Japantown’s Korean spa Imperial Day Spa is the latest bathhouse facility with an uproar over where transgender patrons fall in its gender policy, though right before a planned Monday protest, the spa announced it would just go with customers’ chosen gender identity.

The SF controversy du jour last week was a dust-up over Hunters Point bathhouse Archimedes Banya banning transgender women from its monthly “women’s night.” That facility responded to the controversy by splitting the baby and declaring a trans-friendly women’s night and a separate “Cultural & Religious Women’s Night” at which trans women were excluded. This may not be enough to stave off an investigation by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, so we’ll see what comes of that.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle reports that a week later, another spa facility had a similar controversy brewing. Japantown’s Imperial Day Spa faced a Monday protest after a transgender man was asked by staff whether he was transgender, perhaps an attempt to whisk him into the women’s side of the facility. (Imperial Day Spa is a gender-segregated facility during all hours, unlike the specific “women’s nights” and “men’s nights” at Banya.)

As seen above, Imperial Day Spa was the target of the Monday night protest. And that business is getting the old “Unusual Activity Alert” pop-up on Yelp as the place is being inundated with angry one-star reviews about its policies towards transgender patrons. But before that protest even started Monday, the facility posted a new policy saying patrons could just use whatever area corresponded with their chosen gender identity.

The whole controversy started after a recent visit from transgender man Calder Storm, who’d been at the spa some 90 minutes in the men’s area. He was approached by staff who yanked him out of the sauna and asked if he was transgender, which he told them was a “wildly inappropriate question,” per the Chronicle. He then felt uncomfortable with the place and left, but before leaving visited the front desk in the video seen embedded in the Facebook post below.

The conversation certainly went awkwardly. And much is being made of the staffer’s response that “If you have female parts, you go to the female side. If you have male parts, you go to the male,” and “We still go based on genital parts.”

In fairness, it does not seem English is the staffer’s first language, so that may account for the less-than diplomatic language. Though the policy explained here is still along the same lines of the “biological women only” or “assigned at birth” language that brought up the controversy at Banya.

Either way, the incident and sharing of the video led to a Monday protest that the Chronicle describes as having “dozens of people,” with a few Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in the mix.

Yet protesters found Imperial Day Spa closed during normal business hours Monday, supposedly for a “plumbing” issue. They also found a new notice on the door saying “Guests may use facilities that correspond to their gender identity in accordance with California law.”

Storm told the Chronicle, “We all have a lot to be really mad about, but I’m really really happy that this is a win, this is a victory, and we can celebrate this instead.”

Is it a coincidence that two spas have had a similar controversy in a week? It is not. Storm said to the Chron that he went to Imperial Day Spa specifically because of the change in policy at Banya. But it may not be a coincidence that people have complained at or about trans people, specifically at a time when anti-trans hostility is becoming more fashionable in American political discourse.  

Related: Archimedes Banya Gets Social Media Uproar After Banning Trans Women From ‘Women’s Day’ [SFist]

Image: Ann L via Yelp