QAnon Trumper banned from Planet Fitness for taking pictures of a trans woman in the locker room

A Planet Fitness gym in Alaska has defended its decision to ban an anti-LGBTQ+ woman who photographed and confronted a transgender woman who used the women’s locker room.

The banned woman, Patricia Silva, posted a public Facebook video on March 11 claiming that she saw a “man shaving in the woman’s bathroom” at the gym. Silva, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, has made social media posts against drag queen story hours and in favor of QAnon, an anti-queer conspiracy theory movement. Her story has been spread by right-wing media outlets, including Chaya Raichick, who goes by Libs of TikTok on social media.

Related:

Court rules against gyms with women-only workout spaces

LGBTQ advocates argued that gender-specific spaces lead to discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“I realize he wants to be a woman, he gets to be a woman,” Silver said in her March 11 Facebook video. “I love him in Christ. He’s a spiritual being having a human experience. He doesn’t like his gender… but I’m not comfortable with him shaving in my bathroom.”

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Silva told The Gateway Pundit that she saw the woman shaving in front of a 12-year-old girl in a towel who was looking uncomfortable. Silva took a photograph of the woman and shared it online, The Daily Mail reported. She also confronted the woman and said, “You are a man shaving in the women’s bathroom, and I am not OK with that.” The other woman reportedly replied, “Well, I’m LGB [lesbian, gay, or bisexual].”

Silva responded, “Whatever that is… nevertheless, I told him, ‘You’re a man and you’re invading my space.’ He wanted to argue to justify why he can be there… I walked away.”

Silva then reportedly spoke to two male Planet Fitness employees at the gym’s front desk who allowed the trans woman to stay in the locker room. The gym later revoked Silva’s membership and filed a police report against her for photographing people in the locker room.

“[Planet Fitness] cancelled my membership and allowed the pedo[phile] to stay ‼️,” Silva later wrote in a Facebook post about the incident. Her claims have since been reported by the anti-LGBTQ+ X account Libs of TikTok. Silva has also since posted several AI-generated images of a Planet Fitness gym on fire.

Planet Fitness’s nondiscrimination policy forbids employees from discriminating against trans people unless there is “serious concern or significant doubt” about their identity. If 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 gym’s policy states.

“As the home of the Judgement Free Zone, Planet Fitness is committed to creating an inclusive environment,” Planet Fitness chief corporate affairs officer McCall Gosselin said in a statement to Fox News. “Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use the gym facilities that best align with their sincere, self-reported gender identity. The member who posted on social media violated our mobile device policy that prohibits taking photos of individuals in the locker room, which resulted in their membership being terminated.”

LGBTQ Nation reached out to Planet Fitness for additional comment and this article will be updated if they respond.

In her past Facebook posts, Silva has said that COVID-19 vaccines contain tracking devices and cause infertility and that President Joe Biden is a child abuser and a communist who is “sexually abusing children and using their body parts for harvesting.”