I’m having something of a quandry, and was hoping to get some thoughts from some of the smartest people on the internet (as well as a few dipsticks) before I come to any conclusions myself.
So there’s this Korean bathhouse/spa near me. I’ve been there a couple of times and, after some cultural speedbumps, quite enjoy it. It’s got separate locker rooms for men and women, where you go in and disrobe and then proceed (nude) to gender segregated showers and warm water baths and saunas. Then you go back into the locker room, put on a shirt and shorts provided by the spa, and enter a coed area with dry saunas, a lunchroom, meditation spaces, a small movie theater (yes, really) and socializing/studying places.
Apparently, and this is for the moment unsubstantiated rumor, a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend was kicked out of there rather rudely and without refund because he or she is transgendered. (I see he or she not because s/he’s transgendered, but because I don’t yet know who this person is or what pronoun s/he prefers.)
It’s mentioned in a yelp review by a person I don’t know, but it was also mentioned to me by a close friend as being her friend’s friend who was kicked out. Which means I probably know the person who was kicked out, I just don’t know who it was yet (I will be talking to the friend who mentioned it later, because we’re going to decide if we’re going back to the spa later this month as planned.)
The owners, as far as I know, are Korean Americans. Most of the staff are Korean Americans, and most of them speak very little English. The spa is located in a heavily Korean area, and there’s a lot of cultural isolation there, which may have influenced how this was handled.
Assuming for the moment that the story is true…would you give them your business?
See that’s a tricky area for me. I support anyone who feels like they were born the wrong gender. I’ll call them whatever they want, support their right to marry whoever they want and support their right to have a family.
But I don’t know if I’d want to be totally naked around each other. If they were post-op, I’d be fine with it. If I’m in the ladies change room, I strip down and don’t worry about my nether regions showing because everyone else in the room has the same thing.
First of all, that old line “we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody” exists whether they have it up on a sign behind the cash register or not.
That said, a totally pre-op TG using the biologically-other locker room is going to be viewed as doing something wrong by most people who don’t know anything about the person, which is going to be most of the people in the place: they’re going to see a guy in the women’s locker room, or a woman in the men’s.
Thirdly, a totally post-op TG is only going to ping someone’s radar if that person happens to find out that the person is TG, and if they discriminate at that point, that makes the business look bad.
Finally, I don’t know whether Korean custom matches up with what I’ve heard of Japanese custom, but this whole point would (should) be moot in a Japanese bathhouse, because the idea is that nobody would see the nakedness and to comment or act upon it would be unconscionably rude. If Korean custom is not like this and more like American high school locker room, having the wrong body parts showing in a public-but-segregated nudity situation is going to be awkward, if not downright unacceptable.
It’s fine with me if a transgender person wants to share my assigned space (which would be the men’s section), whether they’re a trans man or trans woman, whether they’ve had hormone treatment or top or bottom surgery or they’re in transition or they’re not, or if they’re genderqueer, or anything else I can think of. If I can think of anything to do to help them be accepted, I’d do it.
Now, whatever their gender, if they’re rude, well, then we have a situation.
I like to think I’m pretty accepting of transgendered people in general, though I admit I’ve had some road bumps due to ignorance of the matter. What they do with their lives and bodies are fine by me. Hell, I don’t even have a problem with pre-ops using whatever restroom they wish as most people aren’t going to see your nether regions in a bathroom. But…in a spa…where everyone’s naked…I think I might have a problem with a pre-op who is still sporting the genitalia of the opposite gender for the spa section they’re in. I think in this very specific situation, a transgender shouldn’t be allowed into the section that they don’t biologically fit in.
Now, I don’t think it’s right that they were rudely expelled and without a refund. If it did happen, it should have been done with a bit more understanding. But I’m also a bit dubious as to if this actually has happened. I can’t imagine a pre-op m2f transgendered thinking that it would be a good idea to go to a females only nude spa.
I think it’s quite possible that a majority of the spa’s customers would feel ashamed of themselves for being viewed naked by someone of the opposite biological sex, even if they are of the same gender. I don’t think you can really deny those feelings, or tell them they are not allowed to feel that way, nor do I think it’s a terrible thing that the spa puts the feelings of many customers above the feelings of one.
I am totally and completely OK with whatever-gendered people in disarobe around me. I’ve spent a lot of time at clothing-optional places and am very comfortable with nudity in general.
However, this is a privately-owned business. So they can do what they want. And clients can also choose to do what they want. No?
Thanks for the responses so far. I’d like to clarify one thing (although of course I welcome all respectful responses)…I know how I feel about sharing a spa with a transgendered person. I’m perfectly fine with that -while at the same time I completely understand that it makes other people uncomfortable, and no one wants to be uncomfortable at the spa. And I’m well aware that the spa has the legal right to exclude whomever they want. What I’m not sure is if I should continue giving my money to them and recommending them to my friends. Hence the quandry.
And yes, I also wonder what the transgendered person was thinking would happen. But there’s really no way to know without much more information than I have, so your speculation is as informed as mine. The closest thing I can compare it to for myself is my own use of the e-cigarette in public places. Yes, I have the right to use it indoors, but I know that it makes many people uncomfortable. It creates problems for management when other people complain that I’m “smoking” inside. So I choose to limit my ecig use to smoking areas rather than make a scene or risk being thrown out. I think, were I a transgendered person with ambiguous anatomy myself, I’d similarly limit myself to the clothed, coed areas, changing in the bathroom and foregoing the nude area entirely. But that’s *my *choice.
So what you need to decide is if it’s ethically wrong to deny a transgendered person access to that side of the spa. I don’t think it is. For one thing, presumably they can still use the side that matches their biological-sex phenotype. So they still have access to the services. If they are too uncomfortable to be nude around the opposite sex. . . well, frankly that seems a little problematic to me. They want to make dozens of people suffer from that exact same discomfort, but are unwilling to experience it themselves? This is especially true in a nude environment, where there are few gender signals, especially between people that are only seeing each other, not conversing: there’s no hair or makeup or jewelry or clothing to indicate that someone is a man or a woman: sex is the only indicator of gender.
Unfortunately, by saying “Well, they can just use the biologically-appropriate locker room so the people in the other locker room aren’t upset,” they’d be submitting the transgendered person to the exact experience they’re trying to prevent.
This is coming down to a public policy debate: - is it OK that a private entity restricts accessc to their privately-owned business.
I say YES, Is it right? well, no. Morally correct? I don’t think so, not at all. But I also do not believe the onus should be on every small business owner to cater to every single whim of every one of their emplyees, no matter what.
The right of a private property and business owner to restrict or deny usage of their personal business and property? Absolutely YES.
However, you say they denied the person because she was TG - how did they know this? What is the relevant law where you live? Was there any actual harm to this individual, besides some butthurt? How about the rights of the non-TG emlpoyees? What actual, quantifiable damages or harm were incurred by this person?
I’ve never really gone to a public spa/sauna while in the U.S. (I’ve been in small private ones), but when in Europe I went to them and they were unisex. Both naked men and women used the same facilities, I don’t see why you’d need to gender segregate a facility like that.
I don’t see how you can make that decision without a buttload more information. You don’t know ANYTHING about what actually happened–who this person was, what was said on either side, what accommodations or options were offered on either side, whether a refund was offered and refused…hell, you don’t even know that this person was thrown out over gender issues or some sort of behavioral issue. And every single one of those things make a difference in weighing up the situation.
Because IF, and only if, they were RUDE to a transgendered person then they do not deserve your custom or your recommendation.
If they were not rude, but sensitive to the matter and it just didn’t work out, then… I think it’s pretty much society itself that I would rather not give my custom, if I could. Why do people get their knickers in such a twist over genitals? It’s sad, but unless they were specifically rude possibly not the fault of the spa.
But in this situation, there is no way around someone being uncomfortable without drastically modifying the whole set-up.
Say there’s a gym with a pool that has coed nude swimming. If I’m uncomfortable with the idea of coed nude swimming, then I either find another pool or I don’t swim. If I am uncomfortable being nude around others even of my own biological sex, then I either find a sauna/spa where nudity is not the norm or I don’t go to a sauna/spa. Nobody would think that the gym or sauna was unethical or wonder if they should stop using the gym/sauna because they didn’t change the rules to accommodate my discomfort and I don’t really see why the source of the discomfort should matter.
Now if this person was actually kicked out for being transgendered, rather than for using the segregated areas that didn’t match the genitals that would be a different issue. But in truth, I cannot even imagine how anyone would find out the person was transgendered after payment unless it was offered as an explanation for using the “wrong” locker room. And if the staff was truly rude, then the gender issue doesn’t matter - I don’t go to or recommend places that don’t treat customers well.
I think this is one of very few areas where sex overrides gender - if you have a penis, whatever gender you are, then being in the women’s locker room is going to be more than uncomfortable, it is going to be perceived by the ciswomen as an actual threat to their safety, and very fairly so. I have no opinion on people with vaginas in men’s locker rooms, as I have no idea what that would feel like to the men.
If the person had correct genitalia for the locker room, but still wasn’t “passing” for whatever reason, then yeah, my opinion changes.
I wonder how much it benefits transgendered people psychologically to be able to use the locker room of their preferred gender. This situation isn’t like segregation, where black only facilities were clearly inferior to white facilities. Or like marriage equality, where civil unions are clearly inferior to marriages. Locker rooms divided by biological gender are essentially equal.
The only downside to using a locker room that does not match your preferred gender is the psychological harm caused by having society disagree with how you choose your gender. I understand this logic when it comes to marriage, but I don’t think anyone can argue that a locker room is held in the same esteem as a marriage is in our society.
Plus, there are good non-discriminatory reasons for dividing locker rooms between biological genders. From what I understand about harassment statistics (from watching Oprah), women are harassed by men in much greater numbers than men by women. I can understand how a woman might not want to be forced into a vulnerable position (changing clothes) in front of other men. I don’t think that it would make a difference to the woman if she knew that the man preferred to be a woman, even if such obtaining such knowledge were practical.
Like others mentioned, we really don’t know what happened here, but if a pre-op male went into a female locker room, a little rudeness would have been justified. I’m just having trouble imagining a situation where the people involved could have known that this person was transgendered, and not just a male trying to change in the women’s locker room.
Most bathhouses in Japan these days are separated by sexes (you can thank the US for that), and you better believe that if someone of the opposite gender walked in someone’d say something. Now, there are cleaning ladies (they’re almost always women, as I got the impression that it wouldn’t be acceptable to women to have men around while they’re naked) that go around and clean the baths and locker rooms while people are using them, but that’s a different story.
I don’t have a problem with this person being kicked out, and it seems like they must have gone there in the first place looking for a fight or trying to prove a point or something, because come on.
(And I don’t have a problem with transgendered people, this one just sounds like a drama llama.)