Planet Fitness Exercises Their Rights Against Conservative Lies
Gym ally Planet Fitness is receiving backlash for its trans-inclusive and anti-harassment policies. The Planet Fitness chain is committed to creating a “judgment free zone” and advocates for its welcoming environment in which everyone can work out without fear of discrimination. Boasting gender identity nondiscrimination policies, members and guests can use the locker rooms and restrooms which correspond to their “self-reported gender identity.”
Chaya Raichik, who operates the far right and anti-LGBTQ social media account Libs of Tik Tok, has made claims against Planet Fitness. She tweeted “PLANET FITNESS BLOODBATH MEGA THREAD – This might be the most successful boycott since Bud Light. This is how we will take back our country. These companies need to understand that we will not accept this nonsense anymore. Do not let up! Pass it on!”
???? PLANET FITNESS BLOODBATH MEGA THREAD
This might be the most successful boycott since Bud Light.
This is how we will take back our country. These companies need to understand that we will not accept this nonsense anymore. Do not let up! Pass it on!
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 22, 2024
Raichik attributed the non-existent boycott to a controversy in an Alaskan Planet Fitness. Anti-LGBTQ Patricia Silvia photographed and confronted a transgender woman using the women’s locker room. She was minding her own business before Silvia took the oh-so-righteous initiative to break the gym’s strict locker room policies by snapping a pic. Subsequently, her gym membership was revoked and a police report filed.
Nowhere is there evidence to support Raichik’s claims that there was a boycott, nor did this alleged boycott cost the gym to lose any money. Raichik claimed that once news got out after Silva was banned, the gym’s stock plummeted. However, it was already declining prior to this incident. There is a trend in decline of gym stocks in the pre-summer months as people give up on their New Year’s resolutions and decide the extra donut is worth it.
Raichik then attempted to get the hashtag #BoycottPlanetFitness to trend on X. Stringing together other examples of Planet Fitness’s wrong-doings, she brought up the 2023 example of an adult assigned male at birth exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl in a Georgia gym. The man, Jakkorbie Dixon, was arrested for multiple accounts of public indecency, but nowhere does he explicitly state that he is transgender.
Among other lies revolving around the topic, Raichik even said that Planet Fitness is trying “to groom kids by giving them ‘queer books’ to confuse them about their identity and introduce them to the extremely harmful radical gender ideology.” The gym has partnered with the It Gets Better Project to give LGBTQ+ books to gay-straight alliances in schools. Planet Fitness has received years of hate from conservatives. Nevertheless, they continue their LGBTQ+ support and implement trans-inclusive policies.
Photo courtesy of social media
