Design strategy for gender-inclusive gyms
A local YMCA adopted a new policy allowing members to use the gendered locker room they identify with. With the new policy came a backlash from some members related to the presence of trans and non-binary people in the women’s locker room. The Y wanted to create an environment that serves all its members.
I led a 7-person team through primary research, competitive case studies, strategic foresight, workshopping and concepting. Our goal was to create solutions that met the Y’s overarching mission, while balancing budget limitations.
Research planning + scoping
The team had a month to deliver strategy recommendations in the midst of the mounting coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. To maximize our impact and balance workloads, I had the local group conduct interviews and a remote group leading secondary research. We covered an incredible amount of ground including:
Historical analysis of trans / non-binary issues
Competitive case studies of similar organization
Foresight analysis into member comment cards
Interviews with staff and members
Strategic foresight
An analysis of 80-some member comment cards revealed some painful attitudes towards trans and non-binary people. A casual layered analysis (CLA) helped the team look deeper at why some members felt this way, peeling away the surface comments to understand underlying beliefs, which centered on perceived lack of safety. This view helped us empathize, even if we didn’t agree with these views, and also orient safety as a mutually beneficial design principle.
Example:
Worldview: “Women need safe spaces that exclude transgendered bodies.” (produces the myth below)
Myth: “Transgender people are dangerous and so is letting them use the locker room.”
Case studies
Looking at how other organizations solved similar problems offered a useful lens, our team examined examples like UC Berkeley’s universal locker room, the Trans Boxing Collective and Speaking Transgender (a national training firm).
Primary research
Our process included:
10x interviews with YMCA members and staff
Transcribing and synthesizing interviews
Affinity mapping in Miro
Common findings that emerged:
Y benefits from a very strong sense of community
Some members desired more privacy
Some felt unsafe, due to functional aspects or fear of harassment
Desire for a cleaner, more relaxing environment
Staff feels unprepared to moderate gender identity conflicts
Synthesis, Design Principles + Interventions
After mapping our insights in Miro, our team came away with core design principles. We then ideated individually and returned for a group brainstorming and refined the most impactful solutions, which focused on staff training and a member education campaign.
We then solicited stakeholder feedback and moderated a small-group workshop with queer and non-binary Y members. Their feedback reinforced our initial inclinations around staff training and member education, but also revealed the need for a universal locker room in the long-term for members to feel safest.
Results
Since this project was shared with the YMCA leadership, they have taken action on many of our recommendations. In Fall 2020, they redesigned the lobby to include gender neutral bathrooms. In 2020, the locker rooms were renovated to include permanent privacy stalls in the shower and changing areas. In the long-term, leadership is pursuing the construction of a universal locker room, which our workshop showed was the ideal solution.
This project included MC Abbott, Marcie Chin, Mark Tolentino, Mary Wilder, Francis Gonzalez, Urvashi Ahuja and Charlotte Grigsby.