Andrew Bailey, Attorney General of Missouri in 2023 Photo: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY via IMAGN
Eris Montano, a transgender woman who used the locker rooms at Life Time Gym in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, has sparked anti-trans protests, calls to boycott the gym, and an investigation by the state’s Republican attorney general.
Montano came to the gym on Sunday and used the women’s locker room the next day. Another woman in the sauna approached her, misgendered her and said she didn’t belong there, Montano said, according to The Maine Wire.
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When the woman continued to harass her, Montano said she tugged at her own bikini top to accentuate her breasts to the woman and show her “that I am a real woman.”
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Montano said she met with the general manager before joining the gym because she wanted to learn the center’s policies regarding transgender members. She said the reaction from other gym-goers was largely positive, aside from the woman who confronted her.
Montano then went to the manager, who informed her that the club’s gym had received further complaints about her use of the women’s locker room.
Natalie Bushaw, a spokeswoman for Life Time, defended the gym’s decision. She said the company recognizes that there are “differing opinions regarding locker room access,” adding, “As a company, we are committed to complying with laws regarding public accommodations in all areas in which we operate.”
“Life Time is committed to creating a safe, welcoming and respectful environment. When we receive reports of behavior that is inconsistent with our club policies, we review and address them,” Bushaw added.
Bushaw showed gym staff a copy of Montano’s driver’s license, which lists her gender as female. Although Missouri is one of 18 states that have no explicit legal bans against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, Life Time members are still allowed to use locker rooms that correspond to the gender listed on their state-issued photo ID.
“We are committed to recognizing, promoting and empowering women and the BIPOC, disabled and LGBTQIA+ communities to ensure all are equally heard, accepted, respected, supported and valued, enabling full participation,” says the inclusion page on Life Time’s website.
The following Friday, dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the gym against Montano’s use of the women’s locker room. Some protesters and online commentators called for a boycott. The public attention prompted Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey to announce an investigation into the gym’s policies.
Bailey sent a letter to Life Time in which she repeatedly misidentified Montano as a woman and told the gym that its policies “potentially enable criminal conduct,” including trespassing (even though the gym’s policy allows her to use the locker room). Bailey wrote, “As Attorney General, I will vigorously defend and enforce Missouri laws. You face both criminal and civil consequences.”
In his letter, he cited a 2015 appeals court ruling against a man who was convicted of trespassing in a gas station women’s restroom. The man – who did not mention that he was transgender nor ever identified as a woman – had barricaded himself in a gas station women’s restroom and smoked cigarettes for several hours. When staff asked him to leave, he disguised his voice and was later found with lotion and a pornographic magazine.
When police asked the man why he was in the toilet, “he replied that he had to have a bowel movement ‘very urgently,'” the appeal court said in its 2015 ruling.
Local police said they are investigating a complaint that Montano exposed himself to a woman in the locker room earlier this week, but no charges have been filed.
Montano, for her part, said she did nothing wrong. She said she only changes in the single-person changing stalls in the locker room and hangs a towel over the door to her shower stall.
“I’m not here to meet anyone. I’m here to change my clothes and then get out of here as quickly as possible,” Montano said.
And she plans to keep going to the gym. She says she’s “not the least bit afraid” of starting again.
“These people are loud, but I know they are not the majority,” Montano said.
