Marginalized Gym Times at Devries
Emily Cobb | March 16, 2023
Warren Wilson College (WWC) has two gyms on campus — Devries and Bryson. Devries has a weight room, a cardio room, an intramural closet and an indoor basketball court, while the gym at Bryson mainly provides aerial silks and a climbing wall.
Devries’ hours are Monday 7 a.m.-9 p.m., Tuesday 12 p.m.-10 p.m., Wednesday 7 a.m.-9 p.m., Thursday 12 p.m.-10 p.m., Friday 7a.m.-9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and are closed Sunday.
Sports teams and athletes are often working out in the facilities — which is intimidating and overwhelming to some students — and many students find it male-dominated.
Something the climbing gym in Bryson does to combat these feelings is hosting a marginalized gender night every Monday. It provides a time for people of marginalized genders, including but not limited to transgender women, cisgender women, transgender men and non-binary people to climb the wall without the presence of non-marginalized genders.
Liza Thomas is a junior and is the student crew leader for the Adventure Programs Crew. They have been attending these nights since they were a freshman, and often work them.
“I do go [to Devries] from time to time, but honestly, it is a very intimidating space,” Thomas said. “Most of the time I'm the only AFAB person, and it makes you feel out of place.”
Thomas is a former powerlifter but stopped once they came to WWC.
“I mean, climbing and the weight room are incredibly male-dominated places,” Thomas said. “And for me, who is marginalized on the basis of their gender, having a space where not feeling like your experience is wrong because it's not the male experience is really big for me.”
Some propose that the same system used by Bryson be implemented at Devries.
Robin Martin-Davis has worked at WWC since 2014 and is the athletic director, head women’s basketball coach and interim head men’s basketball coach. Martin-Davis said that she would be happy to coordinate a marginalized gender time like this.
“We always hope that [Devries is] welcoming for everybody,” Martin-Davis said. “That looks different for everybody. So it's important to make sure that we're checking in on things like this.”
Some proposed times that Martin-Davis offered were Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-10 pm, and possibly even opening up the gym on Sundays for this event. The most important things moving forward according to Martin-Davis are deciding on a time that ensures that there will be enough crew coverage, how and where to advertise it and deciding a time that will work with most people’s schedules.
When it comes to the Athletics Crew, and their influence on the gym rooms, they typically monitor each space and are at the front desk. When it comes to monitoring these nights, Martin-Davis stressed how the crew would take an active role in checking people in at the door.
“I want to make sure we're doing this correctly, like, what's the correct terminology we should be using?” Martin-Davis asked. “What's the correct approach for that? Because I want to train them [the crew] so that everybody feels comfortable.”
During the marginalized gender times, the weight room, cardio room, gym and intramural closet would be open.
Some other options Thomas mentioned when it comes to making Devries more welcoming is offering affinity classes or programs for marginalized genders in skills like weightlifting.
“[It can be] really intimidating and a lot of people don't know the form and everything and don't have time in their schedule to take the weightlifting class,” Thomas said. “So I think maybe hosting some sort of programming specifically for that community can be really helpful to kind of get it kick-started.”
If one is interested in making a marginalized gender time at Devries, fill this form out.