Overview
- The full Ninth Circuit on March 12 declined to rehear a case involving a women-only nude spa, leaving a 2025 panel ruling that enforces Washington’s nondiscrimination law in place.
- Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s dissent opened with a crude phrase, argued the spa owners’ religious liberties were violated, and described cisgender patrons as being “visually assaulted,” according to the opinion.
- More than two dozen Ninth Circuit judges, led by Judge M. Margaret McKeown, condemned the dissent as “vulgar barroom talk” that undermines public trust, with Judges John B. Owens and Danielle Forrest adding, “We are better than this.”
- Court records indicate the spa barred patrons with penises while permitting transgender women who had undergone vaginoplasty, a policy found to violate Washington’s public-accommodations statute.
- The spa owners are represented by the Pacific Justice Institute, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQ+ group, and they are expected to seek U.S. Supreme Court review.