Gender police at the gym

During the Beacon Hill Judiciary Committee hearing July 14 on the transgender rights bill, a group of representatives of the gym and health club industry testified that such a bill would hurt their businesses by allowing people to use locker room and bathroom facilities based on their gender identity or expression, rather than on their biological sex. They argued that women would feel uncomfortable sharing facilities with anatomical males, particularly if the women had young children with them. Yet at gyms in Boston, where a similar transgender non-discrimination ordinance has been on the books since 2002, there have been seemingly no negative repercussions to extending non-discrimination protections to transgender people. The current transgender rights bill, House Bill 1728, would rewrite the state's hate crimes and non-discrimination laws-including around public accommodations-to make them trans-inclusive.

Kerry Campbell, sales director for Boston Athletic Club, said that her club has never had any complaints from members about transgender people using inappropriate locker room facilities. Campbell was among the group of gym representatives who testified against the bill, and she said her primary concern was not that it would allow transgender people to use the locker rooms, but that it would allow people falsely claiming to be transgender to abuse the law. She said she believes that based on how the transgender rights bill is currently written, it would deny gym managers any discretion in deciding who can use which locker room.

"It's very scary that, not a transgender person, but say an individual off the street ... they could come into our club and say they want to go into the women's locker room," said Campbell. "It's not that we don't want the bill passed. It's that we want the bill amended [to prevent such incidents]."

The lead advocacy organization opposing the bill, the conservative Christian group Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), has argued that the bill would allow any individual to claim the right to enter any bathroom or locker room facility they choose. Supporters of the bill argue that it would allow gym operators and other managers of locker room facilities to request documentation from a medical provider showing that the person has gone through a gender transition, which may or may not involve surgery.

Campbell said the only complaints Boston Athletic Club has received about locker room access have come from members complaining about parents bringing children of the opposite sex into the locker room. She said the gym resolves those complaints by asking parents with children of the opposite sex over the age of three to use a private shower and locker facility located on site. Campbell said she is unaware of any transgender patrons who use the club, but she said the club would gladly make that private shower facility available to them if they wished to join. She declined to speculate on whether the club would allow a transgender member to use the regular locker room facilities.

Mike Cuellar, general manager of Mike's Gym in Jamaica Plain, said he is unaware of any transgender members at his gym. He said if there are, their presence has not prompted any complaints by other members. Cuellar said that like Boston Athletic Club, Mike's has private locker and shower facilities that people can use if they are uncomfortable using the men's or women's locker rooms. He said transgender people are welcome at the club, but there is no formal policy laying out which locker rooms they can use.

"If it's not a problem, I'm definitely not going to try to fix it," said Cuellar. He said he was personally unfamiliar with the transgender rights bill.

Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), said gym owners may not notice transgender people at their club for two reasons. She said many transgender people who go to the gym use the locker room that corresponds to their gender identity or expression without incident and without attracting the attention of the other patrons. But she said there are also many transgender people who feel uncomfortable using gyms precisely because of fears around using the locker rooms. In those instances Levi said they either stop going to the gym altogether or they wait to shower and change at home or when the locker room is unoccupied.

Levi said GLAD has received many calls over the years from transgender people who have faced discrimination at the gym. She said in almost all of those cases an attendant at the front desk has stopped a member who they believe to be transgender and barred them from using the locker room.

"When I've gotten calls from transgender people who have had problems at gyms, it was never the case that the problem got raised because of the concern of another customer or patron. It was always a person at the front desk who created the problem," said Levi.

She said in many of those cases GLAD has contacted the gym management and worked out a solution acceptable to both the transgender gym member and the management. In some cases she said the solution involved allowing that member to use the locker room that matched his or her gender identity, and in other cases the transgender member agreed to use a separate, private facility.

Ethan Santiago, a transgender Lawrence resident and a former physical education major at Northern Essex Community College (NECC), was denied use of the men's locker room facilities at the school in late 2007 because he was a transgender man, but he said he never encountered opposition from his fellow students. Santiago, who is in the process of transferring to a four-year institution in Cleveland, Ohio, made headlines when he filed an affirmative action complaint against the school as a result of their refusal to allow him to use the men's facilities. The school told Santiago he must use a separate gender-neutral locker facility.

Santiago said the school took some steps to better respond to transgender issues, bringing in a diversity trainer to talk with administrators, but in the two semesters he remained at the school after filing his complaint, administrators took no action to address his concerns. He said he believes they meant well but were unsure how to respond.

In response to an inquiry from Bay Windows about whether NECC attempted to accommodate Santiago, Ernie Greenslade, a spokesperson for the school, provided a statement that read in part, "Consistent with its legal obligation to ensure equal access to its educational programs and facilities, Northern Essex Community College provides male and female locker rooms for use by its male and female students and employees. Moreover, although not legally obligated to do so, the College provides gender neutral facilities, including restrooms and locker rooms, when requested. The College takes these steps in order to be sensitive to the needs of its students and employees regardless of whether they fall within a legally protected category."

Santiago said the media attention around his affirmative action complaint outed him to his fellow students. He had previously been changing in the men's locker room without incident, and the school only officially banned him from the locker room after he applied for a locker. Santiago said even after the denial he continued to use the men's locker room during his time at the school, and his fellow male students were supportive.

"Even though all those articles outed me to all the students .... they said, 'Dude, I didn't know, and that totally sucks,'" said Santiago.