Planet Fitness is facing both financial and media backlash from conservatives across the country in response to the way the company handled an incident involving two of its members. Keep reading below to learn more.
Patricia Silva was a member of Planet Fitness in Fairbanks, Alaska, and took to Facebook in a video to explain that she had encountered “a man in a woman’s locker room shaving” while at the gym. Because she did not agree with the transwoman who was in the women’s locker room and was also a member of Planet Fitness, Silva went on:
I realize he wants to be a woman… I love him in Christ. He doesn’t like his gender, so he wants to be a woman, but I’m not comfortable with him shaving in my bathroom.
The next day, Silva made a second video and referenced her earlier experience with the member shaving in the women’s locker room, but this time she added that there was a young woman in the locker room as well:
A little girl sittin’ in the corner, she could’ve been 12 years old, I don’t know how old she was, in a towel, kinda freaked out that there’s a man shaving in her locker room.
Not surprisingly – although completely inappropriately – Silva then admitted to taking a picture of the transwoman while she had been shaving, something Silva had omitted in her initial video explanation, and proceeded to post the picture online, violating the woman’s privacy. Silva went on question her: “You are a man with a penis; why are you in the women’s locker room?”
The videos quickly went viral, reaching a zenith when it was discovered that Planet Fitness had revoked Silva’s membership because her actions violated the company’s nondiscrimination policy, citing that “discomfort is not a reason to deny access.” Conservatives screamed into the ether to give Planet Fitness the “Bud Light” treatment, an ironic thing to say, seeing as former President Trump recently Truthed that Bud Light “should be given a second chance” and that Anheuser-Busch “is not a woke company.” (It goes without saying that Trump owns millions in Anheuser-Busch stock.)
That said, Planet Fitness is hurting in the immediate aftermath, with its stock falling from $66.92 to $56.46.
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