On a morning this week I awoke to yet another story regarding the Planet Fitness “”no judgment” policy. The new story is about a lawsuit.
Yvette Cormier of Midland County, Michigan is the woman who complained first to her local Planet Fitness’ management that a transgender woman she considered to be a man was using the gym’s locker room. When told that according to the Planet Fitness “no judgment” policy, transgender women were allowed to use the women’s restrooms, Cormier then went back the next four days in a row and told women in the that Planet Fitness’ locker room that Planet Fitness’ policy allowed men to use the women’s locker room — she was attempting to disrupt the business. Well, Cormier had her membership revoked over the incident.
Of course Cormier is suing. And, there’s a couple of things to note about the lawsuit that many aren’t likely to pick up on should you, the reader, see the story covered elsewhere.
The first is that winning or losing this lawsuit is irrelevant. The lawsuit states Cormier “respectfully requests that this Honorable Court award compensatory damages that will fully and fairly compensate her for her injuries, losses, and damages, in excess of $25,000.00, plus costs, interest, attorney fees, and grant such other and further relief as is appropriate.”
But, the press release tells a different story. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act in Michigan’s civil rights act; the law that provides antidiscrimination protections to identified, protected classes. Cormier is now part of the strategy to scuttle any plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to that law.
“Mrs. Cormier has filed this lawsuit to protect Michigan women and children and to hold Planet Fitness accountable for its irresponsible policy and actions. This case further illustrates the potential harm caused by adding the proposed new categories of sexual orientation/gender identity to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act,” the press release by Cormier’s attorneys, the Kallman Legal Group, states.
Call point one a strategy: keep this a story that keeps popping up across the nation in mainstream and socially conservative news outlets. Call point two a tactic in support of the strategy: the lawsuit proffers the position that trans women in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms are inherently harassing and dangerous. “Defendants’ gave Mrs. Cormier an ultimatum, either she submit to their [‘no judgment’] policy (which is an invasion of privacy, enables sexual harassment and possible criminal activity, and endangers women and children),” the Cormier lawsuit states in point 30 of the brief, “or they would terminate her membership [at Planet Fitness].”
Further into the brief, the transgender woman at the center of the case (Carly Sklodowska) is defined as a man. And per the brief, if Carly Sklodowska is a man, her presence in the women’s locker room constitutes sexual harassment because men are inherently sexual around women in sex-segregated spaces.
“Defendants violated the Act and deprived Yvette M. Cormier of her civil rights by,” states the lawsuit, “Subjecting Yvette M. Cormier, because of her sex, to conduct and communication of a sexual nature, which had the purpose and/or effect of denying her the full benefit of the public accommodation facility at Defendant’s business and denied her full and equal access to the use and privileges of a public accommodation.”
This is the exact same strategy and tactic that the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) used regarding California’s School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266). They wanted to derail the bill, so they manufactured a story about a 16-year old trans girl at Colorado’s Florence High School allegedly sexually harassing her peer female students in the school’s girls restrooms. When it turned out that what PJI initially stated occurred in the school restrooms didn’t actually occur, PJI changed the narrative to one where the mere presence of a trans girl in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms was sexually harassment in and of itself.
In this model, trans women are inherently sexual monsters: exhibitionists, voyeurs, and sexual predators.
Over at the Dallas Voice, former DJ and current trans woman Leslie McMurray suggests respectability politics is the answer. “If we expect to be welcomed into female spaces,” she wrote, “we need to do everything in our ability to blend in and be just another woman there. Behave and dress appropriately.”
No. Ours is a struggle for ordinary equality and justice; we’ll never achieve these if our community goal becomes “blend in and don’t make waves.” They — the socially conservative religious right — already know we’re here, and they see us trans people as monsters. Blending in enough to achieve civil rights at this point is just a pipe dream. Actively being oppressed with new bills proposed for law by state legislators: that’s the reality trans people must prepare themselves for.
I just can’t see a case for Cormier. A far as I can put the story together, based on numerous newspaper and news site accounts, she walked into the room, saw the other woman, and immediately went into an uncontrolled rage. Apparently it was like flicking a switch.
No business would allow a customer to act as Cormier did, not only accosting other patrons and being disruptive, and doing it over and over for four days.
Well written article. I’m in agreement with the conclusion. It is necessary that the LGBT community come together along with our allies and defeat these proposals, repeal the bills. The sponsors of these bills are largely Republicans with the backing of the religious right. These two entities are mutually supportive. It won’t be easy.