Things are not going great for gym company Planet Fitness, which saw its stock price plummet by about 15 percent in the space of just two weeks. That crash came after a Planet Fitness location in Alaska canceled a woman’s membership in the gym when she reportedly photographed a “man…in a women’s bathroom” and complained about the matter online.
On March 7, before the incident led to an online, anti-Planet Fitness furor, the company’s stock stood at $66.92. Then, after about two weeks of pain following the online furor, its stock had crashed to a bottom of $56.46 on March 19. It has risen slightly to just under $58 as of the time this article was written, recovering a small portion of that price plummet. The total market cap loss was about $400 million.
The furor was sparked by an Alaska woman named Patricia Silva and her Planet Fitness location’s response to her. Silva took to Facebook to complain about the situation, posting a video of the incident and saying, “Good day. I just wanted to say I came out of Planet Fitness and there is a man who is shaving in a women’s bathroom.”
locker room, which resulted in their membership being terminated.”
Planet Fitness’ policy provides, “If a serious concern or significant doubt about the bona fides of a person’s transgender or nonbinary status/identity arises and which the team member can articulate, the team member shall address their concerns with the member. If discussion with the member fails to resolve the serious concern or doubt, the club may ask for external evidence of the member’s asserted gender identity. If it is confirmed that a member is acting in bad faith and improperly asserts a gender identity, they may be asked to leave and their membership may be terminated.”
The company’s handling of the matter led not only to a stock selloff, but also to some gym members canceling their memberships and then taking to social media to discuss why they did so. Watch one man discuss doing so here:
Featured image credit: By Wikideas1 – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140766241
