Porsch is small, strong and quick, with hot-pink nails and a cloud of dark, curly hair. Fuelled by “an unhealthy number” of Red Bulls, she has lifted off from the standing desk in the front office and is now darting around the gym, demonstrating for Villarreal how to properly photograph Liberation's clients for Instagram. The day's visitors are a distillation of Austin-core: they are tattoo prone and friendly, and everyone looks like they could paddleboard for 40 kays. Nobody seems self-conscious when Porsch squats down and begins taking pictures of them in front of the giant wall of pride flags that backdrops the heavyduty strength-training equipment. “Show me how it's done, Laurie,” Villarreal says a little sardonically, following her around the gym.
“You're overthinking it – it can be super simple,” Porsch says, ignoring Villarreal's Gen Z cynicism and hunching down, phone up, behind a client who is easily slicing through the air on a rowing machine while chatting with a friend.
But Villarreal's task is not so straightforward: how do you capture a gym's vibe? Even if you're really gym savvy, walking into a weight room for the first time can conjure a “new kid in the lunchroom” anxiety, compounded, for many, by the fact that serious lifting equipment can signal an intimidatingly macho, cishet scene.
Most commercial gyms, such as Gold's Gym and Planet Fitness, have sought to mitigate that intimidation and to create safe and inviting spaces for everyone –regardless of disability, ethnicity, fitness level, gender identity, income, race and beyond – through marketing campaigns, nondiscrimination policies and moretactile investments, such as wheelchairfriendly equipment. But these sprawling, franchised communities don't always instill that inclusive attitude in their clientele and staff the way a local gym, like Liberation or Seattle's Rain City Fit, strives to do. In 2015, a Michigan pest sued Planet Fitness for revoking her membership after she complained about sharing a locker room with a trans woman, and in 2018, a trans woman in California sued a Crunch Fitness after she was denied the use of the women's locker room. The gravity of the “fitness for everyone” movement is most potently felt in Liberation-sized gyms.
Just look to the flags. The north wall of Liberation looks like the pride United Nations: a genderqueer pride flag is flanked by
