A trans-identified male in New Jersey is suing a Korean health spa after being denied access to the women’s nude area. Alexandra “Allie” Goebert first launched the discrimination suit against King Spa in Palisades Park in 2022, and is now moving to obtain compensation from the spa on the grounds of violating the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
According to newly-filed court records, the incident occurred in August of 2022 when Goebert visited the location with a female companion. Upon registration, Goebert was provided wristband granting him access to the men’s locker room instead of the women’s. Goebert immediately complained, telling staff he was a “transgender woman” and was legally recognized as “female” by the state of New Jersey.
After making a phone call, the staff member gave Goebert access to the restricted women’s area. But after entering, Goebert came to the attention of a locker room attendant who quickly called the manager. The manager then began to question whether Goebert had undergone genital surgeries, at one point asking if Goebert still had “boy parts.”
Goebert responded that he did not have “boy parts” because he is a “woman,” implying that he had attempted to argue his penis was not an inherently male anatomy. But the manager continued to press on whether he had changed his anatomy, to which Goebert eventually admitted he was fully intact. The manager then told Goebert he needed to leave the female area of the spa.
King Spa is a venue modeling itself after a jimjilbang, a traditional Korean health facility which requires nudity in some areas. For that reason, the nude areas of the spa were strictly sex-segregated.
After being told to use the men’s side of the spa, Goebert protested and said he would be uncomfortable in the men’s area because he identified as a woman.
The manager then went to get the General Manager, Youn Park, who attempted to make a concession for Goebert in the form of allowing him to use the women’s area, but only if he wore a bathing suit. Goebert refused, stating he did not have a bathing suit to wear and accused the spa of being in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. He was offered a refund on his admission and told to leave.
Less than two months later, Goebert, who is a US Army Veteran and law school graduate, filed a complaint against the spa with the state’s Department of Law and Public Safety.
Throughout the course of the proceedings, Goebert’s counsel has complained that King Spa has “misgendered” him in court filings.
In their position statement, lawyers for King Spa explained that Goebert had previously attended the spa and presented ID with his sex listed as “male,” prompting confusion from staff.
“When the agent, servant, and employee of [the spa] saw that the license indicating female and recognizing that this was the same individual who had utilized the male facilities, the question was posed as to has the front changed,” the position statement reads.
“This was an attempt at not being insulting, but deemed a necessity given that there are many other male and female customers who utilize the Spa and do so in the nude. Once this individual indicated that he had not change his front, to wit, that he had male genitalia, the agent, servant, and employee of [the Spa] made a reasonable accommodation. They indicated that the individual could certainly use the facilities, but not in the female nude area. To do otherwise would simply cause havoc and expose all the other nude females to a fundamental invasion of their privacy and certainly expose the [spa] to extensive liability for the same.”
The position statement also notes that there is an apparent exception in New Jersey’s statues denoting that public places are allowed to impose “reasonable restrictions” where facilities are reserved for “individuals of one sex,” such as summer camps, day camps, resort camps, bathhouses, dressing rooms, and more.
This exception has been challenged by Goebert’s lawyers, who claim the single-sex provision does not entitle facilities to discriminate on the basis of gender identity.”
“Nowhere in the LAD is there an exclusion for the wholly-fabricated ‘invasion of privacy’ or ‘extreme emotional distress’ the Defendant is convinced would befall all of the other female guests of the spa were [Goebert’s] gender identity to be respected,” Goebert’s lawyers claimed.
On February 14, 2025, Goebert’s counsel moved to request the court enter judgement in Goebert’s favor, and allow the matter to proceed to a jury trial to determine how much compensation he is entitled to.
While Goebert has now deleted most of his social media presence, Reduxx found that his Instagram profile had followed a wide range of fetish-related accounts.
Among them are women’s lingerie company Honey Birdette and sex toy retailer Wet For Her. Hashtags followed by Goebert include “lesbian”, “boyinadress”, “menindresses”, and the misspelled “nuedisnormal”, which features photos of naked or nearly-naked women, often in sexualized poses.
Goebert’s lawsuit is not the first involving a trans-identified male lashing out at a Korean bathing establishment due to its sex-segregated policies.
In 2023, a court in Seattle, Washington, ruled that a female-only nude spa lacked the “constitutional right” to bar males from their facilities. The decision came after the spa sued the Washington State Human Rights Commission (WSHRC), which had forced them to change their sex-exclusive policy due to the complaint of a transgender patron.
The complaint was made by Haven Wilvich, who had sought a membership at the Olympus Spa in January of 2020, but had been denied on the basis that he had not undergone “gender reassignment” surgeries and his penis was fully intact. The WSHRC ruled in Wilvich’s favor, and demanded Olympus Spa revise its policies to ensure trans-identified males who claimed a female identity could access the female nude areas.
In March of 2022, Olympus Spa sued Andreta Armstrong, the executive director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission, asserting that the actions taken against them violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association.
But a Washington District Court dismissed their lawsuit in January of 2023, upholding the ruling by the WSHRC and affirming that the measures taken to prevent the spa from having a female-only policy were lawful.