Pre-surgery transgender entry puts women’s safety at risk

The recent policy shift at King Spa in Palisades Park, New Jersey, has thrust the Korean-style spa into the center of one of the most fraught debates in American public life: how to balance gender identity with the privacy and safety needs of women.

After settling a lawsuit brought by a transgender woman, the spa revised its rules to allow access to gender-segregated spaces solely on the basis of the gender marker listed on a government-issued ID. Under the new policy, any patron whose ID reads “female” may use the women’s locker room, bath, and sauna—regardless of anatomy or surgical status.

The settlement stems from a 2022 incident in which a transgender customer presented a female ID but was issued a bracelet for the men’s locker room and repeatedly questioned about gender-affirming surgery. King Spa staff proposed that she wear a swimsuit to use the women’s areas, but she refused, and the incident escalated into a legal dispute that ended quietly in August. Now, following the agreement, the business explicitly instructs women to expect bodies in female spaces that may not align with “general gender expectations.”

For many Korean immigrants—who grew up with the deeply gendered, fully nude bath culture of traditional Korean-style spa—this policy is not merely confusing. It feels like an existential threat to the very nature of women-only spaces. And they are not alone. Similar conflicts have erupted nationwide: the 2021 Wi Spa incident in Los Angeles, where the defendant was later acquitted despite having prior sex-offense convictions; the Olympus Spa case in Washington state, where a Korean-owned spa was blocked by federal courts from restricting access based on surgical status. In each instance, the tension is the same: gender identity claims colliding with spaces designed to protect women’s bodily privacy.

The heart of the issue is not whether transgender people deserve dignity—they absolutely do. Nor is it a question of whether discrimination should be tolerated—it should not. The issue is whether the principle of inclusion can override women’s rights to safety in spaces where they are fully nude. Expecting women and girls to undress next to individuals who still possess male genitalia is not inclusive. It is violence.

To argue that allowing an anatomically intact transgender woman into a women’s nude spa is harmless diversity is to erase the lived reality of women who rely on these spaces precisely because they are segregated. Korean-style spas are not gyms with private stalls. They are communal rooms where the body is entirely exposed. In such a context, requiring women to tolerate the presence of male genitalia—even if the individual identifies as female—is, as Korean community advocates have argued, effectively a form of violence.

This is not hypothetical. In the Wi Spa case, the defendant was a registered sex offender. Though a jury acquitted him due to insufficient evidence of sexual intent during the spa incident, the legal reality remains stark: a sex offender was able to enter a women’s naked area solely by presenting a female gender marker. That should trouble anyone who cares about public safety.

The current legal framework is riddled with loopholes. California’s Gender Recognition Act allows legal gender changes without any medical requirements—a policy ripe for abuse. When anyone can alter the gender marker on an ID with no physical transition whatsoever, the barrier protecting sex-segregated spaces effectively disappears. What remains is a system that relies entirely on self-identification, enforced on women who never consented to such an arrangement.

Safeguards are desperately needed. The law must draw a clear distinction between discrimination based on identity—which society must reject—and reasonable distinctions based on biological sex in fully nude settings. Legislatures should establish “privacy-protected zones”—locker rooms, showers, saunas, changing areas—where access can be based on biological sex or completion of gender-affirming surgery. Recognizing physical differences is not bigotry; treating all distinctions as discrimination is itself a form of reverse discrimination that sacrifices women’s rights on the altar of ideological purity.

ID gender-change standards also require tightening. At minimum, legal sex changes should require documented medical or anatomical transition—such as surgery or sustained hormone therapy—rather than a simple declaration. Allowing individuals to change their legal sex at will and use that status to enter exclusive nude spaces is an excessive demand that exceeds any reasonable social consensus.

There is room for compromise. Businesses can help by creating gender-neutral facilities, family changing rooms, and private shower booths. Such measures would respect transgender patrons without forcing women to forfeit their privacy. Real coexistence depends not on erasing differences but on acknowledging them honestly and building systems that protect everyone.

True equality begins with recognizing that bodies are different—and that these differences matter in intimate settings. A society that ignores biological reality in the name of abstract inclusivity does not achieve justice; it simply shifts vulnerability from one group to another. Women and children deserve better.

By Mooyoung Lee [lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com]