Trump Judge Says Trans Rights Case Is About ‘Swinging Dicks,’ Berates ‘Woke’ Colleagues

“This is a case of dick swinging,” 9th Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke began his dissent.

The case in question centered on the policies of two Korean spas in Washington state that only allowed “biological women” to use their services — or more precisely, barred trans women who had not yet undergone surgery. The Washington Commission on Human Rights took enforcement action against the Spa for violating a state anti-discrimination law. The spas sued, arguing that the enforcement measures violated their First Amendment rights. A district court dismissed the complaint, and a 9th Circuit panel affirmed that dismissal. In a ruling issued Thursday, the full 9th ​​Circuit declined to rehear the case.

“We are not indifferent to the concerns and beliefs raised by Spa,” Justice M. Margaret McKeown, a Clinton appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority. “Indeed, the Spa may have other avenues to challenge the enforcement actions. But whatever recourse it has, that relief cannot come from the First Amendment.”

VanDyke, a Trump appointee, did not let such a measured conclusion stop him from denouncing the court and the so-called left-wing agenda, writing a speech that gratuitously delved into the old bigoted elision of gays with sexual predators.

“The fact that the law prohibits religious owners of a traditional Korean women-only nude spa from preventing a naked adult male, who remains sexually attracted to women, from exposing himself to thirteen-year-old girls tragically illustrates the harmful and twisted consequences of erasing gender as a coherent legal category,” he wrote, arguing that Thursday’s ruling allowed crimes of “voyeurism and indecent exposure” to be committed freely by trans people in spas.

He congratulated himself on having aroused the indignation of his more buttoned-up colleagues.

“My distressed colleagues seem to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to simple unpleasant words in my opinion, but they exhibit the qualms of our dear colleague, Judge Reinhardt, when it comes to the government trampling on religious liberties and exposing women and girls to male genitalia,” he wrote. “This kind of selective outrage speaks for itself. »

Elsewhere in the ruling, most of his fellow judges reprimanded him. A group led by McKeown wrote that his dissent undermines public confidence in the courts: “The principal dissenter’s use of such foul language and invective may have publicity or entertainment value, but it has no place in a judicial opinion,” she wrote.

Two Obama and Trump appointees teamed up to put it even more simply: “Regarding Justice VanDyke’s dissenting opinion: We are better than that. »

Online, however, the right-wing legal world welcomed the dissent, suggesting VanDyke had reached his target audience.

Read the decision and dissent here: