According to the New York Post, the University of Southern California has adopted a policy banning men from certain workout areas. The plan, pushed by an LGBTQ+ group, is designed to prevent the presence of males from triggering women or non-binary students. It may, however, trigger a major legal challenge.
The group Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment (SAGE) demanded the new rule at the Lyon Center. SAGE bills itself as a “programming assembly and intersectional feminist organization under the student government, committed to uplifting all voices oppressed by the patriarchy.”
The Post quotes Mengze Wu heralding the move to end “male-dominated” spaces, adding:
“My past experiences with being in enclosed spaces where it’s very male-dominated have never been super pleasant. There tends to be this problem where I don’t get to take up a lot of space unless I really assert myself. And even then, I face a lot of hindrance in feeling completely comfortable.”
Other students said that barring men would protect her from always feeling “judged” by them.
The measure is likely to draw criticism and possible action from the Trump Administration. However, it is also discriminatory on the basis of gender. Men are being banned because their very identity or presence is viewed as offensive or disruptive. Imagine if USC took such exclusionary policies toward any other racial or gender group.
This is not the first such measure in higher education. Years ago, liberal educators embraced segregation as a positive tool for creating “safe spaces” and diversity zones, including women-only hours at gyms at Harvard and McGill.
Putting aside possible legal challenges, such segregation only further balkanizes higher education and reinforces the contested concept of “safe spaces” to protect students from other groups or divergent ideas. The identity group agenda is difficult to oppose in universities. To do so, one risks being labeled insensitive or, even worse, a force of male domination.
In the meantime, what will happen to Hanz and Franz who are just trying help?
NON-BINARY ha ha ha ha ha ha
Allowing an official victim’s group to control a public place through the claim that their sensibilities are offended is gross cowardice. On the other hand, the more narrow issue of segregated gyms raises a serious issue. Any scantily-clad woman in coed gyms is likely to be ogled by men and judged as to their attractiveness by them. So, a legitimate issue as to mental tranquility exists. Prof. Turley’s empathy deserts him here.
The first women’s college basketball game was held at Smith College on March 22, 1893. Men were not allowed in the gym. Maybe the ladies didn’t want men to see them sweat or something. In any case, with this move USC is making a great leap forward. Into the 19th Century.
hindrance in feeling completely comfortable?
But I’ve also heard: “the best woman… is a man”.
Some women just need some assertiveness training and dump this passive / aggressive crap.
Meanwhile, teach your daughters self esteem so they don’t go down this victim path.
They don’t want men in their space but if a man says he is a woman they will welcome him in with open arms. They won’t be intimidated one bit when he displays his manhood to their teenage daughters in the showers. Mark my words.
It surely would be difficult to create such stupid ideas as does the feminists of the world.
whimsicalmama,
The funny part about this whole thing and the “barring men would protect her from always feeling “judged” by them.” is according to my wife and other females I have spoken to in the past, the most judgemental people are not the men, but other women.
USC has E pluribus unum flipped on its head. The minute you say ‘it’s fine to carve men out of this room for this hour because someone feels uncomfortable,’ you’ve killed any limiting principle. All you’ve really done is green‑light a slow, campus‑wide creep of identity‑based no‑go zones and slapped the word inclusion on it.
And with this administration trying to drag schools back to basic Title IX standards as the price of federal money, there’s no way this kind of feelings‑based segregation survives real scrutiny.”
Olly, You claim that carving out a room for an hour kills the “limiting principle.” But the administration’s January 2025 executive orders and the March 2026 crackdown on DEI are doing the exact same thing in reverse. They are “carving out” transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms nationwide based on the “discomfort” of others. If “feelings-based segregation” is a legal death sentence, then the administration’s entire bathroom policy is standing on the same trapdoor.
You say the administration is dragging schools back to “basic Title IX standards.” Under those “basic” standards, sex-segregated spaces are explicitly allowed to protect privacy and dignity. The administration’s own legal team is currently arguing in courts that separating the sexes isn’t “segregation”—it’s “common sense.” USC is simply using the administration’s own playbook: “We are separating the sexes in an intimate space (the gym) to protect the dignity of women.”
You mentioned federal money as the “price” of compliance. But as we’ve seen, USC has already formally rejected the administration’s “Compact” precisely because it didn’t want the federal government micromanaging its campus life.
Do you not see the irony?
X, you know all of this. The Title IX framework, the difference between neutral sex based rules and feelings based carve outs, the fact USC takes federal money. You are not confused. You are mixing two different things on purpose.
The Trump orders put schools back under the original Title IX rule: sex means male or female, and you can split bathrooms and locker rooms on that basis for privacy and safety, same rule for everyone. USC took a public campus gym and said for this hour, if you are a man who says you are a man, you are out because somebody feels judged when you are in the room. That is feelings based segregation stacked on top of sex and gender identity, and there is no logical stopping point. If ‘I am uncomfortable around Group X’ is enough to lock them out here, nothing keeps that from spreading to more hours, more rooms and more targets.
You are just determined to be the automatic opposing voice even when there is no solid place for you to stand, and I am not playing that game with you.
Olly, if you aren’t “playing the game,” then why did you just spend two paragraphs proving my point?
You’re trying to draw a line between “neutral privacy” and “feelings-based carve-outs,” but that line doesn’t exist in the current administration’s legal strategy.
On April 6, 2026, the administration began rescinding past Title IX agreements that protected gender identity, calling them ‘illegal and burdensome.’ The ‘obligations’ you’re citing literally don’t exist anymore at the federal level.
You’re worried about this “spreading to more targets,” but the administration has already spread it. They didn’t just “put things back”; they are actively suing to expand exclusion into sports, dorms, and even overturning state-level civil rights protections. If the administration’s “stopping point” is “biological sex defines all spaces,” then USC is actually complying with that standard by creating a sex-segregated space.
You say USC is “out” because they take federal money. But the March 2026 Title IX updates and the DOGE-led audits are now punishing schools that fail to maintain “dignified” sex-segregated environments. If a group of women at USC says, “We don’t feel dignified or safe in this ‘male-dominated’ gym,” the university can argue that providing a “biological-only” hour is exactly what the new Title IX rules require to protect the “privacy and safety” of women.
Olly USC is doing exactly what the Trump administration wants. You’re not seeing it because Turley is framing it as a “woke” thing. Not for what it is. A perfectly legal solution to a request at a private university.
First of all, I would like to know what language is being spoken here (“programming assembly and intersectional feminist organization under the student government, committed to uplifting all voices oppressed by the patriarchy”) and I would like to demand that it be translated into ENGLISH before any litigation is allowed to proceed. Second, this reminds me of an incident from my freshman year at Princeton in the fall of 1973 (we were weeks ahead of the invention of calculators that would be used to split up long distance phone charges among for guys in a dorm room). Princeton was coed by then, with all-male and all-female entryways as I recall. A classmate of mine from another dorm, living in an all male entry, had gone down to the communal showers, toilets and sinks we used in those days (we did have hot water!). The showers constituted shower heads against a wall with stone dividers and the cheapest shower curtains imaginable to be drawn across for privacy. When my friend appeared for his shower, he heard a woman shriek and order him out of the MEN’s SHOWER because she was using the facility. He complied. I told him. “What? If she was using those showers, she was down for the weekend to see her boyfriend. So she already had seen everything you were “carrying” and she could lay no claim to “modesty” in demanding you remove yourself from a space in which she, not you, was the intruder.” Courtesy is one thing. Chivalry is another. But rudeness on that order was totally unacceptable. Today, in the world view of woke monsters, it is something to be cast into granite and used to bash all comers… As these woke monsters grow ever more insane and unhinged, I take comfort in the fact that, at 70, I won’t see how much more surreal and deranged their world will be another 50 years on. Good luck and God Bless (am I allowed to write that) the rest of you…
Like you, I won’t be here in 50 years but I do worry for my grandchildren. They want none of this nonsense but the are at a demographic challenge at this point if we do not fumigate the real source of all this pernicious nonsense – our insitutions of learning(indoctrination). Anyone 1 degree left of center at any institution accepting/utilizing/benefiting in any way from any public monies must be challenged and removed unless they can prove the value of their ideology to the public at large.
whimsicalmama,
Wont matter in 50 years. Liberals, feminists, leftists tend not to reproduce. Their birth rates are at 1.6. The replacement rate is 2.1. Conservatives birth rates are 2.4. Liberals, feminists, leftists are literally non-breeding themselves out of existence. In 10 or 20 years this SAGE group will no longer exist. As I stated below, build a new, women only gym. After several years of non-use, turn it into a a co-ed gym.
This year SAGE and Mengze Wu are sure winners in the Kamala Harris “Word Salad Contest.”
1. Find a suitable parking lot at University of Southern California campus
2. fill it with beach sand
3. setup excessive equipment
4. Bingo – USC has its own on campus Muscle Beach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_Beach
Build a new, women only gym.
That’s it? Boy, if only you were a CA politician.
Just imagine when those USC’ers make it into the real world or what’s left of it?
Hey, not to worry , it’s Kalifornia where the oranges suck back.
Turley needs a paywall, at least for the comments section.
Paywall does not regulate comments, its for subscriptions. Using google as a sign-up would be best.
@Anonymous
Using Google for anything is never best. Registration might help, though.
Easy to get around. Suggest Turley reset the blog, delete all comments, and then no commenting. Not as if the stuff here has any intellectual value. Fact is there are better, higher quality blogs that I read regularly/. Turley is just a curiosity, just to watch the animals attack each other.
I rarely read comments. But I have noted a particular vitriol towards Prof. Turley. He publishes under his name. I believe his critics should do so likewise.
You can, but why should they? Turley allows anonymity. You must have the civility virus. Always whining.
Anonymous just gave up the game with why these people comment the way they do. The ultimate goal of these people is to end the comments section on a “lean right” blog in order to veto through the heckle another outlet for conservative common sense.
The left cannot defend their insane policies, open border, ban ICE, defund the police, give many benefits to illegals, fraud in government spending as shown in MN and CA recently, NGOs grifting the heck out of us, boys in girls sports, locker rooms and bathrooms, supporting Iran over the US, banning gas cars, high energy prices, a military that went woke and weak, rent freezes, eviction bans, student loan payoffs, allowing NATO nations to underfund defense that we pay for, inflationary monetary policy which gave us 9% inflation, the mutilation of children, not telling parents that their child is using a different name that a teacher gave them and on and on and on. They need to stifle dissent and this is why the only go on friendly networks, never, EVER get a follow-up question, ban conservative speakers from campus, eschew debates, demand conservative networks and voices be banned and try to end this comments section.
HullBobby,
Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.
Really? You said pretty much, what did he miss?
Its obvious liberals live in your brains rent free.
No, they live in government funded housing and their parents basement.
Isn’t that the same technique that the prog/left used to commandeer our schools, judiciary, libraries, media – straight up in-your-face confrontations and harangues? They bully and intimidate their way and stupid conservatives act politely and say nothing but move aside.
Quit whining, its not as if you’re a victim here. Grow a pair old man.
Web 3.0 applications without being forced to use the blockchain or ethereum: mastodon, peertube, pleroma, diaspora, etc.
We could just resort to sending letters.
Cionnath,
I have brought up in the past a pay to comment like paradigm with all monies going to a post high school fund for socio-economic disadvantaged children for vocation school, coding boot camps, other accredited certificates, or college. A yearly award goes to a student who submits a essay on the Constitution, SC judgements, any of the Bill of Rights, state rights issues, etc.
A fee of $20 a month I think would be a fair amount for a worthy cause like that.
What does this LGBT crowd do when they encounter men out in the wild outside?
Cry
Cower in place.
Attention: All heterosexual men (define a man) at USC will now report to their designated workout closet. Who decides if a “binary” person with a dick qualifies for entry into one of these freak zones?
You don’t have to be heterosexual to have common sense and to find this madness pathetic and disgusting. Say I.
Welcome to Turely’s Adult Daycare Blog, watch as your grandfathers publicly humiliate themselves
Grandad, tell about the good ole times when you spent an entire day blogging.
You see son, we called ourselves anonymous, and made asses of ourselves. All day long. Retirement is fun, I waste time while I slowly die or boredom.
Yes, I am sorry Jimmy, you will never know the enjoyment of retirement as you will be completely indebted by your own government. Retirement will be a memory of the past, you will probably fadeaway in your recliner waiting for your disability check while watching forced programming of the View.
It will be a miracle Jimmy if you will even be able to freely express yourself in public let alone on a forum such as this without being hunted down by the despised and loathed self appointed blogladytes.
but what is a woman…their SMARTEST people like KJB(IQ <80) can't even define it?
I don't care what they do…JUST END all Federal Aid reaching Democrats
STOP federal aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges(including backing loans)
outlaw public unions
There is NO ONE more hate filled, bias, greedy, selfish, lying, cheating, violent, racist, hypocrite than Democrats
And I have no sympathy now for any democrat harmed by criminals…THEY want to release criminals, import criminal illegals, Protect criminals and illegals by defunding COPS and stopping ICE
Democrats want the destruction of Western Society, not only the ruin of the USA
Voting Democrats….MEANS YOU ARE STUPID! It is like Voting National Socialists in 1930's Germany. It is obvious you want destruction.
Must hurt that a black woman is a supreme court justice and you’re a pathetic anonymous blogger.
Define a woman
Black and beautiful, Harvard degree, supreme court justice. You? An anonymous fat white geriatric.
Black, yes. Harvard degree, worthless affirmative action gift, Supreme Court Justice, see fake Harvard degree.
The woman makes Sotomayor sound like Plato, Aristotle and Cicero wrapped into one person.
And you make everyone here look like geniuses. Obviously you never got beyond kindergarten.
She fills a seat on the United States Supreme Court BECAUSE she is a woman! Because joey biden wanted to live in the White House and made the DEI pledge!
Not as if Republicans are not partisan eh?
Specifically a Black woman just like Sotamayor “A wise Old Latina”, sex, race, gender are the order. Merit, we don’t need no stinking merit!
Turley’s concern about ‘Hanz and Franz’ being banned from a gym is a distraction from the fact that he is the chief apologist for a federal government that is currently suing states to ensure transgender people are banned from the very same ‘intimate spaces’ he’s now worried about. He calls USC’s policy ‘identity politics,’ but calls the President’s binary bathroom mandates ‘constitutional restoration.’ It’s only ‘discrimination’ to Turley when it doesn’t align with the administration’s specific ideological agenda.
I thought Republicans were all for protecting women in places like gyms, lockers, and sporting events. This should be a no brainer for women asking the gym be male free for a few hours.
Chief apologist you say? So Trump pulled him out of a hat and make him the Apology Czar? Anything else you’d like to add?
For 99.9% of the popular, choosing which bathroom to use is a no-brainer. The remaining 0.1% have an untreated mental disorder. You are free to believe you are any gender or species you want, but don’t force the rest of us to believe it too.
Come on Mr. X, George, you aren’t really comparing banning men from PUBLIC spaces with banning men dressed as women from women’s bathrooms and locker rooms where women are in a state of undress?
Question: Do you or do you not support banning men dressed as women from girls locker rooms?
Funny, he didn’t say or imply that. Do you or do you not have any brains?
Hullbobby claims he’s a retarded lawyer, oops, sorry, meant retired lawyer, so no brains.
He said exactly that. try harder, be smarter.
Hullbobby, the irony here is that you’re accidentally making my point for me. You’re arguing that it’s perfectly legal and “common sense” to ban certain people from spaces to protect the privacy and comfort of others—which is exactly what USC is doing.
You support banning people from locker rooms because seeing them makes women uncomfortable or “triggered” while they are vulnerable. USC’s logic for the gym is identical: they are limiting space because women reported feeling “judged” or “hindered” in a way that prevented them from using the facility. You can’t claim it’s “common sense” in a bathroom but “illegal discrimination” in a gym just because one involves a towel and the other involves a yoga mat.
You’re focusing on “men dressed as women,” but the law (Title IX) doesn’t care about the outfit. It cares about sex-based discrimination. If you support the Trump administration’s push to strictly segregate spaces based on biological sex, then you are supporting the very “segregation” Turley is complaining about. You’re just upset that this time, the “biological men” are the ones being told to use a different room.
Turley complaining? Really George, you’re the chief whiner and resident apoplectic. Geezzz… the things we have to endure with my dad. Been in the cellar for 3 months now, won;t come up.
You keep confusing criticism and rebuttal with “whining”. No wonder you have trouble understanding things.
Why are YOU whining? You haven’t provided any reasonable argument. Just….whining.
Hey X, and your fake Anonymous juvenile posse, keep supporting men in girls locker rooms and let us know how that works out for you.
X, again, you cannot conflate banning men from PUBLIC spaces with banning men from girls changing rooms.
Hullbobby, It’s cute that you keep leaning on the ‘PUBLIC space’ line like it’s a magical shield. Let’s do a quick reality check: USC is a private university, and a locker room is a public accommodation under the law. You’re literally arguing that an institution should have the right to exclude people for ‘privacy and comfort’ in one room, but it’s a ‘human rights violation’ if they do it in the room next door with the treadmills.
If you support the government forcing its way into private gyms to tell them they can’t protect women from ‘oglers,’ then congratulations—you’re officially a fan of the big-government overreach you claim to hate. You don’t actually care about ‘public vs. private’ or ‘discrimination’; you just want to be the one who decides which ‘oglers’ get a pass and which ‘identity groups’ get the boot.
Keep dodging the hypocrisy, though.
I thought you support protecting women from unwanted attention and ‘discomfort’ from males. You still do, don’t you?
Hey george.
USC is a private university
________________________________
The University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university that, like most, receives significant federal funding, totaling approximately
billion in fiscal year 2024, including research grants and student financial aid. While not operated by the government, this funding makes it susceptible to government regulations and funding conditions
Dustoff, you’re correct that the $1.35 billion comes with strings, but USC chose to cut those strings when it rejected the administration’s ‘Compact’ last year to keep its state funding.
More importantly, you can’t have it both ways: you can’t cheer for a DOJ that says ‘women’s spaces must be protected’ in locker rooms and then turn around and try to pull a university’s funding for protecting those same women in a gym. If the administration succeeds in making sex-segregated spaces a legal requirement, USC’s gym policy might actually be the most ‘compliant’ thing they do.
The administration’s own Title IX enforcement currently prioritizes “dignity and truth” in sex-segregated spaces. By creating a women-only gym space, USC is arguably following the spirit of the administration’s “protect women’s spaces” narrative, even if they’re doing it for reasons the administration doesn’t. USC women want to create a space free of ogling men for an hour. It fits pertly within the Trump administration’s own rules.
You lied george. USC is a private university
They take governemnt funds. LIAR
You didn’t say which government. Federal or state. They do take state tax dollars. By they refused government funds to meet Trump’s demands. Prove me wrong.
You still cannot rebut the fact that the school IS doing this according to Trumps new title IX interpretation. So even if they took federal funds they would still be in compliance. So where’s the lie?
X is saying that bathrooms and locker rooms are the same as all public spaces. Maybe X wants to watch little girls change.
Hullbobby, you’re a lawyer, allegedly. If you were you would understand what a public accommodation is. Locker rooms, bathrooms, gyms are all public accommodations defined by law. Now don’t confuse this with the the legal definition of privacy and a private space. Surely you understand these differences as a ‘former’ lawyer. But your petty insults sure doesn’t inspire confidence that you were once a lawyer.
Fun fact you haven’t rebutted or proved my points to be wrong, still.
Hull Bobby
I would put forth a very simple litmus test. Is USC required to abide by ADA federal regulations over the entirety of their campus.
Locker rooms and bathrooms are meant to be private areas and gender specific for obvious reasons. To spell it out for you, most normal people understand naked flesh has a tendency to stimulate the opposite sex. Especially perverts and oglers. Normal women do not want to be forced to undress in a confined area and possibly preyed upon or gawked at by perverts.
What drives your compulsion to take a contrary position – no mater how nutty – to EVERY post Turley writes? You persuade nobody to change their mind. Your silly positions invite ridicule. My guess is too much affluence. And loneliness. You have too much “free” time and nobody cares about you. So you spend all day polluting this blog with inane comments for attention.
Anonymous, You argue that “normal women” don’t want to be “gawked at by perverts” in locker rooms. That is exactly the argument USC is making. Women at the gym reported feeling “judged,” “unpleasant,” and unable to “take up space” because of the presence and behavior of men in that environment. You are literally using USC’s own justification to argue against them. Why is “avoiding gawkers” a valid reason to segregate a bathroom, but a “nutty” reason to segregate a weight room?
You claim locker rooms are “obviously” gender-specific for privacy. But legally, “privacy” isn’t just about being naked; it’s about the reasonable expectation of a safe environment. If a university determines that a specific space is being dominated in a way that excludes or intimidates half of its student body, they have a Title IX obligation to fix it.
You just spent three paragraphs explaining why women need protection from ‘perverts and oglers’ in confined spaces. That is the exact ‘safe space’ logic Turley is mocking. If you’re going to support the Trump administration’s right to segregate bathrooms based on ‘comfort’ and ‘biology,’ you can’t turn around and cry ‘discrimination’ when a gym does the same thing. You don’t have a legal argument; you just have a double standard and a handful of insults.
“You don’t have a legal argument; you just have a double standard and a handful of insults.” Couldn’t put it ant better referencing you cr_ap.
You keep making my point. Instead of arguing on the merits of my post. You chose to insult. Because you have no argument. Thanks.
X, This particular Anonymous made the right point. There is a difference between a gym, PUBLIC, and a locker room, PRIVATE.
Hullbobby, nope.
The “public vs. private” distinction is a legal mirage in this context. Both a gym and a locker room are Public Accommodations under the law, meaning they are subject to the same civil rights and Title IX rules.
You’re arguing that “privacy” only exists when you’re naked. But the law defines a “hostile environment” based on behavior and intimidation, not just skin. If women are being “ogled” or “harassed” in a gym (your words, not mine), that gym ceases to be a “public” space they can actually use. At that point, the university has a legal mandate to fix the environment so they aren’t effectively excluded.
If you support the Trump administration using Title IX to ensure locker rooms are “biological-sex-only” for the sake of “privacy and dignity,” then you’ve already conceded the point. You are admitting that gender-segregated spaces are a valid way to protect people. You’re just splitting hairs over whether that protection should end at the locker room door or extend to the squat rack.
Again, USC is a private institution. They own the gym and the locker room. If you believe in property rights, they should be able to set the rules for both. Remember they just want at a minimum an hour away from oglers. USC should be accommodate that request without Turley whining about it as if it were a grave constitutional violation.
“(your words, not mine),”
“Thanks.”
If you want to pretend forcing young women to undress and run around naked in a confined locker room with hormone raging men in their teens and 20s is equivalent to clothed men and women working out and sharing exercise equipment in an open space, you are lost. Too invested in trying to make a nonsensical argument sound rational.
That is a massive leap in logic; you’re comparing apples to engines and pretending they both grow on trees.
The far-left is so full of bigotry it’s almost a running joke, a parody of itself. Sadly, it’s reality, not comedy. Next, ban white people from spaces that make black people uncomfortable. Then ban Asians from certain classes, because they make white people uncomfortable. The leftists still haven’t explained why it’s fine to bar male reporters from women’s locker rooms for interviews, while women are allowed to enter male locker rooms. To leftists, discrimination is always fine, in one direction, of course.
Earth to anonymous, earth to anonymous … Americans are not bigots, they’re racists. Sill you.
No, it’s math that is racist!
This characterizes a growing trend in American crisis management: solving one problem only to inadvertently engineer another.
Higher education has become a primary stage for this recursive failure, led by feckless administrators who often prioritize immediate optics over structural resolution. Rather than addressing root causes, these institutions seek to make issues vanish through temporary mitigation.
This is a strategy (if it can be so-called) that manifests in everything from the reactive handling of campus unrest and the reification of comfort through “safe spaces” complete with baby goats, to the erosion of academic rigor and the current existential confusion to define a stance on AI.
Got a mathematical model for that?
Math is raccccist…
Gotta love free speech… only at Turley’s can you get a face full of stupid at no charge.
@James
This is anonymous, not me.
The fact that you posted your comment unfettered kind of cancels out your comment, so here we go again:
irony
/ī′rə-nē, ī′ər-/
noun
Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
Huh? Must be liberal
Welcome to Turley’s Cesspool, sick and disgusting comments for your reading pleasure.
Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
Like your comments?
Can’t imagine why anyone would think this place is a cesspool… wink wink.
As usual, you float to the top.
Top you say. Why thank you. Better than being at the bottom of the tank with the rest of the human waste.
Huh?
Shhhhhh!
SH!t floats…
Grease content