I was reading a lot of news today about a fitness company called Planet Fitness that is getting a lot of backlash over an apparent video that has been spreading online of what appears to be a man shaving in the woman’s bathroom. The person’s reason according to all the reports is that the person identified as a female. The biggest controversy is the company‘s operational manual appeared to describe how even though people may feel uncomfortable about this the company shouldn’t deny access to a transgender individual. As a result, a lot of people were calling for a membership cancellation.
There is a lot of controversy with this topic in recent times and I do wonder if you can ever win as a business. Usually it is suggested that you stay away from things like politics and just treat everyone neutral but that clearly won’t work in this case as you kind of have to take a stand on the subject matter. For example, you could do what this company did or opt to simply say washrooms based on say one’s birth gender is the one you should go to.
Although, there are some places where the washrooms are unisex so technically I guess that would be the most neutral way to go. But I still don’t think that would be very receptive in most places.