Washington must protect women’s privacy in every changing room
The emergency exception leaves locker rooms under Washington’s gender-identity rule as the state’s response to Olympus Spa’s Supreme Court petition remains due December 4.
Washington should protect women’s sex-based privacy wherever they undress. On November 2, Ari Hoffman reported that the Washington Human Rights Commission voted to amend state code so businesses that “require nudity as a central purpose...may maintain a rule that entry to spaces where nudity is required be based on genital characteristics.”
Hoffman reported that the commission acted on an emergency basis “to address pending litigation”1 and that the attorney general’s office must file the rule change. He also quoted the commission: “We are very committed to protecting transgender rights.” The vote recognizes the very distinction families need government to respect: biological reality matters when people share an intimate space. That concession is a win for women defending sex-based privacy.
Hoffman reported that the commission acted on an emergency basis “to address pending litigation,” and that the attorney general’s office must file the rule change. WAC 162-32-060 begins: “All covered entities shall allow individuals the use of gender-segregated facilities, such as restrooms...”2 It also includes dressing rooms and homeless or emergency shelters.
The Ninth Circuit held that Olympus Spa’s entry policy discriminated based on gender identity and fell within Washington’s Law Against Discrimination, and that enforcement did not impermissibly burden the spa’s First Amendment rights to free speech, free exercise, or free association. It is no substitute for a clear rule protecting women and girls before a complaint forces them to defend their privacy.
“We are very committed to protecting transgender rights.”
The locker-room rule still follows gender identity
That leaves locker rooms and dressing rooms under the same gender-identity access rule. The requirement expressly applies where people undress in front of others2.
The rule also identifies who should move when someone objects: “the person expressing discomfort should be directed to a separate or gender-neutral facility, if available.”2
The commission forced Olympus Spa to drop its rule
Olympus Spa shows how the commission enforced that priority. According to the Ninth Circuit’s opinion, the commission received a complaint in 2020 alleging that the spa denied services to a transgender woman who had not undergone surgery. The commission told the spa that excluding transgender women who had not had surgery violated Washington’s Law Against Discrimination3.
The spa defended its females-only rule as essential to its customers’ and employees’ “safety, legal protection and well-being.” During the investigation, it changed its website to reflect a nondiscriminatory policy. The parties then signed a settlement on October 28, 20213. The women’s boundary yielded to the commission’s demand.
The Supreme Court case remains pending
Olympus Spa petitioned the Supreme Court for review; the docket initially set October 5 as the response deadline4.
The deadline was extended to November 4, then again to December 44. The commission’s emergency concession arrives while that petition awaits action1.
The justices should hear the challenge. An administrative retreat should not replace judicial scrutiny of the enforcement that made the spa surrender its boundary.
Washington must protect privacy in every changing room
A parent should not need to master the distinction between compulsory nudity and ordinary changing to know whether a daughter has a protected place to undress. Nor should a business have to endure an enforcement proceeding before officials recognize the boundary it was trying to preserve.
The standard should be clear before the next dispute, with no emergency vote needed to rescue a protection the state should have respected from the start. Parents should demand a direct answer from their lawmakers: will you protect female-only changing spaces wherever women and girls undress? Washington should make that protection law, and the Supreme Court should hear Olympus Spa’s case.
Sources
- @thehoffather on X, 2026-11-02: EXCLUSIVE: The Washington Human Rights Commission voted to amend state code so businesses that "require nudity as a central purpose...may maintain a rule that entry to spaces where nudity is required be based on genital characteristics." The commission did t, 2026-11-02
- WAC 162-32-060:
- UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
- Docket for 26-286
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