How a transgender-friendly gym in Waldo came to be featured in a national ad campaign for Google

You may have heard about Caitlyn Jenner’s speech at the ESPYs — the Oscars-like awards show for sports, put on by ESPN — last Wednesday. Before Jenner accepted her award, ESPN aired a two-and-a-half-minute documentary-slash-advertisement for Google My Business that told the story of transgender athlete Jake Nothnagel and the gym where he works out: City Gym, at 7416 Wornall. 

In addition to being aired on national TV, the spot has been seen by about a million and a half online viewers (as of today). You can watch it after the jump.  

We called Hailee Bland-Walsh, the owner of the City Gym, to discuss how it all came about. 

The Pitch: So, how did City Gym end up on Google’s radar?

Bland-Walsh: Google was doing a nationwide search for a small business to promote that would coincide with Pride Month — they wanted a company that served the LGBT community. A friend of mine knew the casting director and told me to apply for it. At first I thought it was a reality TV show, and I wasn’t very interested. But she encouraged me to apply, then there was a Skype interview, then they whittled it down to 10 businesses, then three, then we won it. 

We shot the footage for the commercial last fall, then Google rolled it out via their blog in June, which is Pride Month. And based on the attention it received online, and all the hits it was getting on YouTube, they decided to run it on TV to further share the message. So they worked with ABC, who was airing the ESPYS, and decided to run it in its entirety. That was kind of the biggest deal to me — that they ran a two-minute-and-30-second video, and right before Caitlyn received the award. 

Taking a step back — you opened City Gym about four years ago. Did you intentionally market it as a trans-friendly place? How did that come about? 

We’re not a gay or trans gym. We do programming based off a need from our community and the expertise we can bring to the table. A friend of mine named Drew had started a support group called the Union, which was a thing he did in his living room where Kansas City trans men and their significant others would meet up and talk about their experiences. Drew and I were having conversations about his personal experience preparing for top surgery — which is where you have your breast tissue removed — and I started looking online for fitness expert sources on that topic. And I was disappointed. There was no professional information available, really, just a few YouTube videos. 

I asked Drew if he thought there was a need in the community for a place where trans men could come and work out together in small groups. And that’s how it started. 

What’s the program like? 

It’s a 90-day program, closed group, usually eight to 10 guys per cycle. We’ve done four cycles so far. It’s personal training with the usual stuff — orientation, workouts, nutrition. The nuance in the group is that trans men aren’t all in exact same place. Some are presenting as men but haven’t started taking testosterone or had top surgery. So their development from exercise is different than a man who’s been taking testosterone five years. And we have both types come through. What we’re offering is you can have specific and sensitive conversations you wouldn’t be able to have with the average personal trainer who tells you to take your shirt off the first day and doesn’t really understand why you’re wearing a chest binder. 

Did you have to study up on the science of the transgender process?

It’s really not that much of a stretch [from ordinary personal training] once you understand where the client is physiologically and where he is in transition. Some of it is talking about endocrinology, and how body hormones are reacting, and hormone half-lives. But probably 75 percent is just understanding fully the language and sensitivities of where that person is and what he’s going through. 

Do you think Jake was eager to be involved in the ad or was it a scary thing for him to tell his story in such a public way?

I think it was scary. Jake — and all the guys in this group — live as men in their everyday lives. Some people who know them know that they’re transgender men, but the majority of their neighbors and co-workers do not. And in Kansas and Missouri you can still be fired from your job or denied an apartment if you identify as transgender. Some of these guys work in IT, political campaigns, as flight attendants, whatever. So I think it was a huge deal and a huge risk for them to be involved in this commercial. 

Big uptick in business since the ESPYs? 

Well, lots of visibility and attention. We’ve had hundreds of messages on our social-media channels. There were stories on Huffington Post and ESPN about it. And Jake and I got to go to the ESPYs, which was cool. 

Any other takeaways from this experience?

I guess I’d want people to know that this wasn’t some marketing goal we had. We’ve been toiling in the trenches before Caitlyn Jenner and everything that’s happened recently. With the gym, I always wanted to create a place where people feel comfortable. I think small-business owners sometimes don’t act on their values because they’re afraid they’ll lose business. They think if you align yourself with a certain group, then you’re turning away anybody in a group that’s opposite that group. But I actually think that’s the luxury of being a small business owner — that you can present your intentions and bring people in. It doesn’t have to be political. 

With the transgender community, it’s a thing where unfortunately a lot of people don’t understand the nuances of it and they end up saying hateful and hurtful things. We just wanted to create a place where that wouldn’t be a concern. The decision to develop programs for that community was not about trying to drive membership or anything like that. It was just an easy decision based on the culture we’ve been creating here the last four years.