Judgment-free zone, indeed! The gym chain Planet Fitness revoked the membership of a woman at one of their Michigan locations who complained about a transgender woman using the same locker room, ABC News reports.
Planet Fitness has a gender identity policy in place that permits anyone to use the locker room of the gender with which they identify. This means a transgender woman is permitted to use the women’s locker room. Makes sense, right?
Not to Yvette Cormier, 48, who joined a Planet Fitness gym in Midland two months ago. She was in the locker room last Saturday at the same time as a trans woman, who Cormier described as being “manly” and “huge” but also “wearing a little bit of blush” and a wig, according to ABC.
Cormier went right to the front desk to complain about the trans woman and was informed of the policy and reminded the gym is a “judgement-free zone. So she then called Planet Fitness’ corporate headquarters to complain, alleging that the gym wasn’t protecting her from a “man” in the locker room. Clearly this woman just does not understand that a trans woman is not a man and the idea that a man would put on blush and a wig just to sneakattack other women in a gym locker room is fairly ridiculous.
Cormier went back to her Planet Fitness a few days later and continued to stir up more drama. Taking her busybody-ness to a whole new level, Cormier “told everyone in the locker room what happened.” MLive reports that Cormier told other patrons “a man” was using the women’s locker room.
On Thursday, Planet Fitness corporate headquarters and asked Cormier if she would stop speaking to other patrons about the trans woman. Cormier refused. She was them informed that she was breaking the gym’s “judgment-free” policy and that her membership was heretofore revoked.
In a statement, Planet Fitness’ director of public relations said the gym is:
“… committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity.”
The manner in which this member expressed her concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her membership was cancelled.”
As our statement outlines, her membership was not cancelled as a result of complaints about our policy, as we welcome all feedback from our members. Rather, it was the manner in which her concerns were expressed that club management felt was inappropriate, which resulted in the cancellation.”
It’s not often we have an opportunity to commend corporate America for doing something right. Planet Fitness is absolutely on the right side of history with an inclusive policy. Basing locker room usage on a “sincere self-reported gender identity” is the right way to do it. People like Yvette Cormier need to get with 2015 and realize their complaints are just silly.
