Planet Fitness (PF) lets men use the women’s locker room. However you feel sexually at that moment, you go girl, or boy, or whatever. It’s Let’s Make a Deal – pick whatever door you like. Men’s, women’s, pick one or both. PFs got your back, even after last year, when a “woman” exposed himself to a teenage girl taking a shower.
Discomfort is not a reason to change the policy.
That’s their position after a woman snapped a pic of a guy (sorry, a woman who looks like a man) shaving (like a man) in the women’s locker room not far (allegedly) from a young teenage girl.
Planet Fitness, which for years has allowed gender-confused men in women’s locker rooms, came back in the news this month when an Alaskan Planet Fitness member named Patricia Silva shared online a video she took of a man who “identifies” as a woman shaving in a women’s locker room. She said that at the time of the incident, a girl estimated to be 12 years old was sitting in a corner, wrapped in a towel, and “freaked out” by having an adult male in her changing area.
I don’t know what he was shaving, and for some, that might matter, but not to Planet Fitness unless you can prove they are not trans (members claiming trans status may only be asked to leave “if it is confirmed that a member is acting in bad faith” and is not sincerely gender confused.”), and good luck with that and PF knows it.
Libs of TikTok also shared a page from Planet Fitness’s operations manual, which states that “Some members may feel uncomfortable with a transgender member using the same locker room facilities, bathrooms, showers, or other facilities/programs separated by sex,” but “this discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender members.” It calls on staff to resolve such situations by attempting to “foster a climate of understanding,” i.e., transgender accommodation.
And the climate of understanding how uncomfortable women and girls might be sharing safe spaces with men? Suck it up, honey, and to be fair, you don’t have to work out there. If you don’t like the policy, take your business someplace else. And it’s not a secret policy. So, my first question is, who lets their teenage daughter work out there? What woman would work out there if this bothers them, but they do, so it’s on them.
And PF does have a no-pictures policy – you are not to photograph other gym members (with a nod from me to the hopefully unintentional double-entendre). You can show them your member, but pictures are a no-go. If that is going to be awkward or cause discomfort, you can (again) take a walk, which is what some of PFs investors did after that latest story broke. The company lost 400 million, about 6.8% of its over five (now 4.9) billion valuation in a few short days. Folks are alluding to Bud Light-like consequences.
I doubt it.
Men sharing women’s spaces has been their policy for years. If the naked guy showing off his “membership” to a nude 15-year-old in a shower failed to make a dent in market value, this isn’t moving the needle enough to make a difference. But it could. If a minor was raped and that actually got escape velocity into viral internet space, PF might have some ‘splainin’ to do. But until such time, men who want to look at girls and women “cleaning up” after a workout can swing on in as a lady of the moment and get a little something for their pleasure. That is, after all, the problem. It is not legitimately gender-confused folks; it is predators and weirdos who make it their mission to cause misdemeanor discomfort with the risk of felony discomfort, after which it’s too late.
But again, it’s not a secret. If you are up for the risk, go for it. If not, work out somewhere else.
