While it may be ‘fashionable’ to pretend that ‘biology is irrelevant, the American heartland still lives in reality,’ attorney general Andrew Bailey wrote.
Missouri’s Republican attorney general has alerted a popular fitness chain that it is under investigation and could face criminal and civil liabilities for allowing a biological male who identifies as a female to use the women’s locker room in one of its St. Louis-area gyms.
A state lawmaker has also weighed in, accusing the gym member of using the “guise of transgenderism” to “expose himself to people who were in the female locker room.”
Some members of the Life Time gym in Ellisville, a western suburb of St. Louis, are now calling for the company to get “the Bud Light treatment,” a reference to the intense blowback the beermaker received after partnering with a transgender influencer last year, according to news reports.
“While it might be considered fashionable in certain corporate boardrooms to pretend that biology is irrelevant, the American heartland still lives in reality,” Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey wrote Friday a letter to Life Time’s CEO, Bahram Akradi. “Your policies are enabling potentially criminal behavior, and I am writing to assure you that it will not continue on my watch.”
This latest culture-war dustup involves Eris Montano, 52, who also goes by Eris Discordia. Montano describes himself on X as the “Goddess of strife and discord,” and a “Trans-fem, polyamorous saboteur of Lord’O Hoard’s scams e/happiness.”
According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Montano, who began transitioning about two years ago and has had several surgeries, joined the Life Time gym in Ellisville last weekend. Montano told the paper that he met with the gym’s general manager on Sunday to learn about its policies regarding trans members, according to the paper.
Montano wrote about his first experience in the Life Time women’s locker room on X.
“having now gotten ready in the ladies room at the gym for the first time, am happy to report that 1. Unlike men’s locker rooms where every guy over 40 is waving his penis around to prove to the others that he has one, older women are as clothed as everyone else,” Montano wrote. “2. with the exception of a couple of visibly obvious Karen’s who gave me a look and used the furthest sink from me, everyone else was hyper welcoming.”
“I guess what I’m getting at is… complement swarms >>> old man penis,” Montano added.
Montano told the Post-Dispatch that he was confronted by a woman in the sauna who “kept telling me that I was a man, that I didn’t belong there.” Montano said he then tugged at his bikini top to show the woman part of his breast to prove “that I am a real woman.”
Montano told the paper he learned that Life Time had also received complaints from other members about his use of the women’s locker room.
In his letter to Life Time, Bailey points to a 2015 case in Missouri, State v. Girardier, in which a man was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing after he stayed for several hours inside a gas station’s women’s restroom. The man disguised his voice to sound like a woman’s. When police arrived, they found him with lotion and pornography.
Life Time spokeswoman Natalie Bushaw did not answer specific emailed questions from National Review, but said generally that the company is following Missouri law and is “committed to providing safe, welcoming and respectful environments.”
“At Life Time, we recognize that there are varying opinions regarding locker room access,” Bushaw’s statement said. “When members join Life Time, we review state-issued IDs to confirm their identity. The State of Missouri provides a mechanism for an individual to change their gender designation on their state-issued drivers’ license. In this instance, the member presented a state-issued drivers’ license identifying as female and, the Missouri Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Therefore, the member is to use Life Time’s women’s locker room.”
Missouri state representative Justin Sparks was the first lawmaker to express concerns about Life Time allowing a biological man to use the women’s locker room. He said in a video on Facebook that he’d learned from constituents that “a grown man was going to Life Time fitness … and he was using the women’s locker room to apparently get changed, and expose himself to people who were in the female locker room.”
“That would be my constituents,” he added. “But that could be my wife, that could be my daughter, theoretically.”
Sparks called Life Time’s response to the incident “inadequate.”
“Let’s have a frank and honest conversation about this, because as a former police officer I dealt with weirdos, I dealt with men that like to show their genitals to women, and it’s against the law,” he said. “For a grown man to hide under the guise of transgenderism to reveal his genitals to women and children is abhorrent.”
Sparks held a press conference about the issue outside the gym on Friday afternoon. Video of the event shows protesters attempting to drown him out with whistles and chants of “hey hey, ho ho, bigotry has got to go.” One protester told Sparks to “find a real problem.”
The Post-Dispatch reported that Montano’s driver’s license identifies him as a female.
Sparks said he wants an investigation to determine if the state of Missouri issued Montano an ID based on nonfactual information.
“This person is a grown man, mature, older man dressed as a female,” Sparks said. “Make no mistake, somebody hiding under the guise of transgenderism is no more than sexual deviancy for the purpose of showing himself for the reaction. It’s sad that we have to even have these conversations, but it is real and it is happening.”
Montano denied those accusations. He told the Post-Dispatch that he only changes clothes in single-person dressing room stalls, and drapes a towel over the door to shower. “I’m not there to see anybody else,” Montano told the paper. “I am there to change clothes, and get the heck out of there.”
Life Time is a posh fitness chain based in Minnesota that calls itself “a place for everyone” on its website. “We embrace our commitment to recognize, elevate and empower women and the BIPOC, disabled and LGBTQIA+ communities to ensure all are equally heard, accepted, respected, supported and valued to fully participate,” its website says.
Ahead of Spark’s press conference on Friday, Montano wrote on X that “a state f***ing representative and a mob of hateful people are gathering at Lifetime Fitness in Ellisville to show me how much they hate me for existing as a trans woman with rights.”
Montano has also written that “transphobia IS NOT a fear of trans people,” but is instead “a rejection of trans people on the basis that the person doing the rejecting is afraid they themselves might be trans.” He’s also written that “people who think being trans has anything to do with sexual gratification are telling on themselves.”
This incident at Life Time is just the latest involving concerns about biological men using women’s locker rooms.
Earlier this year, a woman in Alaska made headlines after she had her Planet Fitness membership revoked for calling out and photographing a man shaving in the women’s locker room. Last year, a teenage girl was banned from a YMCA in Illinois after she encountered a man in the women’s locker room and protested.