provides communal steam rooms, warm soaking pools, and the ancient practice of sesshin, a full-body scrub performed by employees. Because nudity is central to the services the Spa provides and because the owners hold sincere Christian convictions that men and women should not be unclothed together outside of marriage, Olympus Spa has only admitted female patrons and only hires female employees.
The Spa’s policy is designed to protect the privacy of women and girls. In 2020, a single complaint—from a person with no record of ever having visited the Spa—triggered Washington State’s enforcement machinery. The state held that its views on gender identity must override both centuries-old cultural practice and deep religious conviction. The state, via its Human Rights Commission, gave the family ten days to change its policy or close. Put differently, a family that fled Korea hoping for greater religious freedom now stands to lose their livelihood or the ability to practice their faith simply because the State of Washington insists on dictating that males who identify as women be admitted into a female-only nude spa.
This case raises three important issues. First, it elevates the wholly modern question: what is a woman? Second, the Supreme Court’s answer to that question will decide if women can be protected as women or whether women can be erased grounded in state-imposed preferences. Third, this case raises the question: can individuals, families, and institutions protect their religious identity, or must they go out of business and embrace bankruptcy?
If the Supreme Court agrees to take this case, as it should, the Court will face strong headwinds from social and political elites. Headwinds arise because it is likely that prevailing elite culture has embraced gender identity as a religious belief, which has become indistinguishable from reality. Anne Kalvig, a Norwegian and a former professor of religion who has authored a book entitled Gender Belief: The Battle over Reality, has plumbed the depths of this trend.
Using Norway as an example, she shows the following:
· Norway introduced “gender identity” to the UN Human Rights Council in 2006, calling on behalf of 54 states for its recognition and legal protection. Since then, Norway has embraced gender identity to an extraordinary degree, treating it with religious reverence.
· In Norway, children “decide” their legal sex from the age of six, with one parent in agreement, while parents risk up to six years’ imprisonment if they fail to comply with their child’s declared “gender identity.” Norway has also decided to remove sex markers from its national identity database. It is also considering introducing a third gender by 2032.
· Thus, Norway, once regarded as a beacon of women’s liberation and a society committed to equality and transparency, has become a leader in what Anne Kalvig reckons is a totalitarian, rainbow-clad religion of “gender identity” worship, presented as a secular project of inclusion and diversity. On her view, Norway’s approach constitutes a flight from actual to mythical reality.
· As a result of all these moves, women who reject gender belief are increasingly seen as violent extremists. Indeed, women’s rights campaigners who offer an objective understanding of sex have been labeled hateful since Trans activists—male and female—have repeatedly sought the prosecution of women who believe in the material reality of sex.
If Anne Kalvig’s analysis is correct, then more than religious freedom—however important—remains at stake in the Olympus Spa case. Indeed, the potential outcome of this case may pose an existential threat to the survival of womanhood as we know it. As such, all of us should note that neither the definition of a man nor a woman can be taken for granted, as if they were a terrarium hermetically sealed from the values of our prevailing culture. Accordingly, all of us should work to ensure that our prevailing culture continues to offer definitions consistent with reality.