Male runner who brought complaint against a VA spa that refused service qualifies to compete as 'woman' in 2025 Boston Marathon

A trans-identified male who sued a spa because it didn’t want him to bathe with women has been accepted to compete in the 2025 Boston Marathon as a woman. Riya Young Suising, formerly Robert Chien Hwa Young, has run and placed well in several women’s running competitions, Reduxx reported Sunday.

Suising, 57, rejoiced over the news in a Facebook post: “Yay! 15th Boston next April, and I barely made it in this time,” he wrote. He will be running in the female category. The race is scheduled for April 2025.

The Boston Marathon offers three categories for competitors: male, female and non-binary. The standards for the non-binary are the same as those for female runners. In order to qualify, Suising had to have a marathon time of 4 hours and 5 minutes or less; he was able to achieve one of 4 hours, 1 minute and 27 seconds. If Suising had applied as a male, the required time is a minimum of 3 hours and 35 minutes and he would not have gotten a spot to run.

In 2015, Suising brought complaints against a Korean-owned day spa in Centerville, VA. Suising complained that Spa World "misgendered" Suising and didn't allow the male to bathe with women.

"(A female staff member) called me a man because she said I had strong muscle tone. I'm not bulky but I am athletic because I'm an athlete... I work out. I try to stay fit. And maybe because I have slightly wider shoulders than other people," she said. "So based on that, (the staff member) asked me to leave," Suising said at the time. 

Suising showed a driver's license that listed Suising as a woman. "I showed her my driver's license with the female gender marker and I said 'I think I belong here' and she says 'I'm sorry, I still need to ask you to leave,'" Suising said.

The owner, Sang Lee, said Suising looked like a man. He offered Suising a refund, saying that he had complaints from customers and "had to respect that."

In addition to being a running enthusiast, Suising is a flight attendant with United Airlines and has part-time duties as a massage therapist and Zumba instructor. He has competed in other marathons as a woman, doing the 2024 San Francisco Marathon while wearing a bumble bee getup that included black nylons and a mini skirt. He wore that outfit in the 2017 New York City Marathon and in the 2018 Los Angeles Rock and Roll Half Marathon. In December, Suising ran in the female category of the 2024 California International Marathon.

This November, Suising had a run-in with Beth Bourne, a women’s rights activist. Suising was a flight attendant on Bourne’s United Airlines trip from San Francisco to Mexico. The two had both run in several races at the same time.

“I first saw this man in our local racing scene here in the San Francisco/Sacramento area in 2013. It made me so uncomfortable seeing him dressed up as a woman – but I didn’t know what was happening. So I said nothing… [It’s] awful that the race directors let him compete in the women’s category, as it impacted individual and team scoring,” said Bourne. In addition, Bourne was concerned, as she knew of a recent report of a United passenger who was denied flying for allegedly "misgendering" a flight attendant, according to Reduxx.