In early December last year, Jane went to Archimedes Banya, a Russian bathhouse in Hunters Point, for the spa’s monthly women’s night.
“ My partner and I checked in with no problem,” Jane says. “We both have F markers on our driver's licenses.”
Jane is a trans woman. For safety reasons, we’re not using her last name. She and her partner walked down to the locker rooms, undressed, and then headed into the main area. A beautifully lit room full of tile, pools, saunas, and steam. A lot of people, including Jane, were naked.
“ None of the other people who were there as customers seemed uncomfortable with my presence,” she says.
Banya, like most places in San Francisco, has a reputation for being queer friendly.
“ I was in the process of soaking in one of the hot tubs and a staff member approached me and told me that I needed to go and talk to the front desk,” she recalls.
She got out of the hot tub and put on her robe. When she got to the front desk, she said the person there told her she had to put on swim bottoms.
When she asked why, they said it was their policy, but didn’t give a reason. And she hadn’t seen this policy written down anywhere. Jane felt like she was being singled out. The manager came down, and they spoke for a while.
“The manager confirmed there was no written policy. There was something that came up about protecting women's night and how, and I'm trying to quote here, ‘People don't want to see none of that,' in reference to my genitals," Jane says. "I asked if they were requiring me to leave, and he said no.”
So Jane went back to the bathing area, but eventually another staff member approached her and said that if she didn’t put on swim bottoms, she’d have to leave.
“And this was when I was a little bit more upset and I told her that this kind of policy, from what I understand, is illegal," Jane says. "And she repeated back to me multiple times that it was not illegal."
In the end, Jane left. But she’s right: what happened to her on that night in December was illegal. California’s Civil Rights Act bans businesses from discriminating against people based on their gender identity.
Jane filed a civil rights complaint. While she waited to hear back from the state's Civil Rights Department, Banya made their policy public.
On March 1, the spa posted on their website that from now on, the monthly men’s and women’s nights were limited to “biological men” and “biological women” only, and that this meant to protect certain religious and cultural groups.
But the online backlash was swift. And soon after, Banya announced that they were going to have two different women’s nights: an “Inclusive Women’s Night” where trans women were welcome, and a “Religious and Cultural Women’s Night” that would require a “phallus-free environment”.
On March 4, Banya had its first “religious night” for women, and half a dozen people from the activist groups Traction and TRANSvisible protested outside.
“It's not okay to discriminate against transgender. We have our rights. Equality is not exclusion," says Breath Mormorer, a member of TRANSvisible.
“That type of discrimination is what leads to our death,” she continues. “That is what leads to the isolation of the trans community.”
Breath and the other protestors stood right outside Banya’s front door and talked to the people who were coming in for women’s night. Many of them, like Valerie Somoff, were surprised to hear about the policy.
“ I feel safer at women's night, and I'm not worried about trans people," Valerie says. "I'm more worried about men who in history are known for being more predatory than any trans person that I've ever personally known.”
Protestors were satisfied when they left. They told KALW that more than a dozen women said they wouldn’t return until the policy was reversed.
But Banya’s owner, Mikhail Brodsky, thought the policy was fair.
Outside of a cafe in Berkeley, Mikhail shares the broad strokes of his life. He's a mathematician who grew up in the Soviet Union and moved to the US about 35 years ago to do research at UC Berkeley’s statistics department. In 2011, he opened Archimedes Banya.
“Banya is my love, and it's my way to share my culture with local people,” he says.
This is his first time talking publicly about the spa's gender policies, which he stressed were not new.
“It's not a new policy?” I ask, surprised.
“No, nothing is new," he replies. "It's only adjusted a little bit.”
Brodsky says a group of religious women asked him to start women’s night. I ask him about Jane’s experience, and whether anyone had complained that night specifically.
“I don't see this because I was not there,” he explains.
The way he sees it: trans people are almost always welcome at Banya. What’s the big deal about having one night a month where some trans women are excluded?
“ We have employees, transgender. I have friends, transgender,” he offers. “But we wanted to protect religious people, which are also under certain protection in the same law.”
But under California law, businesses can’t discriminate against one group in order to accommodate another. So, the protestors started showing up outside of Banya every night.
Meanwhile, there was someone else trying a different tactic.
“And I was communicating with a great, great person,” Mikhail tells me. “Her name is Folly.”
Madam Folly is hard to miss in a crowd. She’s tall, blonde, and when we met, she was wearing red lipstick, cat-eye glasses, and a leather jacket.
Folly is a trans woman who’s been living in San Francisco for almost five years. She’d only been to Banya once, but she had a good time.
“I was planning on going there again 'cause a friend of mine was going to have their birthday there,” she says.
But then, Banya announced the changes to women’s night.
“ The first thing that was on their website, right, was for biological women only, or something like that,” Folly remembers. “It's kind of a roundabout way to say no trans folks basically.”
Folly was connected with people who were planning the protest. And she considered joining them.
“But, a few hours later, I had a moment of wondering, you know, where is this actually coming from? I wanted to really understand: Who is behind it and why?”
Folly has worked in harm reduction, and for MACRO, Oakland’s non-police response program. She's used to talking things through.
“I'm usually trying to understand someone, 'cause in my experience, that's the best way to get towards mutual respect,” she explains.
So on the same day that Banya’s policy was made public, she found Mikhail’s email and wrote to him.
“ So, I said: ‘Good evening. It is my understanding that you are the founder of Archimedes Banya in San Francisco.
“It has come to my attention that your women's night only allows cisgender women to attend, thereby excluding transgender women. I would like to speak with you about how harmful this policy is to your guests, and to our community. I'll assume that your intention is not to discriminate against a historically persecuted minority and that you are misinformed about people who are transgender and their rights under the law. If that is the case, consider this email an invitation to open up a dialogue about how your business can be a safe and welcoming place for all women who visit Archimedes Banya.’”
Less than two hours later, Mikhail responded. He told her what he told me, that the policy was about protecting certain religious groups.
“ I knew if I was just like, get rid of this night, that they were at one point calling a cultural and religious thing, that would make it sound like I was dismissing a group of people,” Folly admits.
“And in some ways I feel like I would have been, and that wasn't my goal. My only goal, personally, was to have trans people not be discriminated against, or segregated from cisgender people.
“And so I heard these things and I tried to take a moment to not react immediately. To be clear about what felt disrespectful. But not try to be disrespectful in return. Cause it's like in some of these emails he was in some ways extremely respectful. So that's when I realized, there's… there just… this feels like more of a misunderstanding than an active hatred of trans people.”
Over the next 10 days Folly and Mikhail exchanged dozens of emails. Once Folly felt like she had a strong enough rapport with Mikhail, she went back to the protestors.
“ I think I can get him to agree to these things,” she told them.
She asked if they’d be willing to stop the nightly demonstrations in exchange for a new policy. After some discussion, the protestors agreed.
On March 11th, Banya announced this new policy to the public. Trans women are welcome at “religious and cultural” women’s night, but everyone has to wear swim bottoms.
“My preference obviously would for none of this to have happened,” says Folly. “But if you're gonna do that, then you have to do it in a way that doesn't discriminate against trans people.”
“I interviewed several people coming for religious day,” Mikhail tells me. “And they all say it's fine. They don't mind, if everybody would have the bottom.”
Today is Transgender Day of Visibility, which is supposed to be a good thing, but feels kind of complex these days. As trans representation increases and we become more visible, it seems like we also become more vulnerable to harassment and discrimination.
Here’s how Folly put it.
“Representation is tricky. I think it’s a necessary step, and it's gonna be a messy path forward, so it's gonna take a lot of different strategies.”
And Folly doesn’t believe one strategy is better than another.
“I think protest was an important part of this solution. And I think it's always something we should be willing to do to stand up to bigotry or transphobia or just misunderstanding, even.”
Banya’s new policy is legal under California law. But Folly knows that some people might still be upset.
“Even though this policy has been rescinded, and it's been changed in a way that doesn't discriminate against trans people, there's still damage. There's still harm that's been done.”
The damage was done for Jane, the woman who was asked to leave Bayna back in December because she wouldn’t cover up.
“I would not go back,” Jane tells me. “Not anymore. I would not be comfortable going again.”
Jane’s complaint against Banya is moving forward. If the state finds Banya violated her civil rights, the spa could have to pay up to $4000. A decision is expected within two months.
A previous version of this story only credited Traction for protests. The story has been updated to also credit TRANSvisible.
