Calder Storm was lounging in a hot tub with a friend at Imperial Day Spa when two attendants approached him with a question: “Are you transgender?”
“That’s inappropriate,” Storm responded. “Why are you asking?”
The employees told him they had received a complaint and said Storm — who’s transmasculine, with a state ID to back it up — would have to leave.
The exchange that followed was caught on a video that’s racking up thousands of views on YouTube. The Geary Street Korean spa is the second San Francisco bathhouse to face accusations of anti-trans discrimination this month.
“It was a violation, first and foremost, of my privacy, my humanity, my dignity,” Storm said. “It was degrading, and I think at its core, it was dehumanizing.”
The March 5 incident happened around the same time the city’s Human Rights Commission began investigating Archimedes Banya, the city’s only coed clothing-optional bathhouse, for excluding trans people two days a month.
On his way out of the Japantown establishment that evening, Storm asked staff to elaborate on its policy. His friend, Erik Gibb, hit record.
“So, I’m just curious, do you have an anti-trans policy?” Storm asked. “Are trans people not allowed to be here?”
An employee explained that the spa segregates based on genitalia: People with penises go to the men’s side, and people with vaginas go to the women’s side.
“Well, what about women who have penises and men who have vaginas?” Storm pressed. “How do you segregate them?”
“We still go based on genital parts,” the staffer said.
Storm asked to see the written policy, to no avail. He went on to show his driver’s license, which describes him as male, the video shows.
An attorney for Imperial Spa did not comment by publication time.
In a statement about the Archimedes probe, the Human Rights Commission noted that it comes at a time when trans and nonbinary people face “a barrage of attacks” and that the city is committed to protecting them from discrimination.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has tried to roll back protections for trans people. On Jan. 20, he issued an executive order declaring that the U.S. government would recognize only two sexes and bar people from changing their gender on federal documents.
Bay Area lawyers who represent trans people in discrimination cases say policies like those at Archimedes and Imperial Day Spa violate California law. The Unruh Civil Rights Act bars businesses from discriminating against people based on characteristics that include gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex.
“Businesses cannot open spaces for cis men that aren’t also open to trans men — they’re denying the privilege of a certain space based on their gender identity,” said Steven Chizen, an Oakland attorney who represents clients in discrimination lawsuits. “That’s against the law in California, and that mirrors an ordinance in San Francisco.”
What happened to Storm earlier this month doesn’t appear to be an isolated case at Imperial Day Spa either. A trans woman told The Standard she was discriminated against at the same place a few years ago, and left a one-star Yelp review about it.
In the review, Tricia said that after receiving spa service, employees told her that next time she’d be relegated to a private room. “She told me the woman performing the treatments ‘didn’t like it,'” she wrote on Oct. 2, 2022.
“I know if you’re not trans this may not seem like much, but being treated as ‘other’ like this, not as a woman but as some kind of aberration, really hurt me,” the review continued. “If nothing else, what was supposed to be a relaxing and soothing experience became completely the opposite. I was crying in the car on the way home and it’s hard for me to imagine going to ANY spa again for a long time, and certainly never this one.”
Gibb and Storm said the more recent spa incidents demonstrate that San Francisco isn’t immune to the nation’s anti-trans backlash.
“It makes me feel really sad,” Gibb said, describing the incident as “gross retro transphobia.” “Part of this is selfish: I went to this spa for 20 years, and always felt welcome there. But more generally, it makes me very upset to see how my friend, who happens to be a trans guy, is just trying to move through the world and faces these — not even microaggressions — macroaggressions for just existing.”
Several dozen people showed up Monday to a protest outside Imperial Day Spa to demand that the city take action. Taped to the spa’s window was notice of an inclusive new policy: “Guests may use facilities that correspond to their gender identity in accordance with California law.”
