n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful. n a nondescript one-storey building in the west end of Edmonton, you’ll find Action Potential Fitness, a small gym nestled in between a service dog training centre and a scrapbooking supplies shop. On the inside, it doesn’t look much different than any other fitness facility. Free weights and kettlebells, workout benches, a couple of squat racks and other manner of fitness equipment line the walls. Clients come and go on the hour, mingling with each other and the trainers before or after their individual sessions and group classes.
The uniqueness of this gym lies in the fact that over 70 percent of the staff, including the owners of the gym, identify as LGBTQ2S+. Look a bit closer and you’ll see a trans-flag-coloured stuffed shark mascot on a shelf overseeing one section of the gym, Progressive Pride flags and rainbows throughout the facility, non-gendered bathrooms and staff and clients who often wear pronoun pins or T-shirts.
Action Potential Fitness is where Toni Harris, co-owner and trans fitness trainer, finally had the opportunity to create and implement a project they’d been dreaming about for years: a fitness program designed for trans people, by trans fitness professionals.
Harris started to notice the need for more LGBTQ2S+-friendly fitness spaces in Edmonton after they graduated from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and began working at a big box gym. One of the other trainers they worked alongside reached out to a local LGBTQ2S+ organization to recruit participants and start a group fitness class. But there was a catch: the owners of the facility would only allow the class to be scheduled 30 minutes after the gym closed and all of the other clients and trainers had left the building. It was then that Harris really began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community face in the fitness world.
In the majority of fitness facilities, the gender binary is still very much entrenched. Policies such as gendered change rooms and classes, or requiring forms to be filled out with the name and gender on your ID create an exclusionary environment in which those who identify outside the binary are often forced to “choose a side.” This experience can make something as simple as exercising feel embarrassing and stressful.
