Judge Loses It Over Transgender Asshattery

(And if you're offended by asshattery, I suggest skipping this entire post.)

Mar 20, 2026

Anyone who has kids or has spent any time with them at all is familiar with The Snap: that inglorious moment when whatever it is—the bickering, the whining, the she-ate-the-last-popsicle-and-I-called-it, the slime stuck to the rug that everyone else pretends not to see—finally pushes you over the edge and you completely lose it. I’m talking vocal cord-straining, head-spinning, profanity-spewing Linda Blair-level psychosis unlocked. And then everyone looks at you slack-jawed before accusing you of being hormonal—which you are, but that’s not the point—or overreacting (“Jeez, Mom, you don’t even like that rug”) or both.

Something like that seems to have happened this week at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a certain judge stepped on a legal Lego and snapped.

The saga involves Olympus Spa, a Korean-style women’s wellness center in Washington state offering traditional body scrubs, communal baths, saunas, and massages. The relevant detail here is that for the most part, patrons are full monty the entire time. As in buck naked. Completely clothes-free. Clad in nothing but what the good Lord dropped them off here in.

For this very reason, the spa—from its inception—declared itself a space for women only. I can’t believe I have to qualify this, but by women I mean actual women. As in, humans born with milk-producing mammary ducts and fallopian tubes and wholly unburdened by testicles.

You already know where this is going.

The spa’s longstanding policy eventually collided with Washington state’s Law Against Discrimination when a ~~possible pervert~~ ~~delusional dude~~ biological male who identifies as female was refused admission. His little feelings predictably bruised, Danyell (*not his real name) reported Olympus to the Washington State Human Rights Commission, which in turn accused the spa of violating the state’s public-accommodation law.

The spa pushed back, arguing that being forced to admit biological men into a nude female-only facility violated their First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion and freedom of association. (Not to mention freedom of common freaking sense.)

Before I go any further, I have a burning rhetorical question: Who are these people? Who are the supposedly sentient beings who feel entitled to red carpet treatment in places they’re patently unwelcome? Forget about gender for a second. Imagine a hard-core carnivore waltzing into a vegan restaurant swinging a lamb shank or a guy wearing tap shoes bringing a leaf blower into a silent retreat. Why does one man’s right to be rude or delusional trump the rest of the planet’s right to peacefully go about their lives? Sorry, I digress.

The Ninth Circuit Court somehow sided with the fully intact biological man who wanted to bathe nude with minors. The three-judge panel ruled that running a spa is a commercial service—not a constitutionally protected activity. In other words, once you open your doors, you don’t get to decide who walks through them—even if your entire business model is, quite literally, based on who is and is not allowed in the room.

To be fair, the court would say this isn’t about anatomy, it’s about access. And my dad really did buy Playboy for the articles.

In the 2-to-1 decision, Trump-appointed judge Lawrence VanDyke was the sole voice of reason, sanity, and—ultimately—profane hilarity.

Delicate readers who are offended by common slang terms for body parts—specifically genitalia—may wish to skip to the poll at the end or abandon this post altogether

In a… memorable dissent explaining why he disagreed with the ruling, VanDyke wryly wrote:

“This is a case about swinging dicks. The Christian owners of Olympus Spa—a traditional Korean, women-only, nude spa—understandably don’t want them in their spa. Their female employees and female clients don’t want them in their spa either. But Washington State insists on them. And now so does the Ninth Circuit.
As much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope we all can agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa—some as young as thirteen—to be visually assaulted by the real thing.”

In other words—the man snapped. I’m not even mad.

Alas, Judge “swinging dick” VanDyke’s comment was not well-received around the water cooler. Judge Mary Margaret McKeown, who wrote the majority opinion dismissing the spa’s complaint, wrote a response—supported by 28 other judges—accusing VanDyke of “ignoring ordinary principles of dignity and civility” with his “crude and vitriolic language.”

It’s the LANGUAGE that’s vulgar here, just so we’re clear.

This is a woman, I’ll gently remind my readers, who just cheerfully used the full weight of her judicial authority to declare that any person who has a penis but wishes he didn’t (or claims to wish he didn’t) is welcome to go skinny dipping with the gals. But please, Ms. McKeown, tell us more about dignity and civility. Clearly you’re an expert.

Judge VanDyke didn’t back down after the verbal spanking by his peers—he doubled down.

“I’ll respond briefly to my colleagues’ discomfort with how I’ve written this dissent. My distressed colleagues appear to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to mere unpleasant words in my opinion, yet exhibit the scruples of our dearly departed colleague Judge Reinhardt when it comes to the government trampling on religious liberties and exposing women and girls to male genitalia. That kind of selective outrage speaks for itself. The public deserves a court that is actually trustworthy. We should be earning that trust, not demanding it like petty tyrants.”

You can argue all day long about whether VanDyke’s response was appropriate for a man of his position, but is that really the point? Should the bench be held to some quixotic standard where slang isn’t allowed to exist? Would it have been acceptable if he’d written “pendulous phalluses” or “oscillating intromittent organs?” Is the crowd who literally cannot define the word woman actually trying to make this about semantics?

This is the part of the story where I always find myself smacking my forehead on my desk and asking, how did we even get here? Not in the “how did this literal case wind its way through the courts” sense… but how did humanity collectively arrive at a place where the law can look directly at a room full of naked women—including minors—and say, with a straight face, that the only relevant consideration is whether that one guy feels entitled to be there?

Obviously, that didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of years of inch-by-inch concessions, semantic gymnastics, and a cultural shift so aggressive that basic biology is now treated like a fringe opinion held by people who probably churn their own butter. And at every step along the way, anyone who dared to raise a hand and say, “Wait… are we sure about this?” was dismissed as dramatic. Or bigoted. Or behind the times. And so the line kept moving. Slowly. Relentlessly. Until one day we woke up and realized the line wasn’t just blurred—it was gone entirely.

We’ve got men in our locker rooms. Men in our sports. Men in our bathing suits and our gynecologists’ offices and our makeup commercials. I mean, if a female-only nude business can’t draw a line at biological sex, what space can? It’s not a question of where this stops—because clearly no category or context is immune—but when?

If you ask me, this boil on humanity’s backside is going to fester until women—actual, reality-based, ovary-carrying women—put our perfectly pedicured feet down. When we stop supporting businesses and brands that openly insult us to our faces. Not the ones—like Olympus Spa—that are valiantly trying to fight for our rights, but the companies that have no problem offending us in an effort not to offend the statistically tiny minority of the population that woke culture has decided is more deserving of respect than we are. Think Target and H&M and Maybelline and MAC and Nike and Chanel and Calvin Klein and Diesel and Urban Outfitters and the list goes on and on.

And that’s exactly the problem. If we boycott every company that refuses to acknowledge two distinct sexes, we’re going to need to whip out our sewing machines and start crushing flower petals to make lip stain.

I’m in if you ~~guys~~ ladies are.

For now, the Ninth Circuit’s ridiculous ruling stands, and Olympus Spa remains in a legal fight that may eventually reach the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, somewhere in the federal judiciary, at least one judge appears to have officially reached his breaking point. I feel him. And sorry if you were offended, but I’m here for it.

LMK if I’m crazy—theoretically at least—in the comments.