The latest transgender scandal broke out back in March at a Fairbanks, Alaska location of the national gym franchise Planet Fitness. A woman named Patricia Silva encountered a biological man shaving his face in the women’s locker room. She took pictures of the incident and shared them online.
However, as it turned out, the biological man in question technically did nothing wrong, as Planet Fitness policy dictates that customers are free to choose whichever locker room based on their self-identified gender. Silva, however, had her membership terminated for taking pictures inside the locker room.
National outrage followed which did lead to an initial dip in stock price for the publicly traded Planet Fitness Inc—however, the price recovered within a couple of weeks and it seemed this is not going to be a classic ‘get woke go broke’ cautionary tale for companies.
That is until last Friday, 10 May. Then, Planet Fitness’ Chief Financial Officer announced that
the numbers of newly joined members and cancellations by their old members have been ‘fairly significantly affected’ by the scandal.
He did not specify exactly how many people that amounts to who cancelled after learning about the company’s locker room access policy. However, he did go into detail about their projections for the year.
The Hampton, New Hampshire-based gym company’s management has adjusted their target annual revenue growth for 2024 from the initial 6–7 per cent to 4–6 per cent; and their annual profit growth forecast from the initial 10–11 per cent to just 7–9 per cent.
The CFO went on to point out that ‘The first part of March was pretty good…Once e social media sort of blew up over our policy issue, we definitely saw a change in the results in the back half of March’.
To counter the infamous trans incident’s adverse effects, the company is reportedly planning on raising its membership prices by as much as 50 per cent, according to the New York Post. On 10 May, the day leading up to the public announcement on the updated financial forecasts in wake of the scandal, Planet Fitness’ stock price dropped by 0.57 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange.
Patricia Silva, the woman whose revelations started the whole story, also responded to the developments. She is quoted by the Post to say:
‘It is my hope that throughout the globe Planet Fitness members will continue cancelling their membership until this woke organization "chooses" to care enough about women’s rights and for children and remove men from a women’s locker room.’
Another major American company, the beer brewer Anheuser-Busch, has endured a similar scandal recently.
As a promotion campaign, they decided to send Bud Light beers in custom cans to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April 2023. As a result, their enraged customers—typically older white men—abandoned the Bud Light brand. Subsequently, Bud Light lost their title of the best selling beer brand in the US after many years, surrendering it to Modelo Especial.
In Q1 2024, nearly a year after it began, the Mulvaney marketing fiasco was still haunting Anheuser-Busch, despite since partnering with one of the few right-leaning comedians Shane Gillis, and the UFC, a martial arts promotion company owned by Trump supporter Dana White. In that quarter, sales to retailers were down 13.1 per cent, ‘primarily due to volume decline of Bud Light,’ as the company admitted.
All this shows that there is a major opposition to transgender activism among the American people, and companies should tread lightly if they ever want to engage in such public messaging.
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